Core connectivity with external antenna

Hardware
1

Hi,

I have a couple of cores where I specified the external antenna and brought the package from Particle. I am finding that these two cores often struggle to connect to wifi whereas my core with a chip antenna connects every time.
Has anyone experienced similar issues. I am wondering if I should be looking for higher quality external antennae.
Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

Best regards,
Clive

1 Like
2

@will might have more information and insight about this.

3

I’ve found the opposite to be true. The chip antenna is less reliable. (I use the antenna that’s a skinny black wire, not the big fat one. Which one do you have?)

Can I solider on an external antenna connector to chip antenna cores?

4

Hi,

I am using the fat whip antenna. They seem very unstable for me.

Best regards,
Clive

5

How are you positioning them?

6

Hi

They are mounted in plastic boxes. As in the attached picture

7

Hey @casm! The external antennas have a theoretical maximum gain of 2.5dBi, versus the chip antennas which have a peak gain of 2.5dBi and an average gain of 0.9dBi. The external antennas are not necessarily intended to be way better than the chip antennas, but they should be at least comparable, and probably perform better in most situations.

For the u.FL Cores, we provide the u.FL connector so that our customers can bring whatever antenna they desire to the table, and provide a complementary flex antenna in the box so that you can still do development if you find yourself shorthanded.

If you’re finding that the included flex antenna doesn’t have the performance that you need, we can provide you with a shortlist of alternates that might have better performance!

PS the project looks cool! What is it?

1 Like
8

hi @will

Thanks for the feedback, I purchased the whip antennae with my u.FL cores I didn’t see any flex antennae in the boxes. They have become less and less reliable over time - I have had the cores quite sometime.Maybe I will look to getting some flex antennae to try. The systems are located in (electrically) noisy environments in plant rooms so I wanted the best possible antenna for this application if you have any suggestions I would be happy to hear.
The brown box you see is one of our systems that normally run unattended the add on I have designed is to take control and monitor the machines once they connect to WIFI, no WIFI they run in local mode. I have software that keeps a list of all the registered cores and their locations and allows me to change machine settings monitor performance and shut them down all remotely. The cores report back using publish when machines require attention and I monitor this on an html page. I hope to make the software all web based but am struggling to find someone to take on the task!
My Photon’s have at last shipped so I think I may be re-designing the PCB’s soon.
Great systems and great support from the community.

Best regards,
Clive

9

Hey @casm that’s a great application! The Photons are especially exciting because they have both an onboard antenna and a u.FL connector for attaching more powerful external antennas. They also have an RF switch that allows you to choose between the two, so you could include lines in your logic that automatically default to whatever antenna has the stronger signal!

Thanks for the feedback and the kind words! The Core is now out of active production so we only have a limited number of units remaining, but let us know if you have continued issues with the Cores on hand. We may still have some u.FL Cores in stock if you think it warrants replacement.