EDIMAX wifi adapter dying


 
C

ChrisMueller

TVWBB Member
I've burned through 2 EDIMAX wifi adapters in about a month. When I first built my HeaterMeter, I had it connected to my network via cat5 because it was easy to run the cable and I had it on hand already. We moved to a new house recently, and it wasn't so easy to run CAT5 to my grill, so I bought one of these wifi adapters on amazon for $9.99. It worked just fine for a few weeks until I left my heatermeter out overnight, and it rained. Everything seemed fine with the heatermeter, but the wifi was dead. So I bought another one. Plugged it in this weekend and connected it to wifi, and it worked fine. Used it on the grill and it was misting just a little bit outside. I had the entire heatermeter under cover to avoid the rain, but within about 5 minutes of being outside, my wifi died again. I checked and sure enough the adapter seemed dead.

Are these things just ultra sensitive to water? Or is my Heatermeter somehow frying wifi adapters? I've got another one on the way, and I plan to be ultracareful about keeping it away from water. But I'm worried now.
 
This is precisely why I spent so much time working on and lobbying for using the CAT5 connection on the HM for the servo/blower, so we have those 4 spare wires to use for probes. This allows the whole grill end of things to be a good distance from the HM (up to around 50ft in my experiments), with the HM and its power supply safely located somewhere out of the weather. Be it rain, snow or even hot sun, the elements are not kind to electronics...

I've got my HM in the kitchen, CAT5 cable runs out to the grill, I never have to worry about my HM being safe from the elements.... and who knows what will happen with the weather during a long low and slow cook, might start out with a blue sky and end in a thunderstorm. With the HM outside you either have to babysit the HM watching for rain (which kinda defeats the purpose a bit) or just always protect it some way. I used to place a tupperware bowl upside down on top of mine when I cooked with the HM outside, which works fine unless heavy wind and rain whips up.

Recently I did a cook with the HM outside, after I pulled the food from the grill I looked at the sky and realized I was pretty close to getting drenched along with my HM, which I had not protected. Hurrying to unplug the HM and power supply I gained more appreciation for the convenience of having the HM in the kitchen and not having to worry about this sort of thing, as I remembered doing the HM tear-down after every cook before I started using the CAT5 cable. I much prefer just having to close the top vent when I am done cooking than having to retrieve all the HM hardware.
 
RalphTrimble said:
This is precisely why I spent so much time working on and lobbying for using the CAT5 connection on the HM for the servo/blower, so we have those 4 spare wires to use for probes. This allows the whole grill end of things to be a good distance from the HM (up to around 50ft in my experiments), with the HM and its power supply safely located somewhere out of the weather. Be it rain, snow or even hot sun, the elements are not kind to electronics...

I've got my HM in the kitchen, CAT5 cable runs out to the grill, I never have to worry about my HM being safe from the elements.... and who knows what will happen with the weather during a long low and slow cook, might start out with a blue sky and end in a thunderstorm. With the HM outside you either have to babysit the HM watching for rain (which kinda defeats the purpose a bit) or just always protect it some way. I used to place a tupperware bowl upside down on top of mine when I cooked with the HM outside, which works fine unless heavy wind and rain whips up.

Recently I did a cook with the HM outside, after I pulled the food from the grill I looked at the sky and realized I was pretty close to getting drenched along with my HM, which I had not protected. Hurrying to unplug the HM and power supply I gained more appreciation for the convenience of having the HM in the kitchen and not having to worry about this sort of thing, as I remembered doing the HM tear-down after every cook before I started using the CAT5 cable. I much prefer just having to close the top vent when I am done cooking than having to retrieve all the HM hardware.
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I'm starting to agree with you. I was going to go the route of creating a weatherproof housing for my HM on my Big Green Egg table. But I can totally see why the remote probes is valuable now. Oh well. I will say though that before I had this wifi adapter, I left it out in the elements many times...even in heavy rain, though under cover of my wooden table. At my new house, the grill is under a roof, but the rain blew in from the side and I guess hit the wifi adapter. Everything else seems good though. I'm getting a 3rd wifi adapter today, so I guess I'll see what happens with it.

I should also add that although my HM was left outside, there was a roof over it. Any rain that hit it was blown on indirectly. I'm thinking that the EDImax is just super sensitive to the moisture. I fully realize all electronics are, but some cases are built better than others. The sliding back case Ralph built me is pretty tight it seems.
 
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So.. I had the same issue.. I found a cheap fix, I put the heatermeter in a ziplock freezer bag outside .. just let the wires run out the opening.. which I always put facing down.. Works really well actually.
 
Jon Zoss said:
So.. I had the same issue.. I found a cheap fix, I put the heatermeter in a ziplock freezer bag outside .. just let the wires run out the opening.. which I always put facing down.. Works really well actually.
Click to expand...

I know it's a lot bigger than the original HM 3d printed case, but I use this. I bought my HM pre-built by a guy on the Pelletheads forums and he had already put it in this case. It uses weatherproof connectors at the enclosure for power and blower/servo (XLR style connector for the blower), and have a surface-mount set of probe ports (though not technically weatherproof, but ive never had issues).

You can check out pics of mine here. When I used it for the first time on our competition smoker, I placed a 3M command hook on the underside of the wheel fender (trailer-mounted smoker) and hung the device there, keeping it away from constant downpour, It never once has hicupped or had issues, and I'm in TN so it gets humid.
 
NickMV said:
I know it's a lot bigger than the original HM 3d printed case, but I use this. I bought my HM pre-built by a guy on the Pelletheads forums and he had already put it in this case. It uses weatherproof connectors at the enclosure for power and blower/servo (XLR style connector for the blower), and have a surface-mount set of probe ports (though not technically weatherproof, but ive never had issues).

You can check out pics of mine here. When I used it for the first time on our competition smoker, I placed a 3M command hook on the underside of the wheel fender (trailer-mounted smoker) and hung the device there, keeping it away from constant downpour, It never once has hicupped or had issues, and I'm in TN so it gets humid.
Click to expand...

I'm in southern IL, near St Louis MO, so it gets very humid here as well, and rains a fair amount. I have to say that I quite like that setup you have. I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands this time of year, so for now I was planning to use the gallon size freezer ziplock method like mentioned above. I figured that would work well enough, though look janky. Soon I'll work something out. I've got a new CNC router that I haven't had a moment to set up yet. I'm kind of hoping maybe I can use it to make myself a new case out of wood or something that will protect it from the elements a bit more. But failing that, I like the idea of modding a pelican style waterproof case.
 
Even with a waterproof case you still have to have your power supply out in the rain though. I battered around dozens of ideas for waterproof case designs and in the long run I decided to go with the long CAT5 cable setup so I can just pull the HM and PS inside and completely away from the rain. If you are dead set on leaving the HM next to the grill the waterproof case idea presented above would be what you are after though.
 
This week my 3rd EDIMAX from amazon has started to crap out on me, after a couple of weeks of seeing absolutely no moisture, it's still grabbing an IP address, but it won't respond to HTTP requests and ping requests sometimes fail, sometimes respond. I guess I'm giving up on wifi and going to run CAT5 out to my grill.
 
I have 2 dongles plugged into my heatermeter, 1 for AP and one for my home WiFi. One is an EDIMAX and the other is a COMFAST CF-WU715N. I've had no issues with either, and I do alot of cooking. Of course, I live in the desert, so moisture really isn't an issue. I would suggest trying the Comfast dongle just to weed out that it's not an issue with your HM.
 
Sorry for bringing this thread back up, but I wanted to report back now that the weather is warmer. The very same EDI Max that was not working for me during the winter works just great now that Spring is here. I may be looking at keeping my heatermeter inside next winter after all.
 
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