WS-6-MINI - GUI Issue?

[eomedia]

I have a long cable run to a WS-6-MINI powered via a Tycon TP-DCDC-2456G-VHP that is currently powering two devices, a Rocket M9 and a Rocket5AC-Lite. It appears to be working just fine, however, when I turn on the POE on a third port to power a Powerbeam 5AC the Netonix GUI is no longer accessible and while all the radios stay powered on nothing works.

Any ideas?

[sirhc]

I do not think that POE injector has access to Earth Ground so it can not provide Earth Ground even if you are using Shielded Cable with Drain wire such as ToughCABLE with ESD ends.

Do you have a dedicated ground wire from your box to the tower and each device?

You may have a grounding issue?

You may have a bad Powerbeam 5AC ?

Please provide more detail on your setup.

Do you have a device plugged into the injector and does it get a 1G link to switch?
Is this site on grid or off grid?
If you have AC power where does it come from?
Detail out what you have for grounding.
Maybe provide some pictures of the tower and box.

OH we can not see your pictures.

[eomedia]

RF site is located at a residential property - standard outlet.

House 120VAC power <--> Tycon TP_BC24-300 <--> Edgerouter ERX <--> Tycon TP-DCDC-2456G-VHP <--> WS-6-Mini

I've tested that the issue appears to be when I have a total of 3 devices powered on, any two of the devices will work fine. We are not doing anything special for grounding in this case, although we can certainly add some additional grounding where the WS-6-Mini is located but nothing yet.

[sirhc]

RF site is located at a residential property - standard outlet.

House 120VAC power Tycon TP_BC24-300 Edgerouter ERX Tycon TP-DCDC-2456G-VHP WS-6-Mini

I've tested that the issue appears to be when I have a total of 3 devices powered on, any two of the devices will work fine. We are not doing anything special for grounding in this case, although we can certainly add some additional grounding where the WS-6-Mini is located but nothing yet.

The only thing I can think is there is insufficient power but I read the specs on the TP-DCDC-2456G-VHP and it should have sufficient power?

The DCDC converter supplies 35W per POE channel. One POE channel is using pins 4,5,7,8 and the other POE channel utilizes pins 1,2,3,6. By splitting the power onto separate POE channels, the device can achieve 70W total supplied power to the end device. The TP-DCDC-2456GD-VHP has separate LED indicators for indicating which 802.3at channel is being used by the client. The RIGHT LED indicates POE Channel 1 and the LEFT LED indicates POE Channel 2.

Are both LEDs lit?

The Tycon TP-DCDC-2456G-VHP is a DC to DC power injector so why are you using a DC powered injector if you have access to AC power?

What is powering the DC injector?

Maybe the DC power source is too small?

Why not use an AF24 POE injector which is AC powered and would provide the WS-6-MINI access to Earth Ground is your using cable with an ESD drain wire such as ToughCABLE with ESD shielded ends to connect to the drain wire which is important.


Here are some good posts on grounding and what to watch out for:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1816
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=188
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1429

[eomedia]

I don't know why the pictures constantly don't show up - they do when I post originally and then seem to vanish so no idea on that. As for the other questions.

We use a 24V port from a ERX-SFP router to the Tycon DC/DC and then to the WS-6 because we run everything off of DC power with 75aH 24v battery backup - the Tycon TP-BC24-300 battery controller powers everything. We can power cycle using the router remotely and in general it works pretty well.

I haven't had a change to test this yet, however, I "think" part of the issue may have been related to the TC-Carrier cable itself. The cable had been in place for around a year with no issue, a few weeks back we added the 56V tycon and Netonix switch and as mentioned previously could not power on more than two of the devices. The other day we lost access to the WS-Mini entirely and after coming on site determined that there was an issue with the cable itself - so we ran a brand new cable around the property.

The cable tester showed everything was good on the cable with no load on it, however, when power was run we could not access the Netonix GUI at all (24v or 56v). The new cable ran on the ground the same length worked fine. The only reason for the cable failure we can think of is that perhaps we had a staple through the cable and the 24v we've been running for the past year wasn't an issue, but when we started running 56v through it it may have arced or created more heat that eventually damaged the cable and/or been the reason we lost the GUI when trying to power three devices instead of two.

The site had been offline for about 10 hours by the time we got the new cable run and we had no appetite or time to test the third device issue at that time so we'll test again in the near future and see if that was an issue.

[sirhc]

We use a 24V port from a ERX-SFP router to the Tycon DC/DC and then to the WS-6 because we run everything off of DC power with 75aH 24v battery backup - the Tycon TP-BC24-300 battery controller powers everything. We can power cycle using the router remotely and in general it works pretty well.

The 24V port on the of an ERX-SFP is NOT enough power to power a WS-6-MINI.

For 1 the 24V port on the ERX-SFP only uses 2 pair and is only rated for a MAX of .75A

So you are going from 24V 2 pair into the Tycon converting to 48V on 4 pair into a WS-6-MINI and then having it convert back to 24V to power (3) airMAX devices.

You do not see a problem here?

Not only that but the ERX-SFP does not have access to Earth Ground as it gets powered from a barrel adapter.

Show me a picture of the inside of the box and all the wiring.

I do not mean to be rude but you need to redesign your box.

[eomedia]

Look, the setup was using the ERX to a Mikrotik switch powering (2) 24v radios and things worked fine with a simple POE-IN - but I needed to add a third device and that's when I decided to go with a Netonix switch and the WS-6 seemed like the right device. As I didn't have a way to power that switch from another Netonix switch I asked on the forum about powering it and the advice I got was that running the Tycon 2456 DCDC would work as intended - but obviously you see that as a problem so it's something we can definitely address moving forward.

I was thinking the switch operated in a manner similar to the WS-12-250-DC switch in regards to it's power supply - in reading through things again I see that it handles up to 48-53V DC up to 2A (~ 100 watts). Therefore if we're not providing enough power at the source then there is not going to be enough power at the switch.

There is really no value in showing you the box or the wiring - the simple answer at this stage is that we need to figure out how to provide the right amount of power while providing remote reset capabilities and that's something we'll have to think about.

Thank you for the clarifications/explanations- it provides me with a direction to solve the issue.

[sirhc]

Look, the setup was using the ERX to a Mikrotik switch powering (2) 24v radios and things worked fine with a simple POE-IN - but I needed to add a third device and that's when I decided to go with a Netonix switch and the WS-6 seemed like the right device. As I didn't have a way to power that switch from another Netonix switch I asked on the forum about powering it and the advice I got was that running the Tycon 2456 DCDC would work as intended - but obviously you see that as a problem so it's something we can definitely address moving forward.

I was thinking the switch operated in a manner similar to the WS-12-250-DC switch in regards to it's power supply - in reading through things again I see that it handles up to 48-53V DC up to 2A (~ 100 watts). Therefore if we're not providing enough power at the source then there is not going to be enough power at the switch.

There is really no value in showing you the box or the wiring - the simple answer at this stage is that we need to figure out how to provide the right amount of power while providing remote reset capabilities and that's something we'll have to think about.

Thank you for the clarifications/explanations- it provides me with a direction to solve the issue.

The problem is you are powering the Tycon 2456 from the ERX which does not supply enough power/current.

If you power the Tycon 2456 with sufficient amperage it would be fine.

[eomedia]

Yes, my understanding is that even though the ERX supplies 24v via PoE to the Tycon 2456 which in turn is wired into DC power the source power from the ERX is not enough and I need to resolve how I am going to provide that power.


As a test I'm going to try another photo hosting service to see if I can include a photo in my posting.

[sirhc]

Well first off please upgrade to v1.4.2 as that will get rid of that voltage error/notice for acceptable range as v1.4.2 allows up to 56V I think as acceptable. BUT THIS IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM BUT SHOULD BE DONE!!!

There was a piece of paper that was laying on top of the WS-6-MINI when you recently un-boxed it that told you to upgrade the firmware before you installed it or did anything with it.

2nd understand that if you are feeding a 4" diameter pipe with a 2" diameter pipe the 4" diameter pipe will not flow full.

Maybe a better analogy for you would be that your trying to use a 30A breaker in your service panel meant to power your water heater to feed a 100A service panel in your neighbors house. Will it work if your neighbor only turns on a couple lights and turns off all the heavy equipment such as his water heater and does not run the stove, sure. Is it safe, NO!

The Tycon 2456 does have sufficient amperage to power the WS-6-MINI and 3 airMAX radios "provided" it is being feed sufficient amperage to do so.

You want to suppl;y (3) airMAX radios that can each surge to 12+ watts each which is 36 watts max peak and the WS-6-MINI needs 4 to 6 watts so lets say 42 watts MAX.

42 watts of 24V is 1.75A MAX but your expecting the ERX to supply that amperage which it can not and to make things worse the ERX can only supply this amperage on (2) pair not (4) pair which means less copper to push that amperage and is over most Ethernet transformers spec limit per pair. Since you only are using (2) pair which means 1 pair for negative and 1 pair for positive and most Ethernet transformers are rated to 1A per pair. Will it work above that, sure, for awhile but it will damage it over time.

And we have not even talked about efficiency loss from converting 24V to 48V to 24V.

And lets not lose sight of grounding and making sure your not moving excessive Ground current through the WS-6 and the ERX so we need to know how your grounding system is setup and where your getting AC power to drive the ERX because ground current can damage equipment.