Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Eprad Automation Issue

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Posted by Jason McMillan (Member # 5542) on 02-23-2015, 10:41 AM:

Hey all ... I've got a quirky issue that I wanted to see if anyone else has run across, and any potential solutions.

I've got an Eprad eCNA10 automation in each of our auditoriums and one of them recently has started giving me a little grief. After 2 years of flawless service, every couple of months or so now it will just lose connectivity to the network.. the lights on the switch port don't even light up. It's a very random, intermittent problem.

I've replaced the switch at the rack (and tried different ports) and replaced the 5 foot C6 patch cable going from the switch into the automation (twice, actually). Still have the issue.

Power cycling the unit solves the problem until it will mysteriously stop communicating with the network again. I'm not exceeding distance limitations on any of the network cabling.

Any suggestions short of replacing the automation? That's about all I can think of at this point.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 02-23-2015, 01:57 PM:

You might want to give Eprad a call and see if they have any suggestions. Fortunately, if it comes down to replacing parts in the automation, you will probably just have to replace the CPU board, not the entire automation. In fact, I'd start by swapping that board with another unit and seeing if the problem follows. Make sure you have a backup of the settings from each automation before swapping; you'll need to restore the backup after the swap if any settings are different between the two auditoriums. You'll also need to manually change the IP address on each of the units, as IP settings are not stored in the backup. Lastly, you'll want to change the DIP switch settings on each of the boards to reflect the correct auditorium number after the swap.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-23-2015, 09:38 PM:

Yes, that problem HAS been addressed (some time ago, I might add). It seemed to plague my eCNA10 systems more than the eCNA5.

The current firmware for the eCNA5 and eCNA10 is 1.230 and it is quite stable.

I want to say that with 1.220...they really addressed the problem though they may improvements to the problem before then.

In any event 1.230 works well

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-24-2015, 06:10 PM:

I have LOTS of eCNA-10's in probably close to a hundred and never once had any connectivity issues. Not even on older firmware versions. Zero issues on the eCNA-5's which account for the rest of my installs.

Mark