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Sundance Systems FiBox

D

DudeFan

I've got a Sundance Systems Fibox fiberoptic audio link in use as an STL (fiber 13 floors up to the rooftop in an armored conduit).

After 6 years of 24/7 I think I am starting to have an issue and wanted to see if anyone else has any experience with the units.

Intermittently, we are losing the left channel. I have isolated to the Fibox unit. We've got full-channel audio to the Fibox unit.

If I power-cycle the sending unit, the audio comes back full-channel.

Several months ago, we had the audio go completely away with the exception of "spurts" of milliseconds of low-volume audio. I unplugged the wall-wart power supply, let the unit sit, replugged it in and make sure the AC connection was good. An hour later of lost airtime (luckily late at night), we got full audio back.

Flash forward to Friday evening, we've got intermittent audio in the left channel. I thought ahead and ordered spare wall-warts. Put a new wall wart in service and things are great. Until Saturday afternoon.

Any guesses?

My suspicion is that there is something failing inside the sending unit, such as a capacitor or the like... which would necessitate seeing if I can get Sundance to send me a loaner while they repair our unit.
 
I too have the Fibox for our STL chain to two stations. Lucklily I haven't experienced any problems with ours. It does sound like a cap issue to me. I'd open the lid and see if you can find one that is oozing. If you have access to a ESR cap checker, give that a try. Otherwise just take your mulimeter and look for ac ripple on the cap lids. I bet you'll find one that's gone bad.
 
OKC:

You nailed it. Caps are starting to fail. Sundance is going to send a loaner and refurb the units for me. I immediately described the symptoms and they knew exactly what it was, given teh age of the units.
 
Since we just do a 13 story vertical run, I'm either going to run another fiber and get another set of boxes or get a Barix extreamer and use that as a back-up.
 
You know, the Barix stuff makes a nice backup with the streaming client firmware on the exstreamer side so it'll self-restart and also play out with some buffer. The RTP and BRTP might be good for truely live remote stuff or on a private LAN, but for most of us, the delay buffer is actually a good thing in that it masks some potential network hickups. I've set up serveral of them as a plan b stl. Most of my stations have Internet at the tower now so it becomes a good cheap backup solution. One other huge benefit is that if a guy rigs one up in conjunction with a broadcast tools silence sensor to autoswitch or even remote switchable via the remote control, a guy could set up a backup streaming machine at the PD's house or some place other than the studio in case all he'll breaks loose. Then it's as simple as
remoting into that computer at the PD or alternate site, starting a playlist and the backup stream which in turn feeds the transmitter as a plan B.
 
Wait a minute. You're sending audio 200 feet inside conduit? Wouldn't copper work as a backup? If you really want to be safe, use screened twisted pair, or even sheilded twisted pair, and get a couple of audio over CAT5/6 baluns:

http://www.lashen.com/vendors/intelix/audio-cat5.asp

$50 bucks apiece. You might need a reasonably clean amplifier. Seems like a simpler solution, and a lot cheaper than pulling a second fiber.
 
Fiber is cheap and it is easier to pull in the existing conduit than the much thicker plenum-grade ethernet cabling. Baluns and the twisted pair might be ok for a temp solution, but a 200 foot almost vertical run of fiber is maybe an hour of work or less. The biggest pain would be taking out and replacing the ceiling tiles on the studio level.
 
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