Adding Wifi network to our 2019 337RLS

[WRingling]

The weather broke here and I got a chance to do some more work on the media player power setup. I needed to get the media player power done so that when the NAS is ready I can test it with the media player.

I had a few goals that I wanted to take care of with the setup of the power of the media player.

1) Move the HDMI cable from the built in dvd player to the TV. It really miffed me that I could look behind the TV while standing in front of it and see a cable coming out of the back panel. That just seemed to me to be a bad location for that cable to exit the space behind the TV.
2) Reuse the hole from the HDMI cable to mount a switch that will turn on the Media player.
3) Add another Dual USB charger port by the TV as the coach did not have a charger location in the rear of the coach.

So below is what the back of the TV area looked like before I started my mods.

Before I went out to the coach to start on the wiring I created the below two harnesses for the wiring I was going to do. This the same 5.5mmX2.1mm power port that I used on the NAS project above. The power port plate is oen that I created in tinerkercad and printed with my 3d printer. If you wish to use my same stl file to print your own let me know and I will send it to you. I do not see a way here to include files that are not images.


Now that I have the harnesses created I am ready to start installing. I take a look and see there is nothing in the way below and to the right, so I bore a hole that fits the plastic ring that protects the HDMI wire rubbing on the side of the hole.

So now the HDMI wire if out of the way. Now its on to drilling the hole for the power port. I used a 3/4 speed bore to make the hole for the power port to mount into. I did find out that there is a thicker panel behind the paneling that I also had to drill into but again nothing was behind it that was in the way.

Now we can mount the power port plate and route the wires to the correct locations to hook them up.

I will continue in the next post the next steps.

[WRingling]

Now we are ready to wire up the switch.

I used the following switch plate for the switch
https://www.rvpartscountry.com/Black...h_p_34815.html

The switch is available here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1



Then I mounted the switch plate to the rear panel. It was real close to not covering but did cover the hole.

Now we are ready to patch into the power wires to the antenna plate to hook up our switch so we can test the light on the switch only lights in the on position and not stay on all the time. If the light stays on all the time you need to swap the two +12v wires on the switch. Lucky for me I got the wires right the first time and it only lights when turned on.

Now we are going to move on to installing the extra Dual USB port charger as I do not have one in the back living area of the coach. This charger is one of the upgraded ones that outputs 4.8A to devices for charging. I drilled a hole big enough for the round part of the plate and ran the wires up to the area where I will tie them into the existing power from the antenna plate.

After mounting the USB port in the hole we move on to the wiring of both the media player port and also the USB charger power. In my coach the conductor with the colored stripe on it is the +12v wire. The wire without a stripe is the -12v side. I wire in both the medial player and usb charger to this power source. To be careful you should find the fuse in the main panel and pull it before cutting any of these wires to make your patch.

This part of the project is just rolling along quite nicely. In the next post I will show what it all looks like when done.

[WRingling]

After the wiring connections are pushed back into the panel and the antenna plate remounted to the back wall. My setup now looks like this. I also wire tied the cables into a nice pathway so that they can fold out of the way when the TV is pulled to either side.

And with all the cables on the back of the TV.

Here is what the USB charger looks like with the TV back in place.

And what the switch looks like from standing in front of the TV. No more ugly hole with a wire coming out of it.

Here is a picture of what it looks like when the switch is on and lit up. Its just enough light so that I can tell when its on and needs to be shutdown and turned off.

I hope to this weekend get back to the NAS part of this project and finish it up and post the final results.

[gbkims]

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.
...
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.

Hello @WRingling,

I was wondering which WiFi analyzer app you used.

Thanks

[WRingling]

Hello @WRingling,

I was wondering which WiFi analyzer app you used.

Thanks

I am pretty sure it is the below one from the Google Play Store.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....wifi.analyzer

To my knowledge there is not a good one like this available for the iPhone. I have been told that Apple restricts access to the wifi interface for an app like this to read available networks.
When I did my tests I was juggling both an iPhone and Android phone in my hands to take all the screen shots.

[Jlawles2]

WRingling any update on the NAS setup? How well does it play movies?

[WRingling]

WRingling any update on the NAS setup? How well does it play movies?

I have several rv projects underway right now and working on finishing them up before the end of the month as we start our camping season. I plan to be testing the nas next week. I have digitized about 100 dvds into MKV format and will convert to MP4 which is the format the media player prefers. After I finish this week the two other small projects I am clear to finish the nas stage of that project. Sadly Wifi Ranger has not released the their new roof top so I am either going to wait on it or reconfigure the network to use an available roof top device. Sorry for the delay in getting back to this part of the project.