I have a very strange problem that doesn’t make any sense.
Below are two pictures of a five week old R52Hn showing rust and oxidation.
Below that is a picture of the replacement R52Hn with the original CM9 and F.50 Pro, all mounted on a RB433AH.
I commissioned this site on 1 July 2011. From the first day I have had nothing but problems with it. The backbone link (R52Hn) kept on dropping for no reason. Then the AP (F.50 Pro) stopped working. The client radios would connect, but they couldn’t ping the access point and the access point couldn’t ping them. A quick disable and re-enable of the F.50 Pro would solve that problem.
The routerboard and radios are in an IP65 enclosure. Power is 24V from a power supply. It is sent up the tower on the thick black cable. Right now, the voltage is 24.1V according to /system health.
Does anyone have any idea what happened here? There are no water marks on the bottom of the box. The box is waterproof. It’s made from fibreglass, so doesn’t “sweat” or form condensation.
It could be some fluke electrochemical reaction caused by something at that site. Then again it could be something as simple as being in a coastal area and the enclosure not being sealed well enough.
I’ve used http://corrosionxproducts.com in marine environments to protect boards. I’d be sure to make all the connections you need before you use it, or thoroughly clean off the connector with rubbing alcohol. You can submerge powered boards in it if you want. One of their favorite demos is showing off a working TV that’s half submerged in it.
It’s cheap and you’re by the ocean. I’d be treating everything with it on principle.
http://www.boeshield.com/ is also really good at waterproofing and corrosion protection. I don’t have any experience with it in hot climates though.
We have most of our AP and Base Station units installed very close to the sea (have to since we are an island nation).
The only time we have had a similar case was when we used a R5H board that was used on the bench for testing and had been scratched from multiple insertions of the MMCX connector.
Unless the minipci board has been mishandled or got wet before the install, and your enclosure is really performing at IP65 levels, then more components would have shown signs of corrosion, not just the Mikrotik minipci.
The damage is too big for such thing.