Board is dead, what next?

[MobileMe]

About three days ago I noticed that the board would not respond to anything. I use openremote with it so I don't log into the board very often. The board will not respond to pings and I can't get the web page to load. It is very strange, I couldn't get any readings from it but I could post to use the outputs. I have one output for my garage door and it would randomly open and close for about a 12 hour period until I unpluged the board.

I tried to factory reset the board and I still can't get the board to boot up. Any ideas what I can do next?

Thanks

 

[salesguy]

That is funny because I had the same thing happen to one of my boards. I don't know what happened, but we left for a trip and my board went crazy, causing my garage door to open and close a few times, leaving it open. My neighbor had to close it, and from now on my wife things HAI stuff is buggy and unreliable.

I ended up sending back my board and having it reprogrammed, and since then I haven't had problems.

I did do two things, I started using one of those isobar power strips that isolate the power signal very well, and and I powered all my relays from separate power supplies from my CAI boards, at the recommendation of the very responsive support guys at CAI. Since then everything has been fine.

 

[CAI_Support]

Hi MobileMe,
If you could please send the board back to us, we will check it for you for free. If anything going wrong with WebControl board, please email us at [email protected] ASAP, so that we can arrange to have board repaired or replaced for you.

When sending board to us for repairing or service, please do include detailed description for us to deplicate the problem. We want to analyze any reported problem, so that we can make improvement for all future development and firmware releases. Please make sure include return shipping address and email or phone number, so that we will be able to ship back the board to you, and contact you in case of any question or concern.

Thanks for letting us know the problem.

CAI Support

 

[MobileMe]

I was able to resurrect the board after about five resets. I don't know what happened but it is working fine now. On a separete note, what would cause a board to just reset itself back to factory settings? I have another board that runs another part of my house. I woke up the other day and the board had just factory reset itself. What could have caused this? I was able to reprogram it and I have power cycled it several times since and everything is fine now. It is just the strangest thing.

 

[salesguy]

That is a good question, I had the same thing happen, weird resets, PLC code gone missing, etc.

I attributed it to power supply issues, since moving to the ISOBAR power strip and more importantly (per CAI) taking all relays off the same power supply as the board, I have not had that issue.

So i'm guessing maybe you have a relay board, and it's using the same power supply, or you are trying to power it directly from the board. That could be the issue

 

[MobileMe]

I don't have a relay board or anything else plugged into the same power supply. I did however put the board on a small UPS to keep the power steady and constant. The board just has two sensors that need 5 volts from the board and two temp sensors. The rest of my sensors have there own power. I'm not sure what happened to make the board just reset like that. So far it seems ok but time will tell.

 

[CAI_Support]

Hi MobileMe,

Most the problem people expeiencing was power has noise that entered its power lines. What kind of power supply do you have that plugged into UPS and what kind of UPS could make difference. Since most UPS does not produce pure sine wave, if power supply does not have big filter, it might produce noise power. Don't know what other two 5V sensors are. If they could cause voltage flucturation or generate noise, please make sure filter them with large capacitors on both high frequency and low frequency. The CPU has a brown out check and instruction execution watchdog. If any noise caused any of those logic felt something, they will reset the circuit. Since our engineers using 12V30A high quality lab power supply, a lot of problems are not showing on our bench. If you have problem with board, please send it to us for repair or replacement. We want to take care our customers.

Thanks!
CAI Support

 

[MobileMe]

That is good to know. Thanks. The power supply I'm using is just a cheapy I bought off of amazon. What power supply do you recommend? I'm using an APC UPS from staples. So far I have not had any problems with it.

 

[CAI_Support]

Most APC UPS produces simulated sine wave, not a real sine wave. If the power supply is a low quality one, it probably does not have big capacitor to help filtering out all the noises. Most notebook power adapter are much better quality power supply. However, they are mostly 16V or higher. Some of them are 12V. You will then use LM7809 to regulate that to 9V. Or, if you have a door bell transformer at home, you can add bridge rectifier to make that DC, then add larger filter capacitor and LM7809 to regulate that for your board to use. There are also people on this forum using modified computer power supply for their controller boards to use.

APC also makes sine wave UPS for A/V needs. But those are a lot more expensive.