R11e-LoRa9 Not Recognized, Not Detected

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

In early March.

  1. I ordered a R11e-LoRa9 (L9 for short) and an LtAP for testing
  2. The L9 was not detected in the LtAP top mPCIe slot
  3. Tried various versions, including beta of RouterOS and LoRa Packages, L9 not detected
  4. Contacted MT Support and was told to execute “/system routerboard usb set type=mini-PCIe” and L9 still not detected
  5. Installed the L9 in the bottom slot - still not detected
  6. MT Support said the L9 was defective and instructed me to return it to distributor, which I did
  7. Next, I ordered a wAP LoRa9 Kit and the L9 WAS detected and it works capturing and sending LoRa Packets to The Things Network (TTN)
  8. I moved the working L9 to an LtAP LTE6 and it WORKS in the top slot

In mid-April:

  1. Thinking that the defective L9 was just a one-off event, I ordered 7 more L9s
  2. NONE of these worked, either in LtAPs nor in wAP LoRa9 Kits
  3. Opened another ticket with Mikrotik Support and after going back and forth, MT said to return these 7 units to the distributor

So, one bad L9 in early March from one distributor, then 7 bad L9s in mid-April from another distributor.

So, does this mean that there are entire batches of L9s bad?
If so, what are the ranges of serial numbers are bad and which are good?
Is there a workaround to get these to work?
If this issues can’t be resolved, does anyone know of a LoRa mPCIe Card that works, is stable and reliable in Mikrotik Routerboards? If so, what make and model?

Thanks

2

LTAP is a great choice for lora as it already has cellular connectivity.

can you check whether the it shows up as an usb device?
it should be something similar (lora8 card in RBM11G)

[admin@loragw] > /system resource usb print detail 
 0 device="1-0" vendor="Linux 3.3.5 xhci-hcd" name="xHCI Host Controller" serial-number="ralink-xhci" vendor-id="0x1d6b" device-id="0x0002" speed="480" ports=2 
   usb-version=" 2.00" 

 1 device="2-0" vendor="Linux 3.3.5 xhci-hcd" name="xHCI Host Controller" serial-number="ralink-xhci" vendor-id="0x1d6b" device-id="0x0003" speed="5000" ports=1 
   usb-version=" 3.00" 

 2 device="1-2" vendor="MikroTik" name="R11e-LoRa" serial-number="BD3D03633784" vendor-id="0x2cd2" device-id="0x020a" speed="12" usb-version=" 2.00"

if not, i know it sounds stupid, but make sure the card is seated firmly. it must be fully inserted and secured with the screw - or at least kept horizontally, parallel to the router board, otherwise the pins on one end will not make contact. consult the block diagram (https://i.mt.lv/cdn/rb_files/LtAP-2HnD-190626134301.png) for slot choice.

3

Thanks for your reply.

I just repeated the issue by:

  1. Re-reinstalling the working L9 into a wAP R and it works fine, passing LoRa Traffic to TTN
  2. Then re-installing one of the faulty L9’s, screwed down on both corners, and it is NOT detected. Here is the command you suggested:

[admin@MikroTik] > /system resource usb print detail
0 device=“1-0” vendor=“Linux 3.3.5 ehci_hcd” name=“RB400 EHCI”
serial-number=“rb400_usb” vendor-id=“0x1d6b” device-id=“0x0002”
speed=“480” ports=1 usb-version=" 2.00"
[admin@MikroTik] >

Again are there entire batches of LoRa9s that are defective. Was some defect introduced when transitioning from LoRa8s to LoRa9s? Only on some batches?

4

Hello guys!

One more with similar problem :slight_smile:

After executing the command

"/system routerboard usb set type=mini-PCIe"

the terminal give me this

0 device="1-0" vendor="Linux 3.3.5 xhci-hcd" name="xHCI Host Controller" serial-number="ralink-xhci" vendor-id="0x1d6b" device-id="0x0002" speed="480" ports=2 usb-version=" 2.00" 

 1 device="2-0" vendor="Linux 3.3.5 xhci-hcd" name="xHCI Host Controller" serial-number="ralink-xhci" vendor-id="0x1d6b" device-id="0x0003" speed="5000" ports=1 usb-version=" 3.00" 

 2 device="1-2" vendor="MikroTik" name="R11e-LoRa" serial-number="BD3D03A13192" vendor-id="0x2cd2" device-id="0x020a" speed="12" usb-version=" 2.00" 

 3 device="1-1" vendor="MikroTik" name="R11e-LTE6" serial-number="000000000000" vendor-id="0x2cd2" device-id="0x0004" speed="480" usb-version=" 2.00"

So the LoRa card is successfully detected.
But!
I still don’t have any LORA tap in the RouterOS to configure the card.

Any ideas?
Rebooting the OS or power off the device it doesn’t help.

I use the LtAP LTE6 kit (RBLtAP-2HnD&R11e-LTE6) & RouterOS v6.46.6

EDIT:
I’m new on Mikrotik, so…
… I had to install the LoRa extra package to the LtAP.
Now everything works! :sunglasses: