WMT Network Design and Development

[hamishmb]

NB: Should I move this sub-forum somewhere higher up on the index page to make it easier to find?

[TerryJC]

If you like. However, who gets to decide which Forums should be at the top?

I suppose, being the Site-wide Forum, it should be at the top; the first after the 'Getting Started' and 'Announcement Forums'.

BTW. I just noticed that Penri's Forum entitled 'WMT Building Lighting' is another site-wide project and perhaps should be moved into this Forum alongside the 'WMT Network Design and Development Topic'.

Where will it all end

[hamishmb]

I've done that now.

I'll wait for Penri's opinion before I move his forum

[hamishmb]

Hmm, perhaps he's still having issues with notifications?

Jokes aside, I have had trouble finding some topics as this forum has kind of exploded again, so perhaps we should re-organise things a little bit again and/or try to find an extension that provides a search feature that's actually useful?

[TerryJC]

The search feature is the problem. I've lost count of the number of times my search terms have been rejected because of the use of so called 'common words'.

BTW. I did move a few of the Top-level Forums around yesterday to push the older ones to the bottom. I didn't touch the River System though.

[hamishmb]

I might go ahead and reorganise some of the river system stuff (probably NAS box stuff).

I have added a Google search box to the navigation bar. It probably won't work for a few days until google has indexed the site. I don't like google much, but I don't think there's a better extension for this.

[TerryJC]

I raised the proposal to connect all (or as many as we see it fit to) the WMT RPis to the network as yesterday's board meeting, explaining the rationale as our ability to maintain the various WMT client systems remotely.

The board are happy to support the proposal and expressed their gratitude for the work you guys have done both at WMT and remotely on behalf of WMT.

With this support now in place I'd like you, if you can, to put together a costed items list of the things we need to procure in order to cover the next phase of the expansion of the network to cover the railway room, Minster bells and tiny TVs. Happy to have a call to discuss if that would be of assistance.

Penri,

I somehow missed this request.

The short answer is not a lot at the moment. I'll go through the requirements in turn:

• Railway Room - We will need a new Network Switch, unless we can spirit one up from the 'bits box' somewhere. We should probably go for at least a 6 to 8-way switch which would allow for at least five devices being connected; eg the Underground, the Milk Shake Train, the Sound Effects Player and at least two others. Likely cost £20-25. We have sufficient Cat 5e cable, I think, but we would presumable need more going forward. Likely cost another £20 if we bought 50 m.
• Minster Bells - I already have the necessary coaxial cable and Adaptor, which i have posted about here viewtopic.php?p=4120#p4120. However, we might want to do more to the Minster Bells and MP3 Player, but that has nothing to do with the WMT Network.
• Tiny-TVs. The networking aspect of this should be zero cost if I can get another freebie Pi Zero W out of MagPi. Otherwise about £10 or so.
• Staff and Visitor GUI. If this is implemented with Ethernet, then we should have sufficient Cat 5e left over from the Railway Room. If we decide to go for a WiFi Solution, then we might be able to re-use the Pi 3 from the Minster System if we decide to upgrade the audio as outlined in the link above. Otherwise we would need to buy one for around £35 (we would need at least a Pi 3 to drive the GUI, so this can probably be negated).
• Gazebo SAC and Gate Valve - We would need another switch in the IP65 for this and a bit more cable. A 4-port Switch should suffice (approx £15-20).

I don't think I've forgotten anything.

[TerryJC]

I need to spend a little more time on spec. but I've run out of time today. Please see initial suggestions.

Penri,

Did you have any further comments?

[hamishmb]

NB: You can have my Cat 5(e?) cable if you want. It's been sat around taking up space for years without having been used.

[Penri]

Terry

Apologies, I've just got around to finishing my comments, don't discount some of these being down to misunderstanding on my part..



Hwyl

Penri