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USB wifi for foxsat-hdr
- Thread starter pharmswo
- Start date
Not as far as I am aware; you could use a WiFi bridge instead.
Peso
Member
For my parents two HDR T2’s I had bought the compatible Wi-Fi dongles. But whether it was them, the T2’s, or the router, they regularly failed to connect.
For years now this has been utterly reliable
In fact one device is hooked to both T2’s. A usb Y cable means whichever box is turned on powers the thing. It’s built in lan cable plugs into one box. It’s lan port is connected to other T2 with a patch cable.
It’s web interface is a direct translation from Chinese, but it can be worked out. I did it!
For years now this has been utterly reliable
In fact one device is hooked to both T2’s. A usb Y cable means whichever box is turned on powers the thing. It’s built in lan cable plugs into one box. It’s lan port is connected to other T2 with a patch cable.
It’s web interface is a direct translation from Chinese, but it can be worked out. I did it!
antipodean
Active Member
I've used this one and it has been utterly reliable.
I powered mine from an external power supply, and used a spare router to connect my two T2s to it. I don't understand how you are attempting to connect yours without a basic router/hub unit.
Peso
Member
I set it up years ago at my parents house, so this from memory.
The Vonet device I got them is configured as a Wi-Fi Bridge connected to my parents router. It then has two LAN ports. One the plug you can see in the Amazon pictures. The other you can’t see in the pictures is a LAN socket on the side where the cables are attach.
The net result two T2’s with Wi-Fi connection.
My dad has now bought a third T2 which ruins my neat solution. I’m just going to get it it’s own Vonet.
Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
That isn't a LAN port, it's a WAN port for use in Access Point mode, and is meant for an upstream connection. It seems to me you've been lucky if it works as a second LAN port when the unit is operating as a wireless bridge (unless this information is buried in the manual somewhere, but considering how brief the instructions tend to be I doubt it).
However, a little ignorance means you've discovered something potentially useful.
...but then when only one unit is on, it is back-feeding +5V into the off unit. This is not a good way to do things (I wouldn't), and again it seems to me you've been lucky.
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Peso
Member
Here is a quote from this webpage
“Two 5v supplies powering the same extended bus with slightly different accuracies is the problem. For example, one sees 4.8v and tries to pull it up to 5v. The other sees 5.1v and tries to sink it down to 5v. In the middle they are attempting to short out 0.3v at whatever current can be mustered.”
This is outside of my electrical understanding, but perhaps my “luck” is a result of identical power supplies.
Or I was suffering a particularly bad bout of the luckvirus when I plugged it all in.
USB backfeeding
A video I think some of you might find of interest, particularly in response to our discussion about the Ve-direct cable and not connecting the 5V pin, or accidentally backpowering your Pi/arduino from a usb hub. I once had a nervous moment after kicking out a polyfuse on a Dell laptop by acciden...
powerforum.co.za
“Two 5v supplies powering the same extended bus with slightly different accuracies is the problem. For example, one sees 4.8v and tries to pull it up to 5v. The other sees 5.1v and tries to sink it down to 5v. In the middle they are attempting to short out 0.3v at whatever current can be mustered.”
This is outside of my electrical understanding, but perhaps my “luck” is a result of identical power supplies.
Or I was suffering a particularly bad bout of the luckvirus when I plugged it all in.
Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
That's talking about when both units are on. I was talking about when one unit is off and therefore has 0V on its USB output, so the voltage difference is about 5V!
I had a vaguely similar problem many years ago, designing a multiply-redundant UPS-supplied PC array. I ended up with relays wired to ensure any particular PC received a power feed from only one UPS at any particular time, but still allowed for any particular UPS to fail without losing power overall.
The real problem came when implementing an emergency off: the reason for the UPSs in the first place was unreliable mains, so it was necessary to distinguish between a mains failure and a deliberate emergency mains disconnection. I wonder how many systems engineers consider that a UPS is an energy store, and the safety code of practice requires that it be possible to isolate equipment from any source of energy? What about your laptop battery???
I had a vaguely similar problem many years ago, designing a multiply-redundant UPS-supplied PC array. I ended up with relays wired to ensure any particular PC received a power feed from only one UPS at any particular time, but still allowed for any particular UPS to fail without losing power overall.
The real problem came when implementing an emergency off: the reason for the UPSs in the first place was unreliable mains, so it was necessary to distinguish between a mains failure and a deliberate emergency mains disconnection. I wonder how many systems engineers consider that a UPS is an energy store, and the safety code of practice requires that it be possible to isolate equipment from any source of energy? What about your laptop battery???
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This morning I tried a couple of USB WiFi dongles in the Foxsat-HDR and had a poke around using Telnet via an Ethernet cable, one of the dongles was the Edimax that works in the HDR-T2. Neither dongle showed anything via lsusb, but then again nothing showed via lsusb when I plugged in a USB drive. From looking on the HDR-T2 CF pages, I saw references to an inbuilt rt3070 WiFi driver and listing the contents of /proc/bus/usb/devices and wondered if that may give some clues. Unfortunately the file /proc/bus/usb/devices does not exist no matter what is plugged into the usb port although the /proc/bus/usb directory does exist. The USB drive is recognised, as I can see it via the 'df' command.
lsmod shows:
humax_fpga 2416 0 - Live 0xc0093000
bcmdriver 26864 2 - Live 0xc009b000
I'm guessing that all of the device drivers are built into the bcmdriver module so no way of knowing what's in there?
Bit of a shame really, but I have no idea what to try next, so may have to give up & get a USB-Wifi bridge.
lsmod shows:
humax_fpga 2416 0 - Live 0xc0093000
bcmdriver 26864 2 - Live 0xc009b000
I'm guessing that all of the device drivers are built into the bcmdriver module so no way of knowing what's in there?
Bit of a shame really, but I have no idea what to try next, so may have to give up & get a USB-Wifi bridge.
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bottletop
Active Member
Cheap Ethernet WiFi adapter/bridge device.
Edimax BR-6258N (probably old stock)
Pros: this particular one is cheap.
Cons: power socket is opposite to LAN sockets, so it becomes a bit bulky with cables connected
Other: size: 40x60x18mm.
I purchased one a while ago and use it on occasions.
Alternative to some functions of TP-LINK TL-WR702N, but the WR702N has better socket arrangement.
Edimax BR-6258N (probably old stock)
Pros: this particular one is cheap.
Cons: power socket is opposite to LAN sockets, so it becomes a bit bulky with cables connected
Other: size: 40x60x18mm.
I purchased one a while ago and use it on occasions.
Alternative to some functions of TP-LINK TL-WR702N, but the WR702N has better socket arrangement.
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Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
Seems like a bargain, especially compared with a WR702N!
Many thanks to @bottletop for the eBay link. I finally got round to ordering the Edimax on Sunday, it arrived yesterday (Thursday).
As noted on the eBay listing, it comes as a bare unit with no cables or manual. The manual is readily available on the Edimax website.
After a bit of messing around with the config to get the device into Infrastructure mode & then get the WiFi credentials sorted, it now works really well. The Edimax does not get a DHCP IP address while in Infrastructure mode, so if you want to change or look at the config, you either need to access the device using it's default IP or change the device's static IP to something outside of your normal DHCP range but within your LAN subnet.
After setting up the Edimax using my Laptop, I plugged it into the Humax, using power from the rear USB socket that's underneath the RJ45 Ethernet socket. The Humax powers the USB when it's online and gets the IP Address via DHCP, after that access to the main web page is possible.
Curiously, the network settings page on the Foxsat shows some odd DNS servers:
Via the DHCP setting it shows 152.4.184.0 (University of North Carolina)
Via the manual settings page 144.148.28.72 (AT&T Services, Inc.)
I'm fairly sure that my DHCP server does not give out either of those addresses, but I'm not overly worried.
As noted on the eBay listing, it comes as a bare unit with no cables or manual. The manual is readily available on the Edimax website.
After a bit of messing around with the config to get the device into Infrastructure mode & then get the WiFi credentials sorted, it now works really well. The Edimax does not get a DHCP IP address while in Infrastructure mode, so if you want to change or look at the config, you either need to access the device using it's default IP or change the device's static IP to something outside of your normal DHCP range but within your LAN subnet.
After setting up the Edimax using my Laptop, I plugged it into the Humax, using power from the rear USB socket that's underneath the RJ45 Ethernet socket. The Humax powers the USB when it's online and gets the IP Address via DHCP, after that access to the main web page is possible.
Curiously, the network settings page on the Foxsat shows some odd DNS servers:
Via the DHCP setting it shows 152.4.184.0 (University of North Carolina)
Via the manual settings page 144.148.28.72 (AT&T Services, Inc.)
I'm fairly sure that my DHCP server does not give out either of those addresses, but I'm not overly worried.
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Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
Beware that there is a risk the unit might not power up and connect to the WiFi soon enough to handle the Foxsat's DHCP request. If that happens on a HDR-FOX, a default IP address is assigned (which is of no use), and the DHCP is not retried. That might be different on Foxsat, but the way around it is to force a DHCP manually and then switch IP to manual.
Seems OK, just booted from Standby and got a DHCP address. Good point though & if it starts to miss getting an address, I'll set a static via the setup menu.