Must have lost WiFi last night… help?

[Voodoo99]

You would need 2 layers of redundancy to fail in order for there to be an issue. The XP8 outlet will remain on if Wi-Fi drops. Your Helio will work as normal. You’ll be notified of the Wi-Fi drop via whatever notification level you’ve chosen, and can then figure out why it dropped. A simple reboot, which you can do remotely, or maybe it’s a router issue… either way, they’re not permanent problems, and we get notified so we can take action. I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re thinking.

Agreed, it’s not that bad/disastrous. I am just trying to come up with ways to make it more foolproof. I plan to do some travelling. I’d like to make it as easy as possible on those who so kindly volunteer to feed and watch over the tank and admittedly, easier on myself so I am not worrying about things going wrong while I’m supposed to be relaxing.

 

[BAMatter]

Thanks so much for the test Danny. So, what BAMatter experienced was abnormal? His tiles all turned red and there was nothing he could do except reboot his XP8?

Not all my tiles, just stuff they was plugged into XP8

 

[BAMatter]

Agreed, it’s not that bad/disastrous. I am just trying to come up with ways to make it more foolproof. I plan to do some travelling. I’d like to make it as easy as possible on those who so kindly volunteer to feed and watch over the tank and admittedly, easier on myself so I am not worrying about things going wrong while I’m supposed to be relaxing.

I hear ya. I have a Wyze cam on my sump and tank at all times so I can check things out if I get an alert

 

[Voodoo99]

Not all my tiles, just stuff they was plugged into XP8

Right. But I think Danny’s didn’t turn red at all.

I hear ya. I have a Wyze cam on my sump and tank at all times so I can check things out if I get an alert

lol…. Me too. A Wyze pan cam. Figured it could help troubleshooting one day. “No… to the left, to the left, yes, that one, unplug it!”

 

[Danny]

The only thing you will loose with no wifi is the wifi power strips, wifi power plugs, wifi feeder, Mastertronic and Alkatronic. Anything attached to the control buss will still communicate with the other controllers via the control buss.

The most likely reason they turned red is the status screen gets the info from the wifi master which could not communicate with the XP8 so the tiles were red since the condition was unknown to the wifi master. That does not mean the XP8 was not still controlling them, but it could be a possibility depending on what caused the communication issue. But there should have been an alert that there was an issue that needed to be check on.

 

[Voodoo99]

The most likely reason they turned red is the status screen gets the info from the wifi master which could not communicate with the XP8 so the tiles were red since the condition was unknown to the wifi master. That does not mean the XP8 was not still controlling them, but it could be a possibility depending on what caused the communication issue. But there should have been an alert that there was an issue that needed to be check on.

But if he would have switched to Bluetooth mode would it have resolved the inaccessibility issue? Sorry for all the questions but I am really unclear as to what to expect from the XP8.

 

[Danny]

But if he would have switched to Bluetooth mode would it have resolved the inaccessibility issue? Sorry for all the questions but I am really unclear as to what to expect from the XP8.

No, on bluetooth you have to log into the wifi master for a collective.

 

[BAMatter]

No, on bluetooth you have to log into the wifi master for a collective.

All I had to do was hit the reboot button on the XP8 and all was fine. I could have done it from my bed but I didn’t know what the actual issue was since Broken Collective explanations online seemed to be something wrong with the command bus cables.

 

[Voodoo99]

No, on bluetooth you have to log into the wifi master for a collective.

Ok. I think I understand. For whatever reason, his XP8 did not re-establish communications with his wifi master over the command bus, This caused the XP8 related tiles to turn red since there was no way to verify their current status. It’s possible that the outlets on the XP8 continued to function normally but hard to tell in this case. Bottom line though, I think the XP8 should not have required a reboot to resume normal operations. I would expect this to happen automatically since both sides have the brains and I assume, the capability to do so. @Carlos is this behaviour expected?

 

[Danny]

Ok. I think I understand. For whatever reason, his XP8 did not re-establish communications with his wifi master over the command bus, This caused the XP8 related tiles to turn red since there was no way to verify their current status. It’s possible that the outlets on the XP8 continued to function normally but hard to tell in this case. Bottom line though, I think the XP8 should not have required a reboot to resume normal as restored to fet hadk up to operations. I would expect this to happen automatically since both sides have the brains and I assume, the capability to do so. @Carlos is this behaviour expected?

i always try to figure out how to keep the tank from crashing when there is a failure instead of trying to keep a failure from happening. That worked real well when we had our rolling blackouts over a year ago. There were times We had mo power for 4 hours at a time. It was a 50/50 cycle of power on and power off. The 4 hour cycles lasted about 24 hours. It varied between 1 hour to 4 hours. This went on for almost a week and the temp outside did not get above 32 degrees. The tank did get down below 70 degrees at one point. It took almost two day after power was restored to get back up to 76 degrees. I did not loose any coral of fish. I did have to MP10 flow pumps and a EcoTech battery backup that will run avbout 1 1/2 days without power. That is the only thing that runs without power. Out of all the on and off cycles I only had an issue with a wifi strip 3 times. During power off times there was no return pump, skimmer, lighting or heaters.

 

[Voodoo99]

i always try to figure out how to keep the tank from crashing when there is a failure instead of trying to keep a failure from happening. That worked real well when we had our rolling blackouts over a year ago. There were times We had mo power for 4 hours at a time. It was a 50/50 cycle of power on and power off. The 4 hour cycles lasted about 24 hours. It varied between 1 hour to 4 hours. This went on for almost a week and the temp outside did not get above 32 degrees. The tank did get down below 70 degrees at one point. It took almost two day after power was restored to get back up to 76 degrees. I did not loose any coral of fish. I did have to MP10 flow pumps and a EcoTech battery backup that will run avbout 1 1/2 days without power. That is the only thing that runs without power. Out of all the on and off cycles I only had an issue with a wifi strip 3 times. During power off times there was no return pump, skimmer, lighting or heaters.

That is good advice. I’ve been working on beefing up my safeguards over the past year. UPS on my tank with my MP10, MP40 and C4 on it. Another UPS on my tank router and Ecotech Reeflink. These protect against any power blips that might cause any of these devices to go through lengthy reboots and possible reconnect issues. I have one of those battery powered air stones at the ready for oxygenation during an extended power outage and lastly I bought a gas generator and have a couple of large containers of fresh gas that I cycle through and keep fresh and ready to go. With all that’s going on in the world and the possibility of cyberattacks taking down utilities I don’t feel so crazy anymore for investing in it. I think of it as my tank insurance policy.

 

[Danny]

That is good advice. I’ve been working on beefing up my safeguards over the past year. UPS on my tank with my MP10, MP40 and C4 on it. Another UPS on my tank router and Ecotech Reeflink. These protect against any power blips that might cause any of these devices to go through lengthy reboots and possible reconnect issues. I have one of those battery powered air stones at the ready for oxygenation during an extended power outage and lastly I bought a gas generator and have a couple of large containers of fresh gas that I cycle through and keep fresh and ready to go. With all that’s going on in the world and the possibility of cyberattacks taking down utilities I don’t feel so crazy anymore for investing in it. I think of it as my tank insurance policy.

The backup battery saved my tank. Since then I got a UPS for the router and modem. In an all electric home it really gets boring without any type of access. Hopefully I will have internet access next time if it happens again. Part of the collective has a battery backup.

 

[Danny]

@Voodoo99 since you have some MP series Ecotech's and a ReefLink you might be interested in the link below. It is my build thread on R2R. I got one of the WaveEngine v2's and set it up to control my MP10's by using the RF module out of my ReefLink to do it. The WaveEngine v2 is also now in my collective and is the wifi master. It is at post #149 on page 8.

Build Thread - Canopy and Stand Build for 42 Gallon Hex Tank

I modified a Intllab pump with a different motor to allow two pump heads on a single dosing pump. This has been in use since around March. It has been running so good that I decided to modify one of the spares like this. This time I got some photos as I was doing this. The first three photos...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Voodoo99]

@Voodoo99 since you have some MP series Ecotech's and a ReefLink you might be interested in the link below. It is my build thread on R2R. I got one of the WaveEngine v2's and set it up to control my MP10's by using the RF module out of my ReefLink to do it. The WaveEngine v2 is also now in my collective and is the wifi master. It is at post #149 on page 8.

Build Thread - Canopy and Stand Build for 42 Gallon Hex Tank

I modified a Intllab pump with a different motor to allow two pump heads on a single dosing pump. This has been in use since around March. It has been running so good that I decided to modify one of the spares like this. This time I got some photos as I was doing this. The first three photos...

www.reef2reef.com

Thanks Danny. I took a look at what you did there and the RF swap seems easy enough. What do you see as the advantages of implementing this? The WE would cost me around $400 CDN.

 

[Danny]

Thanks Danny. I took a look at what you did there and the RF swap seems easy enough. What do you see as the advantages of implementing this? The WE would cost me around $400 CDN.

There may not be any real advantage other than having everything in one app. I had a hard time getting the schedules setup on the ReefLink so I never changed them once they were setup. In my opinion it is a lot easier to make changes on the Hydros in the schedules. I still need to tinker with them to figure out what is most like what I was doing with the ReefLink. I can also use some of the 0-10v outputs on it for lighting in my case. I have AC pumps for return and skimmer. I now have 4 direct drive outputs I can use if I replace any of those pumps with a compatible pump to the WE.

 

[Voodoo99]

There may not be any real advantage other than having everything in one app. I had a hard time getting the schedules setup on the ReefLink so I never changed them once they were setup. In my opinion it is a lot easier to make changes on the Hydros in the schedules. I still need to tinker with them to figure out what is most like what I was doing with the ReefLink. I can also use some of the 0-10v outputs on it for lighting in my case. I have AC pumps for return and skimmer. I now have 4 direct drive outputs I can use if I replace any of those pumps with a compatible pump to the WE.

Gotcha. I’ve been ok with the Ecotech interface and configuration. Pretty easy to tweak. Good to know that there is another option though if I need it so thanks for that. One thing on my todo list is to downgrade my Vectra M2 return pump and move it from that crappy Mobius app to Reeflink.