DWL-900AP+ External Mounting Environmentals ;-((

[Lyle Williams]

Grahame,

Thanks for feedback on your experiences. (Un)fortunately it's raining here
right now, so everything is working perfectly.  I'll jamb a thermocouple
into the box when we get a sunny day - that should give me an idea of in-box
temps.  The original 900AP+ box is gone, I am just using the internal board
in a commercial electrical enclosure.  Hopefully I won't have to fit
airconditioning!   :^)

I'll send my experiences to the list.

On the subject of laser cutting, I don't think that level of precision is
needed, especially if you don't care where your secondary lobes are in the
vertical plane.  I'm just using a router to cut slots.  Things seem to work
(so far...)


Lyle Williams
VK1XLW
27DEC02




----- Original Message -----
From: "Grahame Kelly" <grahame at wildpossum.com>
To: "Wireless List" <wireless at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2002 1:30 PM
Subject: DWL-900AP+ External Mounting Environmentals ;-((


Hi everyone.

I am new to the list but have been lurking for sometime.

Last week I mounted my DWL-900AP+ systems in vented containers with an
additional metal skin to deflect as much heat away as possible. I had some
experience in going the same environmental casing for a 24/7 operating IR
Camera / Controller system for my wildpossumCAM (Linux of course).

Initial tests worked well - until the sun came over the house(s) and while
not
directly in sunlight, the tempature raised to 32C internally caused the
units
to both fail within 2 mins. According the DLINK spec they are suppose to
tolerate operations -10C to +55C: Well this is totally untrue according to
my
experience - I hope your more successfull. My measurements show the units go
off or intermittent at +30C external - allowing for a 5C to 10C internal
onboard difference its operating temp is only 35C to 40C MAX. This was
tested
on four units. All showed the same effect.

Interestingly usually the AP's lose ethernet connectivity first, then
sometime
later RF conectivity. Bummer! Bummer!

So, now I am building a "Peiter Unit with integrated AVR uP + tempature
sensing" for the beasts; hopefully this will give total year long
operations.

Love the slotted antenna buy the way Lyne. May build a couple myself but I
don't have access to laser cutting company, pity they couldn't do a couple
of
runs for others too.

Cheers.
Grahame
ex. VK2ZGK  Glenhaven; Sydney.
grahame (at) wildpossum (dot) com