DWL-900AP+ External Mounting

[Akash Heimlich]

Jason,

I've obtained a solar charge controller (item code PS24) manufactured by
Phocos (Germany)...  They have a dealer in Australia too:

Plasmatronics Pty Ltd. 
42 Bell Street, Fitzroy, 
Victoria, Aus. 3065 
Australia 

Phone +61(3)9486-9902 
Fax +61(3)9486-9903 

admin at plasmatronics.com.au 
www.plasmatronics.com.au


It's basically a very compact black box with carry strap ``that contains
a charge controller for a solar panel, and a 24Ah battery.  I am testing
with a 36 watt solar panel, but I'm not sure you require such a high
capacity.  The output is 12V, so you just have to build a simple
regulator with an LM317 or something similar.   
Attach an access point (DWL-900AP+) as a repeater, and voila, it works!
:D
As I said in the last message, the AP is housed in a PVC pipe and
wrapped in tinfoil...

I'll try and get some pics up on the web soon!

- Akash
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Faulks, Jason [mailto:Jason.Faulks at det.nsw.edu.au]
> Sent: Dienstag, 25. Marz 2003 00:58
> To: Akash Heimlich
> Subject: RE: DWL-900AP+ External Mounting
> 
> Akash,
> 
> I have been lurking in the mailing list for months now reading and
> making notes of details that interest me. I am keen to build a bridge
> between my network and a friends but there is a large hill in between
> here and the other end. The only option is a solar powered repeater so
I
> am keen to know the specs of your power supply arrangement (including
> your part numbers and calculations if possible). Is there a web site
> somewhere that you have published your design?
> 
> Best regards,
> Jason.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Akash Heimlich [mailto:akash at zeroplus.de]
> Sent: Monday, 24 March 2003 9:11 PM
> To: wireless at lists.samba.org
> Subject: DWL-900AP+ External Mounting
> 
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> I'm *very* new to wireless but have done lots of research on the net
and
> got myself 3 DWL-900AP+ (firmware 2.5) units.  Since it get rather hot
> in India, I decided to house the units in a large PVC pipe.  I opened
> the unit, and fixed the external antenna connector to the top of the
PVC
> Pipe to mount an omni on top.  I then 'tied' the unit to an aluminium
> plate (which acts as a heat sink) inside the PVC tube. I then wrapped
> the entire tube in silver foil to protect it from the heat.  Oh, and
> since the unit is running of a solar panel/batter, I have an LM317
> converter to provide 5V DC, this is in a separate unit, and it's set
to
> give exactly 5V at the end of 4 m cable the goes into the unit.
> 
> Now, the idea was to have one act as access point and one as repeater.
> They are about 500 m apart with 5dBi omnis, and line-of-sight.  At 11
> mbit they drop packets when sending but they function ok at about 2
> MBit.  Now I have 3 problems:
> 
> First, in the configuration as ap-repeater-client, I could access the
> repeater from about 500m away using my 3rd DWL-900AP+ as a client.
> Downloading went well, but I could not UPLOAD through the repeater,
> although pings worked fine!   So, I had to change the configuration to
> client-ap-client, and then I could upload/download successfully.
> Strange.
> 
> Second, sometimes the speed would drop to 1 MBit due to something or
> other.  At 1 MB, it shows me that I have an excellent connection, but
> the unit does NOT transfer data and pings timeout. (I tried this using
a
> netgear PCMCIA card).  And the worst of it is that it if ever drops to
1
> MBit it never recovers, which means I have to reset the unit.  I am
> wondering if this could have anything to do with the aluminium plate
the
> ap is tied to?  I have it configured with full strength on the
external
> aerial, so I doubt it's that, but...?
> 
> And third and wierdest, every day between 10 am and 1:05 pm, the unit
> connected to the solar panel/battery resets randomly every 30 seconds
or
> 1 minute.  At 1:05 (I saw this 3 days in a row) it just started to
work
> fine.  Now, I could imagine a heat problem, but at 1 its still the
> hottest time of day, so that's not logical.  And the power supply
cannot
> be that unstable either, since the problem would occur more frequently
> then.  Of course yesterday at 1:05 it just hung (kept sending packets
> but was not responsive).  Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Akash
> **********************************************************************
> This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain
> privileged information or confidential information or both. If you
> are not the intended recipient please delete it and notify the sender.
> **********************************************************************