Resolved by thetechguru!
First question and problem: I think the intent is to be able to connect up to 5 EZB's through ARC. However I've hit a wall trying to connect ARC to two V4 EZB's when they are in AP (Access Point) mode. Using my laptop I've followed directions and connected ARC to the first V4 after establishing a wireless connection through the "Wireless Network Connection" icon on my Win 7 Taskbar. Then when I try to connect wirelessly to the second V4 EZB I lose the wireless connection to the first. My laptop will only let me have more then one wireless connection at a time. What am I missing here?
Second question and problem: With both V4's in Client mode and the Green light blinking (the voice says she's attached to my network), I can only have one EZB powered up at a time and have a successful search of my router for a IP address. If both are powered up and attached to the network ARC cant find an address. Is this normal? I've watched the tutorial several times.
Third Problem: For two nights now after the laptop and robot are powered down the second EZB entry in ARC will not connect to the second EZB board. I have to push the network reset button on EZB and redo the IP search in client mode.
AH HA! Success. This morning was the first time ever I was able to get both EZB's to connect to ARC after being powered down over night. Looks like the changes made have worked!
I'll now be doing the final setup, clean up all wires, do a few more tests (mainly on powering up both EZB's at the same time) and reattach the EZB's to the robot. Then I'll make my final declaration and summery of what has been happening over the past week or so and how I stand now with this issue.
Thanks all for all the help and support through this. Hopefully this will help others down the line.
Dave Schulpius
Congrats Dave!
Thanks @d.cochran but I've hit another bump. I changed the set up around and wanted the EZB's and the laptop running ARC to be accessing the router through the Engenius 350 that's set in Repeater Mode and down in the basement game room. Everything else in the house assesses the internet straight through the router itself on the main floor. I quickly found that the Engenius 350 in repeater mode will not pass through the Mac Addresses of the EZB's and laptop. The Router see's the same Mac Address for the Engenius 350 and for all three units. So the result is I can't use static addresses with the router and the second EZB is getting lost again and wont connect. Only one EZB will appear at a time but each keeps swapping in and out of the list.
I've read that if I set it up as a wired access point instead of a repeater the Mac addresses of the wireless clients should pass through. That's one option. The other option is to move the router back down to the game room where the robot stands and move the repeater to the main floor. That way I can access the router directly with the EZB's and control laptop and the rest of the house can use the Engenius 350 as a repeater.
Not really sure which way to go yet. confused I guess I'll do like I've done with everything else so far and just do something even if it's wrong.
Here is how I have setup these before and they work great like this.
When you move from one EAP to the other, it will pick you up and start sending traffic to the other EAP.
I would set both of these up in AP mode with both broadcasting the same SSID. Just be sure that your main router and this router are on different IP addresses.
just to be clear, I would hard wire the AP to the router. Use a power injector to provide power to the AP.
I would setup the AP to have a unique IP address and then set both the AP and the router up to have the same SSID.
When signal gets low, the device will try to connect to the router with the stronger signal. It works for cell phones, tablets, laptops and everything else I have tried. I don't have an EZ-B yet thought.
Thanks @d.cochran for the elegant and clear instructions. They were a big help changing over to AP mode.
I've completed the switch from Repeater to AP mode but I did make one change from your suggestion @d.cochran. I gave the SSID of the AP a unique name. I really don't want any other device accessing it other then the robot's EZB's and the control laptop.
Now that I understand the concept of and the way to change settings in the Engenius EAP350 it was really very simple. I almost had it the first time was mucking around. However I didn't know I had to not only apply the changes I made in the page I entered them into but also in the master Change folder that list all the changes made during that session. Why programmers insist on having you save the same information twice is beyond me. ARC makes you do this also. eek You not only need to save changes and settings in scripts and such but also when you exit the ARC or they won't be saved. Can someone tell me why this is the case? (Sorry I had to blow off a little steam blush ).
Anyway, now that I have the Engenius EAP350 in AP mode I have it hard-wired to my new router and have excellent signal strength near the robot. I also have confirmed that the original device's MAC Addresses are being passed through the Engenius to the router. The static IP address previously entered for the EZB's are working now and both EZB's are now popping up in the Client list and I can connect to both in ARC. I'm also pretty sure I can now power up both EZB's at the same time and the router will recognize each separately. I'll power down over night and confirm this hopefully for the last time in the morning.
The whole secret to success here was to have a good router that can assign and keep IP addresses associated with the Device's MAC Addresses. Because of this I need to give the Kudos to Alan as he's been saying this from the beginning. Thanks man!
Just a footnote: I think I would have been OK with running everything in the basement just on the new router on the main floor. Before I installed the Engenius EAP3500 in the basement in AP mode I tried several times and successfully connected to both the new router and ARC with both EZB's. I even powered them both on at the same time and the new router found both as separate units and with a "Good" signal strength message. However my anal personality with the need to complicate things needed an "Excellent" signal and to have everything attached to the robot on it's own AP.
If something else happens concerning this thread I'll be sure to update. In the mean time THANKS to all who held my hand through this. I hope others have or will learn from this experience. I know I have! cool
Happy building and have fun!
Dave
Dave,
Glad they are working for you. Also glad you have crazy good wifi in your house now. Your family will appreciate it. I know mine has even though they have become numb to the fact that they can connect to the internet from anywhere around the house.
Grats and I look forward to following your project. It is a really nice build you have going on.
I've confirmed now that I can power everything up at once now (both EZB's and the entire robot) and have both EZB's connect in ARC. Looks like everything is working as designed.
Now I can finally get to work again and see just what the V4's can do for me!
Thanks again for the help and support.