housing Options

[clarence]

I was talking to a dude last week and he was going to use a sealed white plastic box to protect his minitar on a mast. The box has no ventilation. I advised him possibly erroniously that it should have vents that wont allow water inside, especially in hot weather. are vents neccessary? I have heard of other people using unvented boxes seemingly without problems.
What do you think is best, vents or no vents?

[serialmonkey]

These units seem to handle the heat fairly well - and I've heard some horror stories of people not sealing their box's correctly and a tonne of water getting inside. Personally, with no guarantee's here, I would go no-vents.

Opinion from the guys who mast these things often ?

S.

[xda]

I have about 50 Edimax 7206APB (same like minitar) inside non-vent 183x183 mm box more than one year. Works correctly.

[clarence]

Well I decided to go with the unvented option. I used a quality aluminium box with grommets for the cat cable and coax. I them made up a cover from an old pc tower. it sits over the aluminium box to keep the direct sun off it. sort of a box within a box. probably overkill but I think keeping the sun off could be a good idea.
here is a pic http://www.geocities.com/clarence_horatio_...r/party/box.jpg

[clarence]

I finally got my adsl 4.3 km link working. It works great. The ip of my friends router is in the 10.1.1.1 range and I didnt want to change it so I changed the minitars to 10.1.1.4 & 10.1.1.5. well it seems to work ok. Is this way it is usually done? or is it better to assign the router with a different ip?

[serialmonkey]

Either way is fine - normally it's just best to change the MNWAPB's as changing the IP of the router will most likely cause you to have to change the IP address pool it's handing out via DHCP as well.

S.

[Didz]

I made my box with no vents all sealed up and has been up there since May 2004 with no problems.

(IMG:http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~debbielfoster/wireless/images/minitar_box001.jpg) (IMG:http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~debbielfoster/wireless/images/minitar_box002.jpg)
1) Open box with one gland for pigtail, the other one for cat5e isnt on yet.
2) This is how the box looks closed.

(IMG:http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~debbielfoster/wireless/images/setup01.jpg)
Here is a different completed box out of the bulk i assembled.

(IMG:http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~debbielfoster/wireless/images/j_mast-hills_15dbi_dish.jpg)
The box went up and has kept my Minitar safe since May 2004 (IMG:http://www.minitar.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

There are more images on my site if your keen to have a look (i should update it sometime) (IMG:http://www.minitar.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

I did a bulk buy on boxes and glands and almost sold out now. I use the ABS plastic ones, they resist the suns rays pretty well.

The people down the street form me put a Minitar in a box (not one of mine) and sealed it up but put one of the glands on top so when it rained the box filled up and the minitar was sitting in about half full of water, It still works perfectly. So put your glands on the bottom or sides!