Photon SMD Antena, keepout zones, and ground loops

Hardware
22

And its only the DHCP part thats not working, if you use fixed ip it works.
But maybe that is just a side effect of using TCP sockets which will tolerate some errors.

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23

@AndyW, I've been asking for this, a lot!

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24

I got my 3rd revision PCB today, where I used PTH(holes) rather than SMD.
On first attempt I didnt mount the photon on headers, but soldered it directly on its legs, so its only about 3mm above the PCB.

Claiming from mobile app worked on 1st attempt, flashed code and did the claiming successfully again.
It does take a while to connect to Wifi and reports -70rssi despite theres an AP just on the otherside of a drywall, but that may be related to my house having 3 APs with same name, another thread mentions the photon may not connect to the nearest one.

So that most likely closes the issue for me, just have to bite the slightly higher assembly cost of PTH vs SMD.

25

Hi all,

If we are using an external antenna, do we need to retain the ‘keep-out’ zone on our PCB-shield (below Photon P0)?

Thanks!

26

I have the same question as @pnaylor1982, does the “keep out recommended on all layers” need to be honored for an SMD Photon if an external antenna will be used?

27

We successfully passed FCC/CE testing on our Photon-SMD based product using an external antenna and NOT following the keep-out areas. The caveat is to make sure to select the external WiFi antenna explicitly in your firmware code.

https://docs.particle.io/reference/firmware/photon/#selectantenna-antenna-

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