MTH DCS WiFi App Question??

I think I heard 10 which in my opinion is plenty!

On the same subject, my Club has 4 TIUs on its network. Will we need 4 WiFi modules to run our trains?

 

Thank you form the info.

Does someone has available the new DCS 5.00 software and the new Loader required to install it on the TIUs?

 

Does the DCS 5.0 software comes with an install for both the TIU and the remote as usual?.

 

I would be much obliged if you could sent these.

 

Thank you very much.

 

P.-S. Can it be posted on the DCS REFERENCE MATERIALS & MANUALS thread? 

 

JP, those who did the upgrading at York have a preliminary version of the loader and the remote & TIU codes.  But the loader is not yet ready for release.

 

The loader looks & operates identical to 2.3.4, but is needed to load the V5.0 TIU & remote codes.

 

Official MTH statement is that a WiFi module will be needed for each TIU.

 

Roger, I don't recall any mention being made at York users meeting about a limit.

 

Trainwizard5972, Where did you get your information from?? What if you have more than 10 members in your club????.................rogerw.

JP,

 

On the same subject, my Club has 4 TIUs on its network. Will we need 4 WiFi modules to run our trains?

Yes.

 

Does the DCS 5.0 software comes with an install for both the TIU and the remote as usual?.

Yes.

Hello Barry, Do you have an answer for how many smartphones, tablets can be added to DCS WiFi??? Thanks for any information that you have!!................rogerw.

Hello Barry, I've downloaded your book and I couldn't find any information on how many smartphones, tablets can be synced to WiFi module.........rogerw.

Roger,

 

Although I suspect that there may be a limit, I'm relatively certain that it's in the double digits, which should be more than sufficient for just about any layout.

Inexpensive WiFi routers seem to default to around 50 devices as a limit. In my experience with them in setting up Local Assistance Centers after disasters, they seem to hold their own with that number of devices tied in since the traffic is intermittent (web traffic, E-mail, and a few print jobs). This is similar to what would be the situation with a club train layout. So installing multiple TIU's in a network should work fine in theory (will let you know when we get ours installed).

 

Individual shared network devices get "busy" if there are several commands coming in simultaneously. Think about multiple people trying to print on a network printer simultaneously -- someone has to wait. This also happens in a club environment.

 

Given our experience with multiple TIUs in a 900MHz radio environment, I don't foresee any problems with DCS in a WiFi environment, though I suspect that the "remote" range will be improved. With Legacy, we've found that the WiFi router/Cell Phone/Tablet operation has much better range than the Legacy Remote/Legacy Base operation.

 

Most home WiFi systems require ( or should require ) a password to connect.

I'll assume with the MTH device you will have to connect the device via ethernet

cable to configure the network settings into the device.  Was any of this covered at the meeting ?

 

 

I asked that very question at York during the demo and was told there is NO limit to the amount of devices that can connect via WiFi. 

According to Barry if your wifI router does not have WPS button(like mine), yes you will have to set it up via pic or laptop.  This was found out at the DCS users group meeting at York 

Also you don't specifically NEED to connect via your home network, you can connect directly to the WIU, but then you won't have internet connectivity on your mobile device.

They probably should have said there is no "practical" limit, there surely is a limit!

 

Some quick research indicates the maximum theoretical connections via WiFi is 65,656, which apparently means approximately 800 separate devices, although I suspect the hardware would lag significantly long before that. But there is no hard-coded limit on devices.

Actually, there is.  I seriously doubt that any manufacturer actually has sufficient memory in the connection tables for more than a couple hundred devices.  There would be no point, the connections would be so slow as to be unusable long before you connect two hundred active devices.

 

Well in any case, the limit is not 10.

So if my wife is using her laptop via home wifi, and I crank up my WIU in MTH mode, she will loose her connection ? 

 

It sounds like the Ethernet connection setup screens were not shown. It should have a place to enter the home network password so it can connect. That is what

I am trying to verify.

WPS button on the router and WIU? Fill me in Barry.

No,  your wife won't lose her connection any more than she would if you connected with an iPad or a 2nd laptop. 

 

And yes, there would be a way to enter your home password, although exactly how wasn't shown.

I use my Lionel WiFi unit connected to my home network.  There is no noticeable impact in connecting through the WiFi on any other traffic on the wireless network.

 

 

So if my wife is using her laptop via home wifi, and I crank up my WIU in MTH mode, she will loose her connection ? 

No, nothing your wife is going will be affected.

It sounds like the Ethernet connection setup screens were not shown. It should have a place to enter the home network password so it can connect.

All of the connection is done on the phone or tablet, via the iOS off Android OS. There's an automatic prompt for the network password when you connect.

WPS button on the router and WIU?

There's a button on the WIU and, if your router also has a WPS button, setup is simply  a matter of pressing one button then the other

 

If you router lacks such a button, setup is a little more complicated.

 

The Apple Airport Extreme (my router) lacks a WPS button but does the same WPS thing with an internal command.

I have a new router with Fios and had no problem connecting to my home system without a WPS button.  It takes a few steps as stated and can be done in about a minute.  

I probably have the same router, you have to push the "virtual" WPS button in the control panel.

 

Is the Apple version ready? Meaning have the Apple Developers approved the App for the App Store? I have not seen it posted yet?

 

K

I stopped caring, I came to the realization that if DCS isn't going to be reliable on my layout then it's not getting any more invested in it

Mr. Makens, Is it that the DCS system is unreliable on your layout because DCS is flawed or is it your previously expressed lack of motivation to find out what your layout lacks to allow DCS to work properly?   Joe

I dont operate on complicated questions and answers, I have a simple approach to things. When i set this stuff up DCS had signals of 10 everywhere on the layout. I came back and it doesnt work. That is unreliable

I'm seeing posts where people are concerned about their other network devices on their WiFi routers being negatively impacted by adding one or multiple WIU's to their network.

 

There are two issues to watch for -- available IP addresses (like a "phone number and area code for your device), and bandwidth (like the amount of water that can flow through a pipe).

 

As to IP addresses, most WiFi routers set a default limit of between 20 (the lowest I've seen) and 100 available addresses (the highest I've seen). So, assuming the minimum, unless you have 20 WiFi devices in your home connected to your router (Laptops, tablets, phones) you'll likely have an available address for your WIU and Legacy WiFi connections. Routers hand these out from a "pool" of numbers, typically 192.168.1.100 through 192.168.1.199 for a 100-address pool. What you can do with most of them is log into the router (192.168.1.1) via a web browser and assign permanent addresses to devices -- i.e., reserve addresses. The advantage to doing this is that the address will not change if the router's power is interrupted or the device (WIU) is turned off -- the device will latch on to the reserved number. I do this with my printers. You can also typically assign an address outside of the "pool" which is still reachable (my printers are on 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3). I've done this with the Legacy WiFi unit at the club and will do so with the WIU's when we implement.

 

As to bandwidth, an 802.11n router's speed (up to 350Mbit) can handle a lot of packet traffic from a lot of devices. I've used 802.11g routers (54Mbit) at Local Assistance Centers with more than 50 devices attached and they've handled it fine (E-mail, general web traffic, no streaming video), so I doubt that any router produced within the last 36 months will have a problem handling the small amount of packet traffic that will be generated by your phone(s), WIU's and Legacy WiFi units. Using the pipe analogy, the new router is like a 21-foot diameter pipe while the older one is like a 8-foot diameter pipe -- 2.5 times the diameter with 6.5 times the cross-section. Bottom line -- don't worry about it. The thing that will hurt you is several devices streaming on-line video simultaneously.

 

Small correction, 802.11b is 11mbits, and 802.11g is 54mbits.  It's 802.11n that ups the speed to 150mbit.  Finally, we have 802.11ac that has many variations and channel widths that can be up to 780mbit, though I know of no routers that actually support that yet.  Finally, you get to dual-channel routers with 2.4 and 5.8ghz channels running simultaneously that will also allow greater bandwidths, that will depend on the connecting devices compatibility.  Any bandwidth above about 80mbit requires wider 40 or 80 mhz channels.  they have shorter range and of course a higher probability of interference.  Folks that live in a more congested area may have significant issues with channel interference, that gets worse with wider channels.

 

Another thing to consider.  If you connect an 801.11b device to a faster router channel, the routers will slow that channel down to the 801.11b speed for the transfer.  If there were a lot of 802.11b traffic, it can significantly impact the throughput of even the highest speed router.  Bottom line is it's not as simple as you might imagine.  It's not as simple as looking at the protocol supported by the router and doing the math, the different connecting protocols all interact with each other.

 

With all that said, I have my 802.11b Lionel LCS adapter connected to my 801.11ac router as a client, and I haven't seen any impact on other connection speeds when it's active, so for the most part it shouldn't be an issue.