I received my DIY 4D kit with the shake board packaging cut open, hardware missing and log files on the SIM card. Looked used and not brand new. Not happy after paying $470.
Based on the SIM card’s contents the shake last registered as R6699 (and other MACs before), which messed things up.
After burning a new SIM the shake now shows up locally named based on its actual MAC address as R7BC1.
Problem with that is that R7BC1 is already located as a Shake and Boom in England. Instead I can only find my shake as S7BC1 and hitting the MyShake button always points to R7BC1 and not S7BC1.
Does anyone know how to fix this? Is the MAC in England spoofed?
thanks for writing, i am sorry to hear that your initial experience was less than satisfying. as there are many issues you touched on in your query, i will first break it out into its individual elements in order to address each of them in a straightforward manner:
refurbished kit
package cut open
missing HW
appears used
SD card delivery state
test unit R6699 appearing online
competing RS Unit in England
MyShake button in rs.local
handling each in turn:
we do not sell or deliver any refurbished kits, all equipment is new and unused.
if the package was cut open when you received it, this was done by some intermediary party / handler after the package left the office. i will assume, in the first instance, this was done by the customs / import agency the package was imported through.
the HW which was missing is not specified, so i can’t actually speak to this, can you provide more details? which component did not arrive? how was this resolved to get the unit successfully up and running?
i’m not entirely sure what is meant by “Looked used”, but again, all components of our units are delivered new.
the SD card, for DIY kits, is knowingly and intentionally delivered as you found it, i.e., containing log files and evidence of previous executions. this is because the SD card itself must also be tested to confirm it is in a normal working state. for DIY kits, this means that the MAC address for the Raspberry Pi we test with is necessarily different than the Raspberry Pi’s MAC address you attach it to. any data existing as a result of previous executions should, by design and in practice, not cause any problems whatsoever when switching to a different Raspberry Pi.
that the unit connected to the server and advertised itself on first connect with the name ‘R6699’ is indeed unexpected. SOP is that the Pi’s MAC address is queried at boot-up, the station name is defined based on this, and only once all services have been started does the unit connect to the server. i have confirmed that your unit’s first connection did indeed have the wrong station name contained in it. in this case, i would normally request that the log files be forwarded so that i could investigate this further. but since you re-burned the SD card, i will assume they no longer exist? or, did you happen to download them locally before you did the re-burn? if so, please send them along so that i can have a look. in any case, no harm results from this false advertising; i have removed station ‘R6699’ from our server and it no longer appears in our downstream data apps.
since the station name is based on the last four numbers of the MAC address of the Pi’s ethernet socket, it is possible that two Shake units can end up with the same name. when a collision does occur, the server will modify the station name by changing the first character from ‘R’ to ‘S’, rotating through the entire alphabet if this subsequently happens multiple times. a more in-depth discussion of this topic can be found here.
since the station name is ultimately defined server-side, while the rs.local uses the local name assigned at unit boot-up, the MyShake button is unable to properly resolve the stationview URL to the new name in the case when the server has changed it. this problem is planned to be addressed in a future version of the software where the server will deliver the server-side station name back to the unit, resolving this problem. to be clear, there is no spoofing going on between your unit and the like-named unit in england.
coming back to items 1 - 4, the last step of our internal assembly process before closing the box is to have a picture taken of the contents; this picture can be found below for your specific unit, (serial number is visible, and with all sensitive information removed). as can be seen, the package is sealed and all components listed on the invoice at the bottom are contained within.
again, my apologies that you had an unsatisfying experience. we take great pride in our products and are constantly striving to achieve and maintain the highest level of service possible. that said, zero hiccups 100% of the time is not, in reality, feasible. in absence of this, any issue brought to our attention is investigated to the greatest extent possible, and where a remedy can be identified, it is applied at the earliest possible convenience.
thank you again for your quick report to the forum, and welcome to the Shake community, there are a lot of enthusiasts here who are very happy and eager to help out newcomers such as yourself, so please do not hesitate to post any questions here, technical or general, that will aid in making your experience as a citizen seismologist as rewarding as possible.
PS: I looked at the Box the shake came in and it does not appear that it was opened by customs and re-taped. The vertical motion sensor package was cut off the board’s bag (sensor was still sealed) and it looks like this happened between taking the picture and taping the box for shipping.
this is good news, i would love to see the log files. the easiest way would be to mount the SD card and copy the directory /opt/log over to your local machine, and then zip (or whatever method you prefer) and attach them here. uploading to the cloud and providing a link is also fine.
we will check with shipping on our side re: the missing washers and cut packaging.
thanks in advance for the log files, have a nice weekend,
richard
