Operating temp

[youngdy]

I am looking at getting a set of bullets but I am concerned about the operating temp. They are rated to -20. Has anyone tried them in colder situations? If so how did they preform?

[UBNT-Mike.Ford]

Hello,

I have tried them in a test chamber to -40C. However the performance does get degraded at these temerpatures and we can make no gaurantees that it will be 100% reliable.

Thanks,

Mike

[youngdy]

Thanks for the quick response. Do they completely stop working or will they still pass traffic at -40 and just not run at 100%

[UBNT-Mike.Ford]

Hello,

They will still pass traffic, however if the power is cycled off the will not come back online until it warms up.

Thanks,

Mike

[jp498]

I would encourage Ubiquiti to make things work at low temps.

We have had some -29c (-20f) nights on the coast of Maine, and in the northern part of Maine, temps have dipped to a record tying low of -46c (-50f). When temps are below 0f, we don't like to be outside servicing things. We get about a week or so on average of super low temps like that pretty much every winter from random arctic high pressures.

Our nanos are working fine with brief -20f temps, haven't had a ton of experience with that yet though.

[wispwest]

ya we got -20 Fahrenheit a few weeks ago. Though the bullet is rated to only -20 CELSIUS. Which converts to only -4 degrees FAHRENHEIT. Man, if thats true that totally sucks. Over half of the US probably gets below -4 once a year.

[UBNT-Mike.Ford]

I would encourage Ubiquiti to make things work at low temps.

We have had some -29c (-20f) nights on the coast of Maine, and in the northern part of Maine, temps have dipped to a record tying low of -46c (-50f). When temps are below 0f, we don't like to be outside servicing things. We get about a week or so on average of super low temps like that pretty much every winter from random arctic high pressures.

Our nanos are working fine with brief -20f temps, haven't had a ton of experience with that yet though.

Hello,

You can purchase the PowerStation series witch operate -40C to +85C

Thanks,

Mike

[jp498]

I don't want to sound like an ***, but it would be good if all products were suitable to all temperatures, if nothing else than for marketing reasons. Otherwise, what exactly do you mean by carrier class?

First and foremost, I have NOT had any trouble with ubnt gear at low temps, and that is good.

However, people in northern climates look down with some contempt to radio designers in warmer places (like california, israel, etc..) when it comes to concepts like temperature range, waterproofness, ice, snow, etc...

For example, Trango, another california manufacturer, has adopted Mt. Washington for product testing, which is indeed worthy of our highest respect for winter weather and adds to their cred. Prior to that, trango was known for 5830APs with ethernet chips that didn't working below a certain temp because the heating pad they tacked on to the ethernet chip as an afterthought was set to come on at the wrong temperature by default.

[WHT]

if nothing else than for marketing reasons With the backlog of UBNT products, I don't think will need to rely on marketing hype to sell their products.

[UBNT-Mike.Ford]

I don't want to sound like an ****, but it would be good if all products were suitable to all temperatures, if nothing else than for marketing reasons. Otherwise, what exactly do you mean by carrier class?

First and foremost, I have NOT had any trouble with ubnt gear at low temps, and that is good.

However, people in northern climates look down with some contempt to radio designers in warmer places (like california, israel, etc..) when it comes to concepts like temperature range, waterproofness, ice, snow, etc...

For example, Trango, another california manufacturer, has adopted Mt. Washington for product testing, which is indeed worthy of our highest respect for winter weather and adds to their cred. Prior to that, trango was known for 5830APs with ethernet chips that didn't working below a certain temp because the heating pad they tacked on to the ethernet chip as an afterthought was set to come on at the wrong temperature by default.


Hello,

This is the reason that the PowerStation's are more expensive. They have been designed to operate in extreme temperatures. They will operate in more harsh enviroments then the Bullets or Nano's. To make the Bullet and Nano products operate in the range of extreme temperatures as the PowerStation, the cost of those units would be driven significantly upwards.

UBNT does indeed think about temperature ratings and that is shown in the fact that we have multiple radios that operate in extreme conditions. All of our MiniPCI cards operate at temps of -40C to +85C. Also we have the PS and PS-EXT series for extreme temps.

Unfortunately in this situation we cannot have our pie (low cost) and eat it too (temp range).

Thank you,

Mike

[MaximumISP]

I had many issues with previous 8186 realtek units failing in the cold
requiring me to install heater units in almost all of them what a nightmare that was

So low temp operation was a huge concern for me
but I was prepaired mod a heater in the Nanos if necessary and
know they would be good to at least -45C
but it isnt a concern any more

I have many NS2s & NS5s and a few bullets that have seen -29C and likely lower
considering the wind chill at 100+ feet
I have seen nothing that causes me any concern

I was actually a little disappointed in a weird way because
I thought a maximum cold edition might be a good selling item for me
Damn things are holding up fine lol
at the price point gesh how can you complain

[Headbang]

We have had several days of -40C or lower with no issues on any Ubiquiti equipment. We have seem some cable issues tho, weak points show up in force at those temps.

[wispwest]

For some reason tonight my speeds slowed down to 400-500kbps. Then I looked at the temp -4F. Which is exactly what the bullets are only rated down to (-20C = only -4F). I logged into my bullet and rebooted it. That seems to have fixed it so far, speeds are back to 3000kbps+. Its supposed to drop to -9F tonight. I'll let ya'll know how it does. Being a WISP with over 2100 customers, we were really thinking about buying a few hundred of these to replace some old 2.4ghz Client Bridge's. Good thing I'm testing it out first.

[WHT]

I have many NS2s & NS5s and a few bullets that have seen -29C and likely lower considering the wind chill at 100+ feet I have seen nothing that causes me any concern
That reminds me of a post a few years back in some other forum where a guy wondered if wind chill would affect his radios.

A clueless wonder proceeded to tell him all about wind chill and how it does not affect inorganic material, only living things.

In one convoluted sense, the clueless wonder was correct as wind chill is a measure of how cold you feel when the wind is blowing across your bare skin.

Had the original poster phrased his question to how does moving air cool the radios faster than the internal heat can build up, it would have been a different answer.

Just my two cents of erudite elucidation.

[youngdy]

Just got my bullet up and running and testing. Last night hit minus 36 C and is still -32. The bullet hasn't skipped a beat. I even took and powered it down and left it for 10 minutes and then power back up. Came back online full throughput and signal levels.
Very Impressed

[UBNT-Mike.Ford]

Just got my bullet up and running and testing. Last night hit minus 36 C and is still -32. The bullet hasn't skipped a beat. I even took and powered it down and left it for 10 minutes and then power back up. Came back online full throughput and signal levels.
Very Impressed

Thanks for the info.

Mike

[motofan]

That reminds me of a post a few years back in some other forum where a guy wondered if wind chill would affect his radios.

A clueless wonder proceeded to tell him all about wind chill and how it does not affect inorganic material, only living things.

In one convoluted sense, the clueless wonder was correct as wind chill is a measure of how cold you feel when the wind is blowing across your bare skin.

Had the original poster phrased his question to how does moving air cool the radios faster than the internal heat can build up, it would have been a different answer.

Just my two cents of erudite elucidation.

Just to be clear, no, wind chill does not have the same effect on inanimate objects (your radios) as it does on us animate types.

If the outside temp is -30 and the wind chill is reported to be -40, your radio will cool faster (because of the air movement from the wind), but it will never get below the actual outside temp.

So it doesn't matter how cold it is with the wind chill, it what the outside air temp is that really matters.

Cheers!
:D

[WHT]

So it doesn't matter how cold it is with the wind chill, it what the outside air temp is that really matters. Not necessarily so. Your radio may be generating enough heat to stay operating at a low temperature, but if a strong wind pulls off that internally generated heat faster than the radio can replenish it...the there may be problems as the model more approximates an animate object.

[Geoff Jones]

Hi folks

We have the opposite problem - new out of the box Bullet 5 tested this morning isn't happy at 35 Centigrade or above. The RF stays working OK but the ethernet port stops - and recovers when the unit is allowed to cool.
Datasheet quotes -20 + 70 C.

A failure at 35 C is way out of spec. Have we just got a dodgy one? (It's electronic gear and even with the best QC in the world it can happen sometimes.) Has anyone else tested performance at 35 C or above?

Geoff Jones
MS Distribution UK Ltd

[UBNT-Robert]

Hi Geoff,

That is not good. Please send an email to support@ubnt.com and we will arrange RMA.



Thanks,
Robert

[wispwest]

I've got 12 clients on Multiping and this morning was -16F and NONE were dropping packets! nice :) I was getting worried

[youngdy]

Just an update on my tests. Had a week of -35 C. Bullet put through 12 Gb of data, never deassoicated never dropped once or had any failures. Very happy with the bullet 2HP.

[Geoff Jones]

The Bullet in question has been tested again but the fault hasn't been replicated in the test chamber until +60. Other units are fine well above +70.

We suspect that the issue lies not with the Bullet but with the RJ45 plug. 'Bulk' RJ45 plugs may be fine in the more usual temperature ranges, but manufacturing quality is allegedly better with branded plugs and we'd advise that for working in more extreme temperatures it's a good idea to pay that bit extra for a more precision-built component.

In short, we don't think the problem is with the Bullet, which is excellent news. Thanks for the offer of an RMA Robert, but it wouldn't be fair to take it up, all seems to be well with the Bullet itself.

Geoff Jones
MS Distribution UK

[UBNT-Mike.Ford]

The Bullet in question has been tested again but the fault hasn't been replicated in the test chamber until +60. Other units are fine well above +70.

We suspect that the issue lies not with the Bullet but with the RJ45 plug. 'Bulk' RJ45 plugs may be fine in the more usual temperature ranges, but manufacturing quality is allegedly better with branded plugs and we'd advise that for working in more extreme temperatures it's a good idea to pay that bit extra for a more precision-built component.

In short, we don't think the problem is with the Bullet, which is excellent news. Thanks for the offer of an RMA Robert, but it wouldn't be fair to take it up, all seems to be well with the Bullet itself.

Geoff Jones
MS Distribution UK

Hello Geoff,

Thank you for the update.

Mike