Gateway + 8 port Hub on POE power will not boot with more than 1 or 2 sensors connected.

I have a Gateway (BASE-WIRED) connected to the 8 port hub expansion unit (EXP-8HUB) with a temp/humidity combo sensor(ENV-THUM), 3 AC volt meter sensors(PWR-AC-VOLT), and a Leak/Flooding sensor(ENV-WLEAK-COMBO5M).
This is all being powered via POE from a 3560 cisco switch or also tried a stand alone trendnet POE hub. If I boot everything up at once the power and activity lights on everything flicker quickly. As I disconnect sensors the unit will begin to power up before I unplug the last sensor or 2 and then I can proceed to plug everything back in.

I seem to have stumbled upon this anecdotally but want to confirm is having more than one or two sensors only supported via an external dc power supply or is there a problem with my new devices? I can't seem to verify this via documentation. Documentation I have found say the expansion modules are powered by the base unit and that the power adaptor is only required when the SensorGateway cannot be powered via PoE. I have not ordered a power supply (BASE-PWR) yet to try and see if this solves the issue or am I needing to provide power to the 8 port hub as well via the 12V+ pins?

Hi, it should have no issues as I do have 8 sensors connected at once.
Although you can try which of the sensor is causing the issues as you stated that it powers up without the sensors connected fine.
I would also recommend to interchange ports of the sensors on the hub.

hope this helps

I have experimented further. The setup seems to support only one PWR-AC-VOLT at boot up. If I unplug any 2 of the PWR-AC-VOLT it will boot up fine. Have tried different ports and it doesn't matter which PWR-AC-VOLT, just that there is one. Also tried with one or none of the power probes plugged in on the PWR-AC-VOLT units, makes no difference.

I tried updating to firmware version 8.6 from 8.5. No change.

hello tgeegt, please try to clear the cache on your browser and check if issue still happen.
I had same issue but not PWR-AC-VOLT, what I did was just clearing the cache on my browser and the issue was solved.

Schottky said:

hello tgeegt, please try to clear the cache on your browser and check if issue still happen.
I had same issue but not PWR-AC-VOLT, what I did was just clearing the cache on my browser and the issue was solved.

Unit still flashes erratically on power restore with 2 or more PWR-AC-VOLT hooked up. Removing all but 1 PWR-AC-VOLT allows unit to continue boot up sequence. Clearing cache on browser did not make a change.

tgeegt, how many PWR-AC-VOLT on your set-up? Have you confirmed that all PWR-AC-VOLT is working fine connecting it one at a time on the SensorHub? How about connecting the two PWR-AC-VOLT directly on the Base-Unit without using the SensorHub, does it still detects 1 PWR-AC-VOLT?

All three volt sensors work if they are plugged in after boot up. The issue is that the unit will not recover from power outage when all the sensors are hooked up. Once the unit is able to boot up, then the remaining sensors can be hooked up and work fine. This is a liability if we implement this in a remote location as we are planning to do.
I will look at trying 2 volt sensors without the hub.

Unit boots with just the gateway and 2 volt sensors, no 8 port hub.

Hello tgeet, what is the power source of your device?via PoE or via DC Jack? I think power delivered to the units are not enough.

As stated above, I am using a cisco3560cx switch with POE.
It is currently supplying 15.4Watts to the device and is capable up to 30Watts.
The product ordering guides suggest that the DC power supply is optional if POE is not available but I was trying to determine if that was the case of if I needed to find a power supply to determine otherwise.

15 Watts I think is enough to power up all sensors connected to the Base-Unit. Have you tried to connect also ENV-THUM and ENV-WLEAK-COMBO5M directly connected to the Base-Unit just like what you did on the PWR-AC-VOLT and check if it is working properly? Also, make sure that RJ45 cables are working properly. You can also file an RMA if still you have an issue with the SensorHub.

tgeegt are you sure that you have 3 PWR-AC-VOLT and not 3 PWR-AC-FAIL ? A hub should support 3 sensors of the same make. The power adapter for the PWR-AC-FAIL is the same as for the BASE-WIRED. So if you want to test that, then you simply can. The power adapters for the PWR-AC-FAIL do not provide power to the sensor platform; their purpose is to sense voltage thus the presence of power. The PWR-AC-FAIL orange sensor gets its power from the base unit through the hub.

hello tgeegt, maybe you can plug 12V DC Adaptor with max rating of 2A on Base-Unit and check if your issue was solved. I have same issue on my sensor that flickers when connected to the SensorHub and was solved when I plug 12V DC Adaptor + PoE.

I tried chatting with ServerCheck before starting the RMA process. They said

"We apologize for the issue you have encountered regarding 3xPWR-VOLT-AC
connected to the SensorHub.

As we have checked with our Technical Team, your issue was been replicated.
You will be needing a 12V DC Power Adapter+PoE to power up SGW normally with
your sensors connected."

Just wanted to Share with everyone that apparently this is a case where POE is not sufficient and that the external power supply will be necessary.
We have one in route now. I'll share if it helps once I get it.

Thank you everyone for the suggestions.

Administrator said:

tgeegt are you sure that you have 3 PWR-AC-VOLT and not 3 PWR-AC-FAIL ? A hub should support 3 sensors of the same make. The power adapter for the PWR-AC-FAIL is the same as for the BASE-WIRED. So if you want to test that, then you simply can. The power adapters for the PWR-AC-FAIL do not provide power to the sensor platform; their purpose is to sense voltage thus the presence of power. The PWR-AC-FAIL orange sensor gets its power from the base unit through the hub.

They are indeed the 3xPWR-Volt-AC so I cannot use the adaptors to power the base unit. The Voltage sensor units use part SENSOR-PWR-VOLT. These output 12VAC 200mA.
I have the BASE-PWR part in route. It should output 12DC. I will use the ServerCheck recommended power supply before constructing something myself. It sounds like what Finley says that the power supply is needed to supplement the POE in certain cases.

We received our power supply this weekend.
In the event they would both fail at the same time, and POE came up first. Introducing the 12V power supply while the device is flickering on POE startup allows the device to finish the boot up process normally.