ONT possibly overheating?

[fancypnatz]

Is it possible that the Fios box on the outside of the house is overheating?

It was installed about 2 weeks ago.  I've only recently put this hypothesis together.

The day of the install at around noon time (after the tech had left), my service started dropping out intermittently.  It was bad enough that I called the tech back, he came at around 4pm and I reported that everything was working fine now, so he left without doing anything.

Then over the course of these two weeks, coinciding with the hotter/clearer days, my service has become intermittent at around noon and it lasts until 2 or so.  There were days of consistent service, and they were overcast/rainy.

So as an experiment, I removed the ONT's cover, put a plastic umbrella of sorts (for shade) over it, and pointed a large fan in its direction.  This resulted in a day of consistent service.  I've forgotten to do this a few times and had my service start to get finicky.  So I've gone out, turned on the fan, and put the thing in some shade.  As it cools off, service is restored.

So I'm no expert on these things, but I'm reasonably certain that my ONT is sensitive to direct sunlight and overheats.

I'm planning on making a presentation to the verizon tech who comes out to connect the buried cable, but has anyone else run into this?  I'm unlucky in that the box's location has direct line of sight to the sun right from 12-2 so it's just there getting blasted to the point where it's almost too hot to touch.

Should this ONT be more robust than this and be able to take the heat?  Or should I make some sort of permanent shade for it?

[prisaz]

http://www.tellabs.com/products/1000/tlab1600ont_612a.pdf

Perhaps some shading would help. With the extremely hot weather we have had in many areas this summer, it could be an issue. I have neighbors that have them on the front of their houses, which get direct sun in the afternoon, and I have not heard of issues from them, but they may not be noticing. Mine is in a conditioned basement. I would discuss this with Verizon, they may swap out your ONT. Verizon equipment specs could vary.

114.8 deg f. Max.

Environmental Specifications
Temperature: -40° C to +46° C with solar loading

[GaryDoug]

46 degrees C??? Wow... thats wimpy. I have never heard of an electronic device intended for outdoor use and exposed to direct sunlight to have such a low maximum temperature spec. And I have done a lot of environmental testing. Usually it's more like 60 C. Tell Verizon to move it to a shady location. That should have been a no-brainer. Good thing they don't put these things in places like Iraq, where the summer temp gets to 60 C regularly.

[lasagna]

Can't imagine that temperature rating is right, but who knows .. my ONT is externally mounted in direct sunlight including all the hottest parts of the day  (a southern exposure with a clear east to west view of the sky) here in PA and we've had some stretches where it's been in the mid to upper 90's this summer and I haven't experienced any issues.

Easy enough to test however ... as GaryDoug suggests, put it in the shade ... but before you call Verizon and have to convince them to make a change with only speculation to go on, perhaps you can create some of your own shade temporarily to see what effect it has (got a canopy, or maybe rig up an umbrella, or a tarp -- anything to filter the sun from a distance but not block the airflow around the unit.).

[prisaz]

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@lasagna wrote:

Can't imagine that temperature rating is right, but who knows .. my ONT is externally mounted in direct sunlight including all the hottest parts of the day  (a southern exposure with a clear east to west view of the sky) here in PA and we've had some stretches where it's been in the mid to upper 90's this summer and I haven't experienced any issues.

Easy enough to test however ... as GaryDoug suggests, put it in the shade ... but before you call Verizon and have to convince them to make a change with only speculation to go on, perhaps you can create some of your own shade temporarily to see what effect it has (got a canopy, or maybe rig up an umbrella, or a tarp -- anything to filter the sun from a distance but not block the airflow around the unit.).

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I was just quoting the specs I found from the tellabs cut sheet on the 612A. They do say including solar load? So perhaps that is 46deg c in the shade with solar load not included. Yea the rating seems reather low.

[fancypnatz]

In direct sunlight, I imagine my ONT gets a good deal hotter than those specified temps.  If I remember right, the 'untouchable' temperature starts right around 45-46+ degrees Celsius, and the box definitely gets beyond untouchably hot with the sun overhead and clear skies.

I had a chat finally with the tech who came out to attach the buried cable.  He claimed that the heat may have been causing the cable to expand in the socket just enough to break the connection, and that the more permanent type of connection he made with the buried cable should alleviate this problem.

Now that we're getting out of the summer season I suspect I won't be having this issue again till next spring and summer, but the tech was wrong.  We've had a few hot days, including today, where right at 1 or so, my connection drops and I go out with a fan to cool it down.

I guess I'm an edge case, and it feels like I'm right on the edge too.  Some combination of unlikely scenarios heats this thing up to right on that inoperably hot level.  I've actually just blown a few times on the top vent and heatsink, and managed to get the fail light to stop blinking.

So in the end, I'll definitely be making some sort of shading for the box.

[viafax999]

If you have the space you could ask them to mount it inside.  That would resolve the issue.  Up here in the cold NE it's fairly common to mount it all inside and just feed the fiber to the ONT, also saves all the hassle of having a power cord going from the inside to the outside to power the unit.

[GaryDoug]

To give you some reference point, here are pictures of my ONT with a thermometer inserted like oraly;-). Mine is inside the house however, at an ambient temp of 78F. And mine is in a single case enclosing the ONT, battery, and charger packs. You can see I have opened the battery compartment in order to place the thermometer atop the ONT itself. Reads 86F (30C) normally, meaning an 8 degree F rise above ambient.

[RT2002]

The OT never said how he/she connects to the router , it could be a wireless issue, it could be a overloaded CO .

If I was to go by this theory (and we know there's nothing going on in the ONT that would get it that hot) my ONT would get hot from sun up till 1:00pm (facing east) and slow us down then, but the opposite occurs.

My service slows down around 4:00pm till midnight(when the sun is no longer hitting that side of the house) , (it has been predictably the same since I had ISDN)  then around 1:00 am to 3:00am all sorts of "weird" stuff happens as Verizon does their network  "work".

I'm sure your problems lie outside the ONT arena

[prisaz]

All the specs I have seen have 46 Deg C as the upper limit. What is the brand and model? Have you looked it up?