Recently on a video I was raging about how useless the internet was becoming with all the adverts. One comment underneath spurred/shamed me into action:
As it turns out my Raspberry Pi box of SBCs was emptier than I remembered, however my Orange Pi box was replete with possibly suitable SBCs, including an Orange Pi PC left over from a previous blog and video.
I liked the auto-cooling version I had previously made, and now seemed like a good time to press it into service cutting out all of those pesky online adverts!
The Pi-Hole advert blocking project has a bit of history now, and the community behind it is mature and productive. Due to my nerdiness I went to their github site and followed installation and tips etc. The software installed fine over the top of armbian for the Orange Pi PC.
There were a few weird hiccups along the way (aren't there always?):
1. The startup script for the fan (see this link) did not work, due to (new?) requirements that startup scripts have START|STOP|RESTART|ETC blah blah which I don't quite understand at this point. Fortunately I had a working image which include the fantemp.sh script, so I used that as a base for this project.
2. I wanted to use the Orange Pi Zero 2 which would be perfect for the role - and I have one in my Orange Pi box, but software support for the H616 processor is not great at the time of making this project - if it improves then I will have a look at possibly swapping out to this SBC.
3. Router issues - my ISP issued router™ is an idiotic piece of junk. The ISP will not support a customer with any other piece of hardware (!!), so I have stuck with it for a few years - but this Christmas I have asked Santa to bring me a better router. Until then, to get to the part of the router that allows me to specify the Orange Pi(hole) as the DNS server, I need two 64 bit passwords embedded (but not hidden) in their source code <heavy sigh>. So right click, download
4. GPIO access - to control the fan I needed access to a GPIO which then triggers an SS8050 transistor to draw enough current for the fan. Unfortunately that took a bit of a while to sort out, and in the end I used this github site to solve the problem.
5. WiFi or cable? In the end I connected the Orange Pi PC directly to the router via an ethernet cable AND I was able to power it from the router through a USB port - a neat option now sitting side-by-side with the router.
Part of the program to monitor and automate some things around the property naturally enough includes extending the WiFi network to cover a wider area. There are a number of ways of doing this, including:
1. Buying a decent router and channelling heaps of power into it for coverage
3. Coming up with some half-baked plan to use $1 ESP-01 devices running on solar power (in Tasmania!)
Of these options, which do you think this post is essentially about?
There are a number of options for setting up such a (cheap) extended network, and it may take a few blogs/videos to explore and evaluate some options. On my list is the following:
1. Can I program the ESP-01 to accept home WiFi? 2. Which extender/repeater software for the ESP-01 suits my needs? 3. Test the network under various conditions to help me make the decision 4. Work on Solar/Battery combinations that work for spreading the network around a rural property
5. Design and 3D print a weather-resistant project box
On the programming front, the little adapters are great, however there seem to be two main types. One is just a cradle for the ESP-01 and needs some soldering and a button added to be used as a programmer (see video), whilst the other comes with an integrated button and can be switched between "PROG" and "UART" mode.
Then it's a matter of choosing your programming method - you can use Esptool, Espressif's tools or (as in my case) the Arduino IDE.
Once the connections and programming was sorted (i.e. can I blink a LED!) I then used the following OTA code modified from the ESP8266 WiFi extender code:
// NAPT example released to public domain#if LWIP_FEATURES && !LWIP_IPV6#define HAVE_NETDUMP 0#ifndef STASSID#define STASSID "*****************"#define STAPSK "*****************"#endif#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>#include <ESP8266mDNS.h>#include <WiFiUdp.h>#include <ArduinoOTA.h>#include <lwip/napt.h>#include <lwip/dns.h>#include <LwipDhcpServer.h>constchar* ssid = STASSID;
constchar* password = STAPSK;
constchar* host ="HostName";
#define NAPT 1000#define NAPT_PORT 10voidsetup() {
Serial.begin(115200);
Serial.printf("\n\nNAPT Range extender\n");
Serial.printf("Heap on start: %d\n", ESP.getFreeHeap());
#if HAVE_NETDUMP#include <NetDump.h>void dump(int netif_idx, constchar* data, size_t len, int out, int success) {
(void)success;
Serial.print(out ? F("out ") : F(" in "));
Serial.printf("%d ", netif_idx);
// optional filter example: if (netDump_is_ARP(data))
{
netDump(Serial, data, len);
//netDumpHex(Serial, data, len);
}
}
#endif#if HAVE_NETDUMP
phy_capture = dump;
#endif// first, connect to STA so we can get a proper local DNS server
WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
Serial.print('.');
delay(500);
}
Serial.printf("\nSTA: %s (dns: %s / %s)\n",
WiFi.localIP().toString().c_str(),
WiFi.dnsIP(0).toString().c_str(),
WiFi.dnsIP(1).toString().c_str());
// give DNS servers to AP side
dhcpSoftAP.dhcps_set_dns(0, WiFi.dnsIP(0));
dhcpSoftAP.dhcps_set_dns(1, WiFi.dnsIP(1));
WiFi.softAPConfig( // enable AP, with android-compatible google domain
IPAddress(172, 217, 28, 254),
IPAddress(172, 217, 28, 254),
IPAddress(255, 255, 255, 0));
WiFi.softAP("WiFi-Mesh", STAPSK);
Serial.printf("AP: %s\n", WiFi.softAPIP().toString().c_str());
Serial.printf("Heap before: %d\n", ESP.getFreeHeap());
err_t ret = ip_napt_init(NAPT, NAPT_PORT);
Serial.printf("ip_napt_init(%d,%d): ret=%d (OK=%d)\n", NAPT, NAPT_PORT, (int)ret, (int)ERR_OK);
if (ret == ERR_OK) {
ret = ip_napt_enable_no(SOFTAP_IF, 1);
Serial.printf("ip_napt_enable_no(SOFTAP_IF): ret=%d (OK=%d)\n", (int)ret, (int)ERR_OK);
if (ret == ERR_OK) {
Serial.printf("WiFi Network '%s' with same password is now NATed behind '%s'\n", "Charis-Mesh", STASSID);
}
}
Serial.printf("Heap after napt init: %d\n", ESP.getFreeHeap());
if (ret != ERR_OK) {
Serial.printf("NAPT initialization failed\n");
}
ArduinoOTA.setHostname(host);
ArduinoOTA.setPassword("MyPass");
ArduinoOTA.onError([](ota_error_t error) {
(void)error;
ESP.restart();
});
/* setup the OTA server */
ArduinoOTA.begin();
Serial.println("Ready");
}
#elsevoidsetup() {
Serial.begin(115200);
Serial.printf("\n\nNAPT not supported in this configuration\n");
}
#endifvoidloop() {
ArduinoOTA.handle();
}
The video below shows this system in a link of WiFi SSIDs stretching about 60m down the driveway as per this diagram:
I'm currently evaluating a slightly different way of putting the network "Mesh" together, but I'll save that for another video/blog.
