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Wireless Mesh

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Update on long term use of Mesh Hardware

Like the title says we are into year six of the mesh network and some units are now retired. Here are some long term problems:

Via EPIA board melted RAM and RAM holder. Looks like the RAM had corrosion and it melted a bit of the RAM as well as the motherboard. It was located outside in a NEMA 4 enclosure. Small vent hole was used for wiring and did not prevent air was able to penetrate the interior environment. Not a good thing.

Second Morex power supply, located indoor unit running Via EPIA stop working. No idea why it just doesn't work. Second Morex power supply also went on an indoor unit. May be problems with dirty power or just stop working. Not good either.

So far regular PC power supply seem to be long lasting; however, the small fan-less power supply seems to be holding up in extreme conditions.

Intel Mini-itx motherboard that I have written about is now acting funny. I remove any switches such power on or resets so that the unit would be continuously on. This has been running fine but now it wants to have a manual switch to turn the damn thing back on again. Not sure if something has corrupted in the Bios or just the board is breaking down. It too located in NEMA enclosure however with no air coming from the outside.

WRAP boards from PC engine have taken a beating from the Canadian elements. These boards on located outside and are in metal enclosures with outside air circulation. I have seen rusting on the radio cards but the boards still are working fine.

That's all for now.

posted by Don Moskaluk at Sunday, July 05, 2009

8 Comments:

  • Hello,
    Curious as to the status of the Mesh. No posts for some time, it appears Locustworld.com itself has stopped development and shut down many items.

    Have people moved to different technologies?

    Or has this market segment been filled by such technologies such as open-mesh.com?

    Thank you,
    Clinton

    By Blogger C, at 10:38 PM  

  • I was in touch with Locustworld this summer and the operation is focus on the Pro version.

    You still can contact them but It doesn't look like free version will be upgraded any time soon.

    A lot of people have either upgrade, move on, are using other software.

    I am still a hold out because I hadn't had the time to explorer anything else as my network continues to work.

    By Blogger Don Moskaluk, at 7:43 AM  

  • Thank you Don,
    Appreciate a reply... it's very kind of you.

    What surprised me was how the email lists were taken down, and no replies or notice simply saying "Free version has been discontinued".

    For my scenario it emphasized the importance of open-source licensing model and the vulnerabilities of of proprietary lock-in.

    Fish out of water.

    For me, I need a support community, plus the ability to mount the software on micro-devices like the Ubiquiti line of products, plus legacy support for existing i386 hardware.

    Maybe a lot to ask, but OLSRD or open-mesh appear to be strong candidates.

    Glad to hear your mesh is working Don... you are a real trooper and innovator!

    If (when?) i get settled in on a functioning new platform, I'll let u know.

    Clinton

    By Blogger C, at 1:20 PM  

  • OLSRD has just recently taken down their email as well. I think using Locustworld as is not bad but doesn't allow you develop or fork the work.

    I would love to continue moving forward with Locustworld free version but it would take a lot of people to reverse engineer the work and to get where the pro version is.

    So let me know where you end up.

    Thanks

    By Blogger Don Moskaluk, at 5:59 PM  

  • I should have written www.olsr.org, not olsrd.

    Not sure what you mean that they've taken down their email, http://olsr.org/?q=mailing-lists is up and I just subscribed, along with seeing there are archived posts from September and October 2009.

    The people at CUWin said that OLSR have taken improvements from numerous mesh structures and incorporated them into this project... and the guy who replied was from the board of CUWIN

    Guess I'll learn quick enough!

    By Blogger C, at 11:59 PM  

  • i see you dabbled in the ULSR-user list back in May 2008... it seems your concern focused on the fact your system is working well and hence no compelling reason to switch?

    I'm going to see if there is hope in that thread. I need a mesh that works on micro-devices and old i386 as mentioned before.

    By Blogger C, at 12:32 AM  

  • Yeah 386 are good but old. I guess I looking at the solution for mesh in a different way. I look to consolidate mesh with other system to provide services with in the mesh. As a result I would need at least a gigbit processor and high end bus. The problem is when you start routing large files, streaming technology and having a lot of people access you don't want to be bog down with processor. For this reason alone I think Locustworld would be a good choice however every wants more, such as more speed, more bandwidth, more choices etc.

    You read my thoughts on quadruple play, well imagine hosting cloud computing on that as well. Bandwidth baby. I need more bandwidth and 802.11N doesn't cut it. I thought it would but no. Maybe I should go back to my old papers on signal aggregation and see if I can get 3 mesh units working in unison.

    OLSR seems to be the right choice and sounds like they have a good group of people. I would like to try it out but just don't have the time to play with it. It sound like a good choice.

    Ensure what ever you choice is that it can ported to vmware or any other actualization so that you can have multiple solution running off a single processor.

    By Blogger Don Moskaluk, at 7:27 PM  

  • Oh before I forget Qorvus reverse engineered locustworld then took the product into new directions. Maybe Tom Sharples would fork the product and see what can develop from a new direction. That be cool.

    I know Tom put a lot of money into research and engineering. But it would be cool for a lite version or open source version.

    By Blogger Don Moskaluk, at 7:32 PM  

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