Month: November 2022

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Pepwave – dark waters solved.

Mixed in with all our other troubles with Rover’s engine, our Pepwave Max Transit Duo went offline.  Nothing seemed to help.  It refused to acknowledge the AT&T SIM.  It has four SIM ports and none of them would show the SIM “present”.  I went to AT&T and got a new SIM.  No change.  I went through various reboots and full power cycles – no change.  The router still functioned – it could pass Starlink and even pass the personal hotspot from my phone. 

I tried a factory reset.  That’s supposed to reset everything, right?  Well, it turns out it doesn’t.  With some devices, when you factory reset, it reloads the original factory firmware stored in some ROM.  I can understand why you might not want to do that – old broken code, etc.  

The Pep stores TWO versions of firmware.  Mine had 8.2.0 and 8.2.1 and was running the latter.  

The Pep stopped working when Rover was sitting in Ford’s parking lot – with too much electrical load running in the RV and skies were cloudy and of course, it’s fall so we get less sun into the panels.  The lithium’s dropped charge and voltage until the inverter shut off and somewhere along there, the Pep shut down too.  It is powered directly off the battery feed so it continued to run until the battery voltage got below whatever the modem’s limit was.  As crazy as things were, I didn’t track exactly when it all quit.

Service – NOT

Pepwave was contacted – no help.  They declared the router: Broken.  They also reminded me that I didn’t re-up on the $200/year warranty so – tough luck!  They have no repair service.  Even if you have a warranty claim, then just swap routers.  Of course, someone takes these broken routers and tries to fix them and put them back onto the warranty swap train – but nope, if you didn’t pay their annual warranty tribute, you are supposed to just go buy another one.  I went back to the vendor I bought it from, and they offered me a %15 off on a new router.

No way!  Unacceptable!  I even looked on Ebay and found the Pepwave modems there are running about half of list price.  Part of the reason I went with the Max Transit Duo was the ability to handle two active sims and two cell modems.  We actually used that feature for a while.  But with Starlink now as our second connection – I would buy something simpler, smaller and cheaper instead of the Duo.  

So, in desperation

I took the Duo down from the shelf and removed the cover.  I couldn’t find anything loose, smoked, melted etc.  I put it back together, booted it up and thought of one last thing to try.

Voila!

As I mentioned above, the Duo stores two versions of firmware.  I told it to go BACK to 8.2.0.  I rebooted running 8.2.0 – and came up with no config.  Apparently going back a version clears everything.  Then I told it to go back to 8.2.1 – reboot.  Then, since all the config was again gone, I searched my computer for an old config file – found one from June 2022 (prior to the big problem), uploaded it – and Voila!  Apparently, when the power went sketchy, something in the PEP got corrupted. Something not fixed by rebooting or even a factory reset.

It was working.  AT&T was recognized.  It was passing traffic.  It’s still working, months later, passing AT&T and Starlink traffic.  

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The Big One (part 3)

Part three

I am also reviewing our “roadside assistance and warranty” plans.  We may very well end up with a different company, at least for one of them.

Lessons:  1.  Get all your emergency information, warranties etc. on paper, handy to the front console.  I thought I gathered all my info into an excel spreadsheet, but in the panic of the moment I couldn’t find it.  When I find it, it will be printed and stored in the front console.

2. Take a moment and think of alternative solutions.  Deb was making phone calls 8 miles away, then driving back to discuss them with me.  Eventually we did leave the RV and made phone calls together.  In the beginning, there wasn’t a thought of towing the RV anywhere but the nearest shop.  Lack of attractive local solutions forced us to consider the transport direction.  If some nice local Ford Dealer offered to let us park it on their lot and look at it quickly – we probably would have taken them up on it, even if it meant driving home and going forward with phone calls.  In order to make that work, we probably would have had to spend a night or two in a hotel while we arranged a small trailer to transport all the stuff we wouldn’t want to leave in the RV for weeks or months.  Then add in the issue of needing to winterize the RV in case the time frame rolled into winter and at least a few days in a hotel would be in order, plus a trailer rental.  Much of that of course, our roadside would have covered. 

3.  Take advantage of outside resources – as in outside the ring of panic.  FB dd help.  I even got an offer of help from someone who lived in the area.  We didn’t end up using them, but it was appreciated.  Even something simple, like the warranty reminder was quite valuable.

4.  Learn how to use Starlink in portable mode (or have more than one communication service).  We had been using Starlink residential for months in our summer spot in Illinois.  Once at Estes Park, I turned it on – changed my address to that of the park and it worked!  The trouble was, I didn’t pay attention to the Starlink email that arrived shortly afterward, telling me that I’m not allowed to just change the address on my residential service.  They let it work for over a week, but of course the next time I tried to power up – no luck.  On one of the many trips to town, I logged in and added portability and then Starlink worked.  We had to turn on WIFI calling on our phones but we could make and receive calls after that.  

4.  We had savings as a buffer.  We had to do a wire transfer for the down payment (the first time for me).  And we had to have a cashier’s check to pay the driver on delivery.  Some services might take credit cards, but this one did not.  “They” say, don’t leave lots of money in savings, but it was useful for us.  Wherever you keep your emergency fund (or if you plan to use credit cards), you need to be able to get to those funds, via phone or Internet and you might have to move the money via something other than a credit card.  Even if we had managed to choose a lower-cost tow option, the roadside assistance packages cover many of the expenses as REIMBURSEMENTS from your receipts.  As in, three nights in a hotel and food but only with receipts.

5. Make sure you know what service you are getting when you take your RV into a shop.  I knew when we took our pickup truck in, full service was supposed to mean Lube and Oil, among other things.  We just assumed the motorhome was getting the same service.  It wasn’t. No lube on the commercial truck side.  Perhaps we could have asked for it if we hadn’t just assumed we were getting it.  Oil type, other fluids, air filter, cabin filter, chassis lube, etc.  The next time we went to our Ford dealer, there was a new commercial service manager and he said chassis lube WAS supposed to be part of the service.

Ok, time to name names. The shipping company we chose to setup the transport was U Ship 4 Less . They destroyed my transmission mount, snapped 2 of 4 bolts holding the transmision support to the frame – and the company refuses to even answer my communications. Of course, their web site claims to have no liability for any damage resulting from them arranging for shipping. Thus I’m leaving bad reviews anywhere I can, including with the BBB. So, remember the name: U Ship 4 Less and choose someone else to transport your RV, large box or whatever anywhere.

After the motorhome was taken to the first Ford shop – they decided they couldn’t do the work.  So we had to have it towed to another shop two hours away.  That tow truck driver (from Feldkamps) beat the shit out of my driveshaft, u-joint and transaxle yoke – causing over $1200 in damage beat up drive shaft .  

The owner, the company refuses to take any responsibility for the damage.  I’ve tried several ways to communicate including working through the Better Business Bureau and no luck.  So if you need a tow in the Champaign-Urbana , Central Illinois area – choose anyone BUT Feldkamps.

Go back to part one here.