Hello Newbee here ok I have flashed 3 out of my 12 wrt54g routers and have them plugged in and from any of my computers it does not see them. Do I need to load any type of software on my laptop that is 200 feet away to connect or see the nodes and communicate and see the traffic? Please any help will be much appreciated.

73's

Are you hard wired to the node that is 200ft away? Are you having issue brining up the http://localnode:8080 page?  

Make sure to turn off your laptop wifi (if your connected to a wifi network and the node it can confuse the computer some times) 

http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/just-starting-read-this.html may be a good starting place as well to help you understand the mesh basics.

When you first flash the routers, they will need to be configured. You can do this via WiFi (by connecting to an SSID titled MeshNode) or via Ethernet (turn off wifi) and navigating with your browser to http://localnode:8080/.

After that, they switch into AdHoc mode (you don't need to know that). But what you do need to know is that after the initial configuration, the mesh can be accessed via Ethernet (turn off WiFi) by navigating to http://localnode:8080/

I hope this helps!

Joseph,

I may be missing something or there may be a typo, but if your wifi is turned off and you are not hard wired, how are you connecting your PC to the node??  How were you connected to the Linksys when you uploaded the firmware?  were you connected by ethernet or wifi?  Are you running Windows or MacOS on your PC?

If you are using a Windows PC and are connecting via wifi, try this:

1.  Enable your wifi connection and configure the TCP/IP properties to use DHCP

2.  Disable all of the other connections (ethernet, VPN, etc.) and disconnect the ethernet cable.

3.  Connect your wifi to the SSID "MeshNode"

4.  Before you proceed further, make sure that you have an IP address in the 10.x.x.x range.  Open a command prompt, type ipconfig.  If you don't have an IP address or it is not in the 10.x.x.x range, type ipconfig /renew.  If you still cannot get an IP address, open the connection properties and click on the repair button.

5.  Open a web browser, and enter the following URL "http://localnode:8080"

6.  Click the setup button.  The login name is "root" and the default password is "hsmm"

If you are running MacOS, replace steps 1-4 with this:

1.  Open the System Configuration, click on Network

2.  Disable or unplug any connections other than wifi (i.e., ethernet, VPN, modem)

3.  Connect to the SSID "MeshNode"

4.  Wait until your wifi has an IP address in the 10.x.x.x range.  If you don't have one, click on "Advanced" and make sure the wifi is set to use DHCP, then click the renew button.

Once they are configured you must connect using a wire to the node.

The wireless card on the router is used to talk to other mesh nodes, it can not speak to a laptop because the laptop does not know how to speak mesh. 

Plug an Ethernet cable into the wrt54g and into your laptop.  Make sure wifi is off on your laptop.  Then launch http://localnode:8080 

You will see the basic screen again.  From here if you have multiple mesh modes turned on you can then click on "Mesh Status" and see them as well.

the important thing is you MUST be hard wired in with a cable to a node to be able to access it.

Joseph,

You have successfully flashed and setup the two routers and they are now part of the mesh network.

1.  Please explain what you are seeing when you plug your laptop into the second node.  Are you seeing the first node?  the second node?  the mesh network?  the SSID? 

2.  Can you reconnect to the first node?  When you click on the "Mesh Status" button on the first node's status screen, is the second node listed?

3.  What is the IP address of your laptop and the IP address of the gateway when you are connected to the first node?  What is the IP address of your laptop and the IP address of the gateway when you are connected to the second node?

Do you know what version of the software you installed on the node ? (Hint: it's in the name of the flash file if you still have it and do not recall)

Joseph, You can install the firmware and run the initial setup using wifi or ethernet. Once you've completed steps 1-4 of the installation procedure, you have a working mesh node, and you can only connect to the node via ethernet cable. Even though you see "BroadbandHamnet-20-v3" in the list of wifi SSIDs, you cannot connect to any of the nodes from your laptop while using wifi because the nodes are using a different wireless protocol that is only compatible with other nodes.

My theory is that even though you had an ethernet cable hooked up from your PC to the router, you still had wifi enabled on your PC and actually were using wifi instead of ethernet to install the firmware and do the initial setup. Hint: during steps 1 and 2, the SSID of the router would be "Linksys", and you would connect to the router at http://192.168.1.1. During step 3 and 4, the SSID would be "MeshNode" and you would connect to the router at http://localnode:8080. After you complete step 4, the SSID becomes "BroadbandHamnet-20-v3" and you can no longer connect via wifi because the node is using the mesh protocol, so "http://localnode:8080" will return a "not found" error.

Since you have completed steps 1-4, you have a working mesh node. You cannot connect to the node except via Ethernet.

1. Disable your wifi connection

2. Enable your ethernet connection. Configure the TCP/IP properties to use DHCP

3. Connect an ethernet cable from your PC to one of the LAN ports on the node

4. Make sure that you have an IP address in the 10.x.x.x range by opening a command prompt and enter the command IPCONFIG.

5. Open a browser and enter http://localnode:8080

6. The login name is "root". Enter the password that you setup during the installation process.

During testing, you should connect locally to each node (thru its LAN port) just to make sure that each node is properly configured to communicate with your laptop via ethernet.  In production, once you have connected to your local node through its ethernet port, you can "pass through" it to reach any other node on the mesh by clicking on the Mesh Status button, then clicking on the name (or IP address) of the other node.

I am glad to hear you finally got connected. In the case that other people have the same problem, what did you do to solve the issue you were facing?

You've just made that small step into the relm of mesh, friend! There is still a lot to learn. In my opinion, installing an IRC server is a more difficult task than streaming video. If I were you, start with video, then move to an IRC server, and then onto VoIP (at times, not necessarily for the faint of heat).

However, if you want to start with an IRC server (the first thing I did when I got into mesh), take a look here: http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/applications-for-the-mesh/118-internet-relay-chat-irc.html