Is it just me or does anyone else think that the cable entry opening in the bottom panel on thr SEXTANT is in the wrong place. When using out door grade cable you cannot bend it to fit out the hole without risking snapping the connector off.

We have almost 200 of these out there and have just been making a new cut but maybe it should have a slight re-deisgn. At least in my opinion. What is everyone else who is using these doing?

Something similar we have written
http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php ... ic#p299553

Mikrotik support commented that it is not possible.

We crimpes the connectors themselves. But we use FTP and the cable is very little flexsible.
Inappropriately rotated connector (In sextant and old revison SXT) and disaster is there.
The truth is that plastic connectors do not hold so well. Legs are easy to break away from the PCB

+1
very hard to close SXT door with FTP cable

how to we make - take extra rubber from ftp cable, co after crimping you'll have 1cm of open wires without rubber.. plug into rb - and all closes good. It's not the best way, but a workout.. better if hole will be directly under poe/ethernet plug

We've screwed up a couple of Sextants because of the angle to the socket, plus the small size of the path through the door.
In addition to trying to leave some space between the jacket and connector, we've been taking a unibit on the drill and enlarging the Sextant's hole a bit at an angle in the right direction for the jack.... Very crude, but haven't screwed one up since...

Well I don't know how you're doing it or what type of cable you use, but I have no problem to bend FTP cable into a Z shape. And doors close very easily on both SXT and SEXTANT having full insulation right up to the connector.

Do not be afraid to bend the cable sharply just by the rj45 plug. Bend after entering the enclosure is easy 90deg, so no problems there.

The only problem I do see in SEXTANT is the situation of rj45 socket. MT, please turn it upside down, so the unplugging is made possible without messing with screwdrivers and stuff

Otherwise they're pretty decently built units. You cannot expect them to be convenient, cheap, pretty and compact at once. They of course could put a sealed rj45 connector outside, but imagine how it'd look then and you won't be happy about increased price also..

I have the same problem, with both the sxt and the sextant.
Obviously a flaw in the design here.

We too.

It's difficult using our FTP cat5e outdoor cable.

Also, the hole size is not enough for the outdoor cables.

SXT is a lion in a toy body.

although a little fiddly sometimes, i have no problem. Like a previous poster said, you can always remove a little extra outer of the cable to make it more flexible without detriment to the installation. A case of "you get what you pay for" If you want better quality casing you wont get them at SXT price.

Everyone is justifying the foolish planning and design of the Sextant's rj45 jack and wire entrance diameter on price and cost savings and value... none of those have anything to do with an flaw that could have been fixed easily and in-expensively at initial design *or* during initial testing (ie simply move/angle the position of the board's RJ45 jack, or increase the entrance hole's diameter. (or change the sextants mount points / mount position for its PCB board (the rb911 / rb711 )

Im the first one to defend mikrotik gear to the death, and will always do so (i LOVE mt gear and ROS and have 100s of RBs active), but the sextant's RJ45 jack ( or the RB911 and RB711's RJ45 jack) is simply in the wrong position for the sexant (or the sextants plastic mount-points are in the wrong place for the RB911 / RB711 ). It should either line up wiht the entrance hole, or should be set back far enough that ALL of us wont be forced to severely violate the rated bend radius SPECs of the cat5/cat6 cable we use. This device is SOLELY made for outdoor use, thus MT had to know we MUST use outdoor Cat 5 or cat6 (it is a gigabit device) cable. MT has to know outdoor cable , even the thinnest diameter outdoor cat cable, is much greater in diameter than indoor cat cable (so the wire's entrance diameter also must be larger , which its not).

See the attached images for the foolishness our installers must go through when deploying a Sextant.. not only does this cause concerns for wire and connection reliability, but now the installer has to spend an extra 15-30 minutes crimping / building this connector, sometimes in dangerous locations. Plus the installer now has to bring with him heat shrink tubing and a portable heat gun (as well as be sure the outdoor cable used / on hand is one with a reduced diameter, or else they will be forced to modify or other wise cut the plastic wire entrance hole).

(please post your own pictures of how you are making this design flaw work. All that said, mikrotik products and software are just SO great, that these are the lengths we will go through to deploy them !

(note we normally wouldn't have all that black water sealing "Coax Seal" on our sextants, but an installer did a poor job of opening one of our Sextants causing some damage to where the plastic lines up in one spot, so this was the solution to re-water proofing this particular sextant)

(well it keeps saying HTTP error halfway though the upload/attachment of any picts i try to attach to this post, so unfortunately you will have to visit these img hosting links to see my pix / sextant rj45 solution-mod )

http://s13.postimg.org/48vo3f6c7/IMG_2879.jpg
http://s13.postimg.org/4aa7akxjr/IMG_2876.jpg
http://s13.postimg.org/hfppgorfb/IMG_2858.jpg

I am sorry you had this experience. The SEXTANT was one of our first designs, and we have improved a lot in our newest LHG, DynaDish and QRT models.

Thanks for the reply Normis, its not that big of deal on the sextant, and you are right - small mistakes like this are bound to happen especially with a product (the sextant) from a few years ago when mikrotik was not as established and didnt have as much experience with production nor the size of company as they do now. For all the home-runs that mikrotik hits, some errors are to be expected...mikrotik's batting average is still .999 in my book.

The simple fact that someone like Normis (who is either the owner or creator or atltease a person who is very high up at Mikrotik company) STILL takes the time to be so active and vigilant of the customer message boards / threads as often as he does ( i remember Normis being on the mikrotiks message board nearly 8 years ago!) , speaks volumes about mikrotik, their products, and the quality company they are.

Thanks