Questions Regarding RB435GUAH - Heat & Lifetime

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hello,

I have been running two 433UAH’s for the past 8 years, however they’ve started giving problems. I want to now move this over to a RB435GUAH - The radios consist of 4x R52Hn’s (both chains are being used on all of them), legal tx power (17dbm), brand new. Along with these I have a single DBI(I) Networks F-50 Pro (single chain), it will be running at approx 23dbm.

Be aware this is South Africa, we have a (very) hot sun, I am planning on installing four fans (I am aware I can only run two at the same time), and I will be scripting these to manage heat which switches on/off specific fans. There is a small battery setup that will be charged with the USB ports, this to provide a “turbo” support for an additional two fans and power for about 5 minutes to cool the RB down if it gets very hot.

All the equipment is grounded properly and so on. The routerboard will sit inside a rather cold fully closed metal box (not airtight, but enough to handle rain). This box will be tightened on a fiberglass tower at about 18M in the heat the whole day.

Estimated lifetime? If I remove one radio, how much lifetime do I save?

2

If environment conditions are going to be tough, I would stay away from RB + radio cards + pigtails.

If heat is going to be high, it will put a stress on all mechanical connections: PCIe card slots, internal and external pigtails… also 3 PCIe radios cramped on the same board/enclosure is not optimal RF-wise either.

I assume you have 2 2x2 sector antennas plus 1x1 sector or similar for the DBII. Would use either basebox/netbox/netmetal with the 2x2 and a Groove for the 1x1 antenna if you want to keep using them.

Even better would be using integrated antenna+radios, like mANTBox 15S or 19S (or SXT-SA’s): no connectors/pigtails which can potentially fail, as they are completely integrated devices.

You can keep the RB435 to use as router/switch for them.

An additional plus: with RB435 + radios approach if anything fails on it, all three sectors or whole node would be down (all eggs on same basket). With individual device approach, it would be only the customers of a failing sector which would be affected.