Electronic timer to cycle Mobley to avoid timeout

In this thread I discuss moving my Mobley SIM to another device if it can be done.

In the meantime, I have been using an electronic timer to cycle the Mobley every two hours - I have it occur on the top of each even hour so I know when to expect it. The timer works well enough, but it is somewhat irritating to have the internet down for two minutes; inevitably it will be while I'm in the middle of something or streaming and forget it's about to occur.

I have read that others have timers which are off for only a second or two, whereas by the time mine cycles the Mobley is offline for a couple minutes. If anyone has the one second version I'd appreciate a link. Thx

(I've also heard from others that the Mobley won't timeout using various sources of power - I have found mine will timeout using either the USB converter I have, or the 120V adapter. The only time it doesn't timeout is if I have it plugged into the OBD receptacle on my truck.)

What you need is an old style 120V AC to 12V DC unregulated transformer, not a new style switch mode power supply, these will have enough DC voltage variation in them to keep the Mobley awake as the Mobley is a highly variable amp load which will cause the transformer output to vary.

Common wall wart style power supplies built in the last 10-15 years are almost all switch mode units, you can tell because they are very light, where the transformer units will weigh half a pound or more.

Something like this on one on ebay for about $11 would likely work https://www.ebay.com/itm/Jameco-Reliapro-DCU120050E8601-AC-DC-Wall-Adapter-Single-Output-12V-0-5A-6-Watt/122167946201

p.s. even with such a transformer power brick Mobley's are somewhat prone to locking up from time to time, I have a relative using one of these style transfomers to power a Mobley, and they will still have to manually reboot it (unplug and plug back in) once every few weeks.

Isaac-1 said:

even with such a transformer power brick Mobley's are somewhat prone to locking up from time to time, I have a relative using one of these style transfomers to power a Mobley, and they will still have to manually reboot it (unplug and plug back in) once every few weeks.

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I have the same issue, more like every week or so. For that reason, while I'm sure the transformer solution would work, I'd prefer the timer. That way it reboots itself


Adding to the mix is an alarm system tied to the cellular, so I need it to "take care of itself" to the greatest degree possible when I'm gone

Back2PA said:

I have read that others have timers which are off for only a second or two, whereas by the time mine cycles the Mobley is offline for a couple minutes. If anyone has the one second version I'd appreciate a link. Thx

(I've also heard from others that the Mobley won't timeout using various sources of power -

Click to expand...

Hi Scott

Thank you for your very complete replies.  Here is a link to the "second" equipped timer I got from Amazon.  ~$12.00

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G6O28NA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has worked well although it takes a little effort to set it up initially IMO.  This timer needs a 120V supply, so that's what would be powering the Mobley as well.  My Mobley goes off about every 20 minutes, but I have the "time off" set to 2 seconds on the timer, so adding in the reconnect time, I'm offline for about 17 seconds.  This works, but "always on" would be better!

With regard to the power supply preventing the timeout, I was helped by Lou S. last year at Quartzite who said I should be using a 12V supply to keep the Mobley on.  My initial Mobley adapter was for plugging into a 120V normal wall outlet.  So I did purchase a 12V adapter, as recommended by Lou and it did solve the timeout problem.  HOWEVER, after about 6 months of usage, the Mobley would turn off, and by just barely touching it or the wires would cause it to come back on. It seemed that one or both of the "leads" on this homemade product (selling on Amazon) were unstable.  It took some time to pinpoint the problem as I never knew if the signal was perhaps down, or crowded or whatever.  Sometimes it would work all day long, but not overnight, and sometimes the other way around.  I was in some pretty sparsely populated spots, and I learned that the service was from local cellular companies from which ATT simply rented the access.  Who knows what transmission routines these local yocals might follow? 

To try to figure out the problem, I finally disassembled it, and sure enough, one of the wires was barely making contact - bad solder!  The easiest thing to do was simply purchase another adapter, and unfortunately, the only supplier left on Amazon was the same seller that I purchased the first one from.  But, being desperate, I went ahead and got a second 12V adapter.  It worked for about 3 days, and then started the same bad connection routine as the one I was replacing.  Having already spent $50 on 12V adapters, I just reverted back to using the timer.  I didn't contact Amazon or the seller because at the time I was hassling with this, I had my back breaking incident was out of commission for a couple of months.  At some point, I'll probably pursue getting the wires re-soldered and will try using the 12 V again.

I too have to periodically reboot the Mobley but it's not very often.

Linda

Dreamsend said:

Here is a link to the "second" equipped timer I got from Amazon.  ~$12.00

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G6O28NA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has worked well although it takes a little effort to set it up initially IMO.  This timer needs a 120V supply, so that's what would be powering the Mobley as well.  My Mobley goes off about every 20 minutes, but I have the "time off" set to 2 seconds on the timer, so adding in the reconnect time, I'm offline for about 17 seconds.  This works, but "always on" would be better!

Click to expand...

I received the timer today - not the most intuitive setup I must say. I've got mine set for 59 minutes 59 seconds on, one second off (I chose hourly so I'd know about when it's going to cycle). I watched the cycle process using my iPhone, the timer cycled off for one second, but by the time the Mobley reconnected and the phone recognized that the wifi was again available and hooked up, it was a little less than a minute. Longer than I'd hoped but probably at least a minute or two faster than the old timer. I'll have to watch the laptop and see if it reconnects sooner.