The bucket of internet tanks again (update: and again)
I mentioned that last week mice had chewed through the fiber optic cable. The ISP came out and replaced that last week with a much thicket and less tasty looking fiber optic cable.
When the cable was replaced, the internet suffered. My guess was the Wi-Fi router’s antennas got borked when moved to replace the fiber cable to the Adtran, I don’t know. The owner of the land was out there and I talked him through what the antennas were supposed to look like.
This had survived below freezing temperatures, several monsoon events, power fails, 104 degree temps. It had been a champ until those mice.
Yesterday it sprinkled. Very light rain. Internet went down. Contacted the ISP and asked if they saw what was up and they showed their equipment offline. We suspected rodent again, but this morning was the first time I was able to get there.
Now, when I built the bucket of internet I decided to tape the thing shut. A cooler is pretty much water tight, but a cooler with tape along the seals and any entrances I figured was doubly secure.
I was right.
Until they took the tape half off to get into the unit. If they’d taken it completely off, the unit would have sealed. But the last person to close that bucket closed it on a wad of tape that turned into a funnel for the slight rain that came yesterday.
I suspect there had been an inch of water in the bucket. I had the Wi-Fi on 3 sponges in plastic so it was 5 inches up. The adtran fiber modem was sitting in a plastic baggie that was taped and about 3 inches off of the ground. The 6-plug power strip was I’m guessing 5 inches off the ground. Unfortunately the UPS I had to add to the equation was barely 1/4th of an inch off the ground.
I’d been forced to add a UPS as construction crew kept coming and unplugging it due to the other plug having a ground pin stuck in it.
This is not an ideal situation.
I mopped out the water, removed the UPS. Everything came back up. Repositioned the antennas correctly as they were not. And things moved on.
Had the tape been removed, the seal would have been good. Had the tape been put on, the seal would have survived. But the tape was wadded up and yeah…
This only has to last a little longer. They’re going to throw a tarp over it and use high tech heavy rock technology to secure it. Should fix the water intrusion issue. I suspect the heat will become an issue as that cooler has not gotten above reasonable operating temps even in 104 degree weather.
The UPS claims a short, I’m letting it dry out and we’ll see if it ever plays the piano again. Real time security cameras on a hill are once again real time and working.
Update – and again
So, not sure if it was a deer, or more likely the guy who spun by to put a tarp over the unit, but the fiber optic cable pulled out of the box, and once again nobody travels with a ratchet set to get into the unit.
So now someone has to drive 40 minutes to this location with a ratchet set to plug in a fiber optic cable.
The UPS that soaked claims it is good but the battery is not. I’ll be attempting a battery replacement next week most likely.
