Adding Wifi network to our 2019 337RLS

[WRingling]

Now I go down into the basement and push a wire snake up the conduit to use to pull the cables down to the basement.

I attach the slim cat6 cables to the wire snake. I also added a small pull wire (yellow wire) so that when I get the Everst roof top unit I can use that to pull its wire to the basement as well without needing to re snake the conduit.

Since the cables are both the same length there was a little extra cable for the one in the kitchen so I coiled it up and will leave it in the ceiling vent area.


A this stage I now have it complete from the AP's all the way to the basement area.

I had planned to put the Router device in a small shelf above the fuse panel. This looks like a prefect place to put this part. I may even put the small nas device I am going to build on the shelf too.


Now its on to powering the devices.

Continued in next post.

[WRingling]

So back in the first post when I ran the blue conduits I also put some multiconductor wiring in the wall from the convenience center to the fuse panel area. You can see the three conductor sticking out of the panel in the below picture. This is the wiring that will control the low 12v DC to the RV network.


Next I strip back the wiring and prep for the switch install. I only had a single blank space without damaging the Grand Design logo in the center section.

Once I pulled out the fuse panel I drilled two 3/4 holes in the back of the shelf area from the fuse box area. You can see in the pictures that I ran the power feed from the shelf area down into the fuse box area so that I can join all the wires together behind the fuse panel and out of the way.




In the three conductor wire I am using the black wire as the power feed wire. The red wire is the switched power back from the switch and the white wire is used to light the led in the switch once its turned on. After applying heat shrink to all the soldered connections and using some wire ties to make things neat.

Continued in next post

[WRingling]

Now its time to get the cat6 cables from the basement area up into the shelf area where the devices are going to go. So I take the white wire again and push it back into the basement area and attach the end of the yellow cable to it and pull it up into the space gently.



I also try to route the cables away from high voltage as I am routing them. Now they are in the space where there will connect to the router device.


Now its time to connect the power feed to the fuse panel. You will be working in close proximity to high voltage if you have your coach plugged in. I recommend that you disconnect your coach from shore power and make sure there is no live high voltage in the fuse panel before you start this next part. My fuse panel has four extra unused fuse taps available. I decided to just use the bottom one to power my devices. After I ran the feed wires into the low voltage side of the panel I was able to push down on the black retained at the bottom of the board and then pull out a smidge in order to get the white wire behind the board and over to the ground bar in the low voltage area of the panel. Make sure you are working with the low voltage side and not the line voltage side.


Next I put in a fuse so that I can power up the cables to figure out which wires need to go where on the switch. I plan to lower this fuse rating after I figure out what the NAS device will draw.


Now that I have power on the wires I need to figure out how to wire the switch as it did not come with a diagram of its terminals. So I take my Ohm meter and figure out which two it takes for the switching and then that leaves the one that is needed for the light in the switch. Your switch may use a different configuration for which terminals need what to power the devices.

Continued in next post.

[WRingling]

My network device shelf now looks like below. It can use some cleanup but for now I have an idea how much of the room I can dedicate to the NAS device.



Now, What does the wifi look like around the coach. Was the second AP needed? Take a look at the below info and decide for yourself.

Remember: 2.4 goes through walls and other obstacles better than 5ghz does. So I am using 2.4 as my reading gauge because it would be the best case reading between the two for signal strength.

Taking a wifi reading at the TV (where the Kodi will be mounted) at the back of the coach in the rear living space shows a great signal as I would expect.



Next was a reading out in front of the coach in the truck. Which I wanted to be able to use the RV wifi while traveling. As you can see the 5ghz network is not even available and the 2.4 is showing only a partial signal.



Now we try beside the coach at a 30ft distance. This looks much better and acceptable.



Now lets power up with Bedroom AP and shut down the Kitchen AP. This reading is out in front of the RV in the truck. As you can see both the 2.4 and 5ghz are showing up on the phone and the 2.4 is at an acceptable -55


And last but not least is the side reading for the bedroom AP. I was a little surprised by these readings as I thought it would be a little better but both AP's are showing good stable connection signal strength.



So did I need two AP's? Well the readings I got today lean in the direction of yes it was needed. Could I have gotten by without the second on. Maybe.

A this stage of the project I think its time to now start working on the Kodi media device which will be mounted on the TV at the rear of the coach. I will update soonish as I have the device and have loaded the Kodi software already. So I will go into mounting and hookup in my next post.

[WRingling]

Over the last few weeks I have received more of the items I ordered for the project and have processed on this project.

I got the following items in

Rasp Pi 3B+ board
https://www.amazon.com/ELEMENT-Eleme...1509482&sr=8-6

Heat sink kit and case
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3301...111c4c4dKdXpsk


Convert 12v to 5v for the pi
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I assembled the heat sink to my Rasp Pi 3b+ and assembled into the case. The mounting brackets attach to the case so that you can easily mount the case to a bracket I made to hold the Pi and power convter behind the TV using two small U shaped holes in the tv bracket.





So now its on to the bracket to hold these items to the back of the TV.

After assembly of all the parts it looks like below.

Mounting to the TV in next post.

[WRingling]

So here is a picture of the U shaped slots that I used to mount the bracket to.

After attaching the bracket with the PI on it it now looks good behind the TV. I like this because I did not have to put and holes in the back paneling and can change this setup as technology evolves.



With the device now mounted to the back of the TV we are ready for power. In my next batch of posts I will power the Media player and also I have decided to add some more USB charging ports to the area under the TV so that we can charge our phones closer to us.

[WRingling]

For those of you who are keeping an eye out for info on the RV Nas project I have some good news. I have received The OrangePi 3 board and two of the X852 boards. I loaded up a linux distro called Armbian and enabled Samba for file sharing. The power readings show that it will be possible to have a nas device with up to 2 X 2tb msata ssd storage for about .45A at 12vdc. If expanded to the max card count of 4 of the X852 boards and a total storage of 16TB will be possible and will pull about 1.33a at 12vdc. I have been working on an expandable nas case in tinkercad that will house the OPI3 at the top and have stackable nas sections that will allow the unit to start with one X852 board and have the ability to add up to additional three sections to the middle of the stack as storage needs expand. All of the data will be stored on mSata ssd boards. My initial write speed looks to be around 70+MBs. That is not blazing but for a RV nas for backups from devices or being used as a digital movie repository it will work great. The four usb3 ports on the OPI3 allow each X852 board to read/write at the max speed they can handle. I'm hoping to have alot more info on this phase of the project in the next few weeks. Shipping is so slow now its painful.

[WRingling]

Nas project update. Ove the last few weeks I have been working on a stackable NAS case that can expand to 16TB of ssd msata style modules. Below are the pictures of the case and its sections that I have designed and printed with my 3d printer. I already have put together some of the parts into a case and will be posting more how to finish the project. I thought I would upload these pictures to show its stacking abilites for expansion. Each layer (base or expansion can hold two 2TB msata modules for a max of 4TB per layer.




In the next post I will include some interior views of the four parts that make up this stacking Nas Case.

[WRingling]

Here are a few pictures of the insides of the sections.





I will tease with the following pictures of the testing for fit and usability that I have already done for the sections. I plan to post the assembly with pictures this week with part links so that assembly can be a breeze.


Stay tuned for layer by layer how to next.

[howson]

WRingling -- wow.

[WRingling]

To build the bottom base layer we need to install the power jack and the power switch and some wiring along with the X852 board. I have already installed two 512GB mSata boards in my base layer.

If the power jack is hard to see its pic is below

You can get this jack and the rocker switch at the below links. The jack is just a panel mount 5.5mm X 2.1mm round low voltage power jack.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-PCS-5-5-M...53.m2749.l2649

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

One we have it all wired up it should look like the below image. I used m2X4 screws to mount the X852 boards into the stackable case pieces.

You will want to leave about 7in of extra wire to go up through the stack to the CPU module on top if you want to expand to a max out stack setup. You can always replace the wires later with longer ones if they are too short.


The next part to make are the power feed cables that go to the X852 boards that hold the ssd msata modules. I shortened one pair of them about 1 1/2 in as they can be shorter as they will be powering the top two layers and don't require as long a cable. As you can see the wires at their longest are about 9in long. I soldered everything together and used shrink wrap so that everything is insulated. I also combined the four into a single 18ga feed that will be attached to the power supply module in the CPU layer. I felt it was easier to have one wire to deal with up there than a larger four.

The power cables I got are like the below ones.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Pairs-Min...YAAOSwW2VfXZYh


One thing you need to make sure of is the polarity of your connections. The X852 boards come with a short jumper wire to connect the X852 to an Rasp Pi Board. The OPI3 board does not have the header for that connection but it does show you the polarity and the cables that I got were backwards. Check and check again. Things will not power up if you have the polarity backwards.


Onto the next post which covers the expansion layer(s).

[WRingling]

There layers are pretty easy as you already have created the power cables for them if you did what I did able. Again I used the m2X4 screws to attach the X852 boards to the expansion layers.

Ok, we can now stack the expansion layer in the base layer

You can stop there or you can keep adding layers up to three expansion layers.

Next post will be the CPU layer. That is where the brains of this unit will be. Also the buck transformer will be in the CPU layer.

[WRingling]

A this stage we are starting to have something that looks pretty cool.

The next part is to assemble the OPI3 board and power supply into the stacking CPU sections. The below links are for the OPI3 board and the power supply. 12v to 5v buck converter.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The above power supply is rated to 50W at 5V dc so it should handle a fully expanded Nas that is maxed out. Again I used the m2X4 screws to attach the board and power supply to the section.


I have designed this CPU layer to not use a fan but I did reserve enough room in the lower left corner an area that could be cut out and a fan installed. If a fan is installed then I would redo the Top lid part and remove all the holes and such so that a air path can be created to pull air from the bottom of the case up through and out the top of the case. With the wiring up through the case and connected it looks like below.

The power jack for the OPI3 is not the standard 5.5mm X 2.1. They use a 4X1.7 style jack. The blow link is an example of these jacks that I used on my project. I chose these because they are a tad shorter than some are and do not expose as much of the uninserted plug as some do. It seems they make them in two lengths in order for them to reach through the outer casing of devices to plug into the boards.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-4-0x1-...53.m2749.l2649


I soldered the wire so that it would be a little easier to push into the power supply connector for the screw to tighten up on. The below image shows us all wired up. REMEBER polarity.. If your wires were reversed like mine then you hook them up backwards like I had to.
The 4X1,7 plug also had some backwards wire colors so I identifed which was ground and which hot with a multimeter. The outer surface of the plug in needs to be ground with the post in the middle being the power connection.

I added some heat sinks to my board as I want to go fanless. The below image shows the chip layout for my board.

On my board I added heatsinks to the CPU, ethernet, usb and ram chips. Below are links to the heat sinks I purchased.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Heatsink-Co...53.m2749.l2649

The below picture shows the board with heat sinks attached.



And here is a picture the device with the top cover in place. As you can see the CPU and power supply heat sinks have direct ventilation out of the case to aid in their effeteness.

Next post will be the wrap up of the CPU layer which includes the power light to show the unit is still active.

[WRingling]

Now all that is left if to create the led light that will show when the unit is on.



I am using a 5mm flat top led for my status light. I do not have a link for these as I had a bunch in my electronics box and have no idea where I got them from. I am also using a 5.6K Ohm resistor to reduce the 3.3V from the board power to lessen the amount of light the led puts out.

Not the prettiest of solders but they will do. Now we install it into the case. The below shows the installed led and where it plugs in. The pins on the header that are used for this led are pins 1 and pins 6. Pin1 is 3.3V + and pin 6 is GND. These two pins are only live when the board is in a running state. When you issue a shutdown command the LED will turn off after the OS has halted. Then it is safe to turn off the power switch in the base.



As you can see the CPU light is on and also there are status lights for the X852 boards. The X852 boards will flash the LED of whichever SSD modules is being accessed. So you can tell when the Nas is busy reading/writing files or is idle.

In the next post I am going to show some pictures of how you split the stack to perform upgrades or repairs to the SSD modules.

[WRingling]

Now one of the things I designed into the case was the ability to replace or repair the boards in the middle of the stack. So below are pictures that show how the stack can be opened up to access the sections for upgrades of SSD modules or repairs.



I have ordered some M2X6 pan head black screws that I will use to attach each section to the section below it. These screws bite really well into the PLA of the case material and they should be very durable.

In my next post I will go over the USB connections and bringing the system online.