Topic: IP-100 problems

[DaleReid]

I bought an ip-100 to transmit my data to a web page, and set it up according to directions.  Took no more than 5 minutes total and I was on the air.

The next morning, I went to look at the online page, and saw it listed the station as being off line.  Sure enough, there was no red blinking light indicating reception every 2 seconds (I'm using the LR sensors and LR version of the IP-100 with built in receiver. I went through the reconnect and seemed once again to be working OK, until later on in the evening.

Getting a bit tired of  not having access 24/7, after a couple weeks of doing this, moving the station around a bit to see if it really was a reception problem or not, I finally called RainWise tech support and spoke with a technician who seems very informed.  We tried several things, he looked at the web page where more info is available to them, and confirmed I had the latest firmware installed.  He game me hints, which included moving it around (even more), a different CAT5 cable, a CAT6 cable, I moved the ethernet connection as high up on the router ports to be as close to the cable modem as I could, I moved the receiver to within 60' of the LR transmitter and so on.  All to no avail.  For awhile I just said screw it and left it disconnected.  Now I'd like to begin to use what I paid for, and have begun this dance once again. Lately I bought a brand new ethernet cable, tested it with my network cable maker testing set and all was OK.  I placed the IP-100 next to an Oracle for the Mk III,LR, which has been flawless for years.  Still this thing seems to be goofy.

The last conversation I had with the technician was that it was likely a fault in my router (despite being a NetGear and running the latest firmware, too).

I see there is another jack on the power plug end saying external antenna or receiver, and the manual says if there is a question call tech support rather than being even a little bit more informational as to what can be plugged in there and when it might be necessary to do so. To have to call tech support when just a few lines about options and what that does and when it might be useful seems a bit irritating to me, at least as much as I've futzed with this trying to get it to work.

I've never had this much trouble with any Rainwise stuff before and seems like a weak bit of product on their part. 

I'm wondering if anyone else out there has had any issues with their IP-100 failing to connect after running just fine for hours to a couple of days continuously? 

Does anyone know for sure what the little jack on the power plug end does?  Can you plug in a receiver module similar to what feeds an Oracle display?

I'm thinking something on board the inner circuitry is failing, since there is no way from all the positions I've tried this box in that the signal is bad.  I have 5 Oracles receiving this sensor station's signal and none, not one, of them fails to see the signal every 2 seconds. 

I'm thinking it is time for a new one. Under warranty, but that's just me at this point, I guess.
Dale

[WA7FWF]

I'm assuming since consoles always works perfectly we know the outdoor transmitter is fine.

I have gone through some similar problems, the ip-100 and the console and the cc-3000  and the outdoor unit  all use XBEE transceivers. Unfortunately some are programmed by Rainwise so you can't just buy one and plug and play for any unit, if memory serves me correctly you can get away with just buying one for the cc-3000 and the ip-100 but not for the outdoor unit as it has a address offset coded and also not for the console as it has the outbound speed slowed down to mimic the older non-LR units (at least that is my guess why, the speed is reduced compared to the others).

You can code them yourself which I did but not really worth the effort, I did it just to learn about XBEE's.
 
 My final solution was to to remove the 1" whip on the XBEE module and solder a UFL connector on, (these are really tiny and not for the faint of heart to do) you could also buy a XBEE module with the connector already on, I then used a SMA to UFL cable and attached a bigger antenna to the end, I used a 798-U.FL-R-SMT10 connector and a 712-ANT-2.4-LCW-SMA  antenna from mouser, the cable I had laying around, only caution on cables is to make sure your antenna SMA and the cable SMA match male to female etc., this is all probably overkill but since I did that reception has never been an issue.

If it was me to start with I would power off, open up the ip-100 and reseat the XBEE module to see if you have a bad connection, failing that get a replacement module from Rainwise.

What my ip-100 looks like now.
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

[DaleReid]

Never thought of looking around inside the black box, so to speak figuratively and literally.
I've had that happen when an IC would give a little short grating type feeling as it went into a socket about a 1/1000th of an inch, so maybe with temp changes and all it has loosened.

Yeah, I'm not about to get my  20x magnifier out and start to tip solder to help some.

While it works a couple hundred feet from the transmitter, it does the same behavior when it is 30' away.  I'd hate to hope it would pick up the signal reliably a 1/4 mile away!
Thanks for the suggestions. And I'll be calling RainWise for more help on Monday, I hope.
Dale