Just a heads-up and request for other views on the matter.
In the past few weeks we've lost at least 12 ePMP APs. (We've also had dozens of SMs toasted, only 1 case involved an actual lightning strike, the rest seem to be static discharge or POE surges - but this post is about APs)
Granted we're in one of the worst areas of the US for lightning. (NC/SC Piedmont to Sandhills) Everything heavily over-grounded, ionization balls atop towers, lightning/surge arrestors in-line, etc. We've been doing tower work for decades, don't think we've ever seen a season with near this much damage.
We've had four/five towers take damage lately, in every case it seems the ePMP gear is smoking, and we lose ports on routers/CMMs connected. PMP320, PMP100, PMP450, PTP600, etc gear largely (though not entirely) unscathed. Boss is convinced it's the ePMP external GPS antennas, but on the units we examined it's largely the POE chips taking the hit, not the GPS component. (based upon visible damage at least - however they are adjacent areas on the board)
Anybody have any magical fix? It might be particularly helpful if someone with similar lightning risks is managing to completely avoid damaged APs, and posted how they're achieving that.
Joel, Are you solely using a CMM to power the APs and not an af switch? Could we work with you to do a RMA and replace/rework these units for you? We will get you some advanced units if needed and provide a recommendation as well.
In one instance we've lost communication with the CMM4 and its hardened switch, EVEN THOUGH the four PMP320 APs connected to that CMM4 are reachable, receiving sync, running as expected. Lost all four 5.8 ePMP1000 APs powered by that CMM and a 2.4 ePMP1000 AP on the same tower that was using a POE cord and connected to the hardened switch. Bizarre, really. And 10 minutes ago we replaced two of the 5.8s on that tower, successfully receiving sync and POE from the CMM4. (No, we've NOT replaced the unreachable CMM4 yet)
I would like to add that I had a simlar experience last summer. On a tower with 4 EPMP 1000s with the external GPS antennas attached to the mounting hardware or tower we lost all 4 EPMPs at the same time. The radios were on different sectors/mounts on a mono pole. Other radios on the tower Mikrotik, SAF, Canopy FSK 100 did not fail. The radios would not power up at all when we brought them down. I replaced them with non-sync radios and now use CMM if I have a tower that needs sync. Cambium did replace the Sync radios and I was told with radios that had some hardening against lighting. I asked if the new radios were a different hardware revision and did not get an answer.
we haven't lost any synced radios in the storms here in Missouri. as far as bad storms go, this year has been rough. we've had wind damage from flying debris twice this year and sites without power for days from the power company taking damage.
Besides the obvious performance and interference resistance benefits of ePMP vs our other (non-Cambium) gear, the other big reason we're switching is how fragile some models of our other older gear are. After a storm rolls though, we have a dozen dead ethernet's on some models of CPE's on our older gear to run around and replace. I sure hope that the Cambium's aren't as ''fragile'' as what we've been using.
I guess we will have to see after we have more in the field - but I sure hope they are more robust in an electrical storm.
Besides the obvious performance and interference resistance benefits of ePMP vs our other (non-Cambium) gear, the other big reason we're switching is how fragile some models of our other older gear are. After a storm rolls though, we have a dozen dead ethernet's on some models of CPE's on our older gear to run around and replace. I sure hope that the Cambium's aren't as ''fragile'' as what we've been using.
I guess we will have to see after we have more in the field - but I sure hope they are more robust in an electrical storm.
the epmp is holding up much better than UBNT for us, no storm damages on towers. appox 200 synced devices out there. we've lost a few CPEs in the field. I'm not sure exactly how many are eletrical related, but few compaired to the M gear we've been replacing.
