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CR300-CELL200 daily cellular connection highly unreliable.


TimoRoth Nov 15, 2019 02:55 PM

We have two CR300-CELL200 in the field, one in an area with fairly okay connection, the other with pretty poor but most of the time still workable connection.

The stations are configured to enable their modem for 15 minutes every day, connect to Campbells PakBus Router, and automatically upload their data tables to an FTP server.

Now, in theory, this all works fine, and in practice, it also does, for a while after the station was initially powered up.
After a while of runtime(somtimes things are fine for a couple days only, sometimes for several weeks), the daily uploads stop, and the station fails to come online entirely.
After another while, also sometimes just a few days, but sometimes also over a month, it comes back and resumes connecting daily. Until it stops again. And so on...

Additionally, a lot of the times when it does come online, and successfully uploads data via FTP, it does not come up as online on the PakBus router, so manual connections are impossible.

We did a remote-update to OS Version 9.02, since the Changelog entry sounded like exactly our problem, but unfortunately nothing has changed.

I'm fairly sure this is some kind of software issue, since we had someone visit the stations two times so far, and had them re-plug the logger battery, which made it resume its daily uploads immediately.

Is this a known issue of some kind, or is there something we can do to fix this?
I was thinking that a cell modem update might be required, but since the provider uses PPP credentials, we cannot do one.
The modem firmware version is greater than 1.1.11. I'm not exactly sure about the exact version anymore, but I think it was .12 or .13.


Curt_Ingram Nov 26, 2019 03:57 AM

I would configure the logger to ping something (google.com) during the 15 min online interval and log the success or failurre.  If a failure occurs have the logger try again later.  I'd bet the 15 minutes is just not long enough with poor signal.

Is power a concern?  Do you log the voltage to see if you power budget can affor a longer interval?

Curt


TimoRoth Nov 26, 2019 09:35 AM

Judging from the data that did get submitted, the stations both never dropped below 12.5 Volts on the logger battery, and are usually charged up to full at around the time of the submission window.

How would I try again? The Window it connects in is hard-configured into the logger. Using more than one Window a day would also not be ideal for battery lifetime.

I'm relatively sure that it's not poor reception or anything like that, since it always works reliably for quite a while when the stations are powercycled. Also, at the moment, the station with the poor signal is working more reliably than the one which has good reception.


Larry@UFL Nov 26, 2019 03:35 PM

We are using the CELL210 modems (Verizon) from CSI without any problems. We collect every fifteen minutes so all our data is up-to-date. I would configure the logger to ping something (google.com) during the 15 min online interval and log the success or failurre.


ariklee Nov 26, 2019 06:02 PM

I also have had issues with the same, and with CR6 with external CELL205. When power cycled, they resume communications. In my applications I am not power cycling the modem (on all the time because it's such low power draw for a CELL-2xx). I also suspect a software issue that will be addressed in an OS update.

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