Electron Dropping out - 77db

Troubleshooting
1

We have an Electron sitting out in the world as part of an EV Charging station. We have a 10W power supply providing power to the Electron, as well as a beefy cap so there is more than enough power to keep it happy TX-ing and RX-ing all day long.

We have a good Cellular signal around -75db.

However we’re seeing the electron drop out a couple of times an hour, sometimes for as long as an hour.

Here’s an example of the diagnostic logs:
2018-11-17T14:45:01.320Z,1,1,1485,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-6,75.51,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,unknown,97.3
2018-11-17T14:35:51.357Z,0,1,1271,ok,3,0,1,1,2,0,1,-75,4,-6,75.51,47.91,-75,6,1,1,0,4,33160,111616,3732,VIN,unknown,90.39
2018-11-17T13:34:10.442Z,1,1,1442,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-77,4,-3,87.75,45.83,-77,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,charged,99.89
2018-11-17T13:00:49.925Z,1,1,1503,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-6,75.51,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,32,VIN,unknown,98.06
2018-11-17T12:52:28.738Z,1,1,1516,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-3,87.75,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,unknown,90.2
2018-11-17T12:19:07.487Z,1,1,1496,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-3,87.75,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,charged,93.46
2018-11-17T12:15:08.698Z,1,1,1484,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-3,87.75,47.91,-75,0,1,0,-1,4,30960,111616,43,VIN,unknown,11.15
2018-11-17T12:10:46.779Z,1,1,1427,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-6,75.51,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,unknown,90.2
2018-11-17T11:37:25.621Z,1,1,1477,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-6,75.51,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,unknown,97.49
2018-11-17T11:29:04.931Z,1,1,1489,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-77,4,-6,75.51,45.83,-77,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,unknown,89.62
2018-11-17T11:12:23.744Z,1,1,1506,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-6,75.51,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,unknown,89.62
2018-11-17T10:39:02.969Z,1,1,1503,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-3,87.75,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,32,VIN,unknown,98.45
2018-11-17T10:14:02.122Z,1,1,1519,ok,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,-75,4,-3,87.75,47.91,-75,0,1,0,0,4,30960,111616,31,VIN,charged,99.72

We’re on the most latest release candidate on 0.8.0.

We have a hardware watchdog that will reset the electron every 5 minutes if connectivity is lost.

We are using the Particle SIM.

Any ideas what could be going on here? Any recommendations? Are we “kicking” the reset pin too often, as an example?

Interested in hearing people experiences with the Electron.

Best,

Matthew

2

Okay. So having another Electron running in worse signal conditions (my basement) is reporting far better… because it’s not on a release candidate OS! v0.7.0 seems to be working well on the Electron working on the same codebase, but compiled against the different OS version. In short, v0.8.xxx versions not running well on the Electron from a connection stability point of view.

Moral of the story: don’t stick stuff out into the wild on a release candidate and hope for the best! Get other people to figure out if something is stable, and run with the confirmed known good OS.

Cheers,

M.

1 Like
3

@mblackler: Before the new year I tried to reproduce the issue you mention here using 0.8.0-rc.11 but I did not notice anything obvious. Where you originally using 0.8.0-rc.11 when you saw drop outs?

I saw some of your other messages about using hardware WDT’s with the Electron. Since moving back to 0.7.0 have you noticed drop outs again?

Thanks for the info!

4

Hi James. Moving back to 0.7.0 has solved the connectivity issues nicely.

I’ll be testing 0.8.0-rc12 to see if it’s any better.