The network:
- 120+ ZBee X2B nodes spread around a building, all routers in API mode. (This is lighting control, I don’t care about power consumption so no end nodes, nothing sleeps)
- Coordinator is in a Connectport X2 using serial access mode (Realport), connected to a Java application that talks to the serial port created by Realport.
- I am using API mode, using many-to-one routing, application is sending AR 0 every 30 minutes. Coordinator is also aggregator/collector. It’s a building so things don’t move but signal strengths can vary depending on…?
Observations:
- Packets coming FROM all the nodes TO collector are very reliable.
- Packets going FROM coordinator to nodes are less reliable, especially for far away nodes. Some nodes get 100% packet loss even though I am getting their messages reliably
I am using Source Routing, so each packet I send is preceded by a Source Route I calculate from incoming A1 records. I have verified the packets with X-CTU to confirm they are properly formed.
Now I seem to get an A1 record for every incoming packet, which is likely too many. Are these actually on the wireless network, or just being kicked out of the coordinator locally? If they are on the network then most of my network traffic sadly is just A1 records.
So because of this I’m learning about and trying “High RAM concentrator mode”, which is supposed to reduce the number of route records by trusting my app to hold them all in RAM for later use.
I am setting DO on the coordinator to 0x48, Is that correct? The important setting is DO on the coordinator and not DO on the routers themselves? Somehow that message is propagated to the routers? Do I have to reset the network or something after this change?
As well, I have read that source routes are done automatically with ConnectPorts, but I am assuming this isn’t true because I am using it in raw serial mode, is that assumption correct? So I have to do them myself?
Any settings or tips for getting good reliability at the very edges of the network? Firing off packets by hand seem just as likely to succeed with or without source routes as long as I have patience (20 seconds++).