Last year we deployed quite a few PMP450 3.65 radios. In that time we've had a hand full of no pay accounts, moves, etc and some of these radios are starting to come back to inventory before being installed again.
However, we noticed that many of these (I've attached pictures of four, but there are more) have cracks in the housings? More commonly on the right side if looking at the front, but some are cracked on both sides. I suspect it may be specific to the 3.65 line because of the metal backing of the radio.
What kind of environment are you installing these in? We primarily use PMP450 3.65 on our network and have not seen these kinds of cracks. We're in a dry, high-desert type environment in Central Oregon.
We're located in Northern Indiana. So these have seen the hot and humid heat of a summer and the cold of a winter. We have summer days in the 90's, and occasionally winter nights in the negatives.
I had originally speculated that it could have been overtorquing on those bottom screws, now I wonder if it may have something to do with the heat of the chipset in the winter when the case is very cold?
These were all typical SM installs on homes. Whether they crack doesn't seem to matter whether it was installed with or without a reflector either.
Zack - We did have an issue with a limited number of units that exhibited these symptoms. It's a material issue (not your fault). We will be happy to replace the units via the RMA process. Please open a ticket with support.
Is there a MAC range of these that are effected? We're concerned about how many of these are deployed with the issue that we're unaware of. Probably have 60 or so in service and we'd rather not have to visit every one of the customer/tower locations.
Should I wait to open a ticket with support until we know exactly how many we need to send back
It was a very small number of total units affected, and not limited to a specific MAC range. The best thing to do is to initiate the support ticket to resolve the issue as it arises.
Mine has not been smooth either, cambium originally approved this RMA after initially haggeling me on the unit being "out of warranrty" and then i got a response of this just yesterday on this unit:
We have investigated your unit and unfortunately the fault is beyond economic repair.
We can arrange for the unit to be disposed of at our repair facility at no cost to you, or if you would like us to return your unit free of charge.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed, we are looking forward to hear from you.
Regards, Upendra Mallya
I just send them a response we will see what the reply will be... Starting to become frustrated with Cambium Warrantys...
I'm sorry about any confusion or experience with our support teams which was not positive. Sometimes, we need some additional information, etc to understand our customer issue. It is standard process to review a customer entitlement and we are constantly making exceptions once we discern a little more understanding of the problem. I've asked our Customer Care team to address the cracked housing situation under warranty for this RMA.
I still have a handful of these on the bench that I haven't bothered with yet. And who knows how many were deployed and not noticed.
What would be most convenient is allowing us to buy some spare front covers and we can fix them ourselves. It's four torx screws and not very difficult. I've done several when we had donor cases from dead boards.
I certainly wouldn't mind fixing them myself as opposed to waiting for the three week turn around on every radio we send in.
The first five we sent got a response of "No fault found". I was rather shocked, but then we got four of the five radios back and they were fixed? The fifth didn't find its way back for a few more weeks.
I found several more radios on the network that have the same issue with the housing (we unfortunately apperently ordered in bulk when this manufacturing defect took place). I sent one in and again was informed that this wouldn't be fixed. After questioning that, it was updated to be covered. I sent it in and it arrived at Cambium four days ago and is still "under investigation".
I'm glad Cambium is fixing these radios even though they're out of their warranty. It seems like there has to be a more efficient proccess for this though. The cost of shipping these radios in alone for instance seems like it would be comparable to buying and shipping just the front covers and letting us replace them ourselves.
