Controllerless Networks

Hello! 

I had a person not wanting to sleep next to "strong wifi" so i improvised and placed the AP in a open box, to direct the wifi away from his bedroom. i read  the PDF file for the Aruba AP first, it said nothing of any overheating dangers if not mounted in ceiling in the original bracet. And no dangers if covered some sides if standig like in the picture etc.  the back is open.

THe wifi router was in this open box and everything was OK for some time. When the boss of this house was on inspection he was shocked, because the AP was very hot. I was acused of almost starting a fire, because the router in the box was very dangerous beacuse it can not radiate the heat.  Im in trouble.

Do you think this mounting is dangerous? If you dont think this is dangerous, can you help me out providing som info to help my case?

Thank you. Regards

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Johan Hole
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Hi Johan,
You're not in trouble for risk of causing a fire (most recent APs have built-in thermal shutdown functions), but this is definitely not a recommended way to deploy an AP (from both an RF and thermal perspective). It looks like the AP is deployed inside a metal enclosure, in which case you may as well just completely disconnect the AP ;-)
The backs of our APs are made of metal and serve as a heatsink for the device. They're designed & expected to get hot, while also remain well within the safety regulations for accessible metal surfaces.
Did you measure the actual surface temperature of the AP? "Hot to the touch" can be deceiving; metal surfaces can be as high as +70C before being considered a safety risk (which BTW does still not imply they could start a fire..).

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Onno Harms
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