[App_rpt-users] Frozen repeater

[David McGough]

Hi Mike,

Was the URI green LED flashing (I guess not...)??

I'm rather amazed that the BBB or URI was directly the cause of the 
lock-up, even with really cold conditions. The simplest low-power-budget 
solution to keep this hardware warm is a simple Styrofoam container. 
Even with the minuscule BBB power consumption, Styrofoam should do the 
job fine.

I'll mention here, again, that the ONLY scenarios I've seen where BBB's 
have locked-up were due to 5VDC power woes. I completely stable 5V power 
source is critical. And, the 5VDC regulator might be a source of problems 
in extreme cold, too.

If you don't already have it, I recommend adding a cheap digital 
thermometer to your cabinet that records all-time temperature extremes, 
including time/date. Or, if you want to get fancier, the BBB AllStar 
release already includes support for a USB attached thermometer (see the 
"pcsensor" command) which will log temperature to a file, etc. Note that 
if you decide to go the USB thermometer route, a bug was found in the code 
in the 1.2.1 release. This has already been patched, but, you'll need the 
patch (contact me off list or search the arm-allstar list for more 
details).

Any idea how cold it got and for how long??? And, what is your power 
source??

I'm preparing to put a "test" BBB and URI in my deep-freezer (about -15
degrees Fahrenheit) for this weekend. I'll put it in there completely
unprotected.

My problems in the past with such extreme cold have been issues directly
with the radio hardware (like VCO's that unlock, etc.).  This type of
extreme thermal shock can also destroy transmitter PA's, in short order by
cracking ceramic substrates in power modules, etc. (I've got a few of 
those Tee-shirts, too!).

73, David KB4FXC




On Thu, 20 Nov 2014, Michael Lussier wrote:

> 
> I went up on the mountain Wednesday morning. The repeater was powered up as well as the BBB. No action from the repeater. 
> Any thoughts on low power way to keep the BBB and the URI warm ? I can use 12vdc 
> 
> Sent from an iPhone 5 iOS 8
> 
> Mike.Lussier at gmail.com
> AE4ML at arrl.net
> AE4ML at amsat.org
> 
> 
> 
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