Dane.Kouttron
[2.10.10] Super Quick, Auto-Restarting AP
[OPERATIONAL]
| What? An access point that restarts once a day, * Happy
Laptops
* No more
interrupting people as much.
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| Layout |
Components | Construction | Results | IMAGE DIRECTORY |
Simple Layout of Project
| Descriptor | Image/ Media |
| Basic
System Functional Flowchart |
<image
to be added> |
| The Issue | Image/ Media |
| College
students are cheap, and when it works, they share. We share internet
with the folks downstairs, its cheap, and we all benefit. The quirk is
the wifi AP, its theirs and its rather lame. Their Access Point routinely dies after a few days. 5 users is sometimes too much for it. To reset it we either stop by and ask them to reset it (which is bothersome for them as well as us) or literally flick a breaker off, wait 10 seconds, and turn it back on. Everyone has it happen once in a while, power cycle it and its back up and happy. 2-3x a week is just silly. Both of these methods are *LAME* so i and came up with this monstrosity. It took all of 2.5 hours, while helping some intro to engineering design students with their line following bots for a class. Hurray for multitasking. (*img from wikimedia) |
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Components
Construction
| Descriptor |
Image/Media | Image/Media |
| wrt54G
AP (with ddwrt installed), and breadboard sitting atop. (just checking physical device sizes) |
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| Breadboard
layout: Atmega 48 microcontroller 5 green led's (binary clock), and 1 for seconds (extra wires are for progammer) |
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| Super
intensely simple 'light pipes', made out of the casing from ethernet
cable. 2nd picture, the 'pipes' are cut to size, hot glue used to fill light pipes as an optical medium |
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| Double Check that DDWRT still works |  |
Hey,
it still works! (connected via ethernet) |
| Making
it look less like a bomb, add a spray-painted metal plate for the
binary clock, Afix to case. |
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| Add weather strips to hide uneven metal... | |
Sure,
that looks nothing like a doomsday machine |
Results
| Descriptor | Images | Images |
| Final
Product: attempting to make it look less intimidating proved to be moot. Whatever, it works. No one is ever using the net at 8am during the restart. |
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| Descriptor | Video |
| Video of it operating at high speed to demo that it works |
Overall:
YES, i know there's a watchdog feature in DDWRT. No it doesnt work as well as physically just restarting it.
Ive been playing with these thing for years.
is interrupting an AP routinley ok for the AP? probably not, however it was ~15 bucks from a local recycling center.
I should make a python script to check uptimes and do a countdown or something...
Created by:
| Dane Kouttron |
| transistor-man.com |
| Layout |
Components | Construction | Results | IMAGE DIRECTORY |
Dane.Kouttron
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Electrical & Electrical Power
631.978.1650
