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How to replace a defective Z-net with a new one?

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    How to replace a defective Z-net with a new one?

    I have two z-net controllers, they have served me well for a number of years, but one has recently died, or so it seems. No internet activity on the Ethernet port and the green light on top won't light. HS3 has stopped recognizing the old one.

    My replacement backup (bought at the same time but never used) comes alive fine using same power supply and Ethernet cable. HS3 has stopped recognizing the old one and I can't bring it back online in HS3.

    Is there any kind of hard re-set to try on the interface as last resort?

    Assuming I must replace the interface, what are the best practices to do so, so as to get all my new nodes to the new interface with least amount of work.

    I do have a backup of the old interface.

    Thanks in advance

    #2
    Generally it seems that the most fragile piece of the Z-Net is the SD memory card in the Raspberry Pi. Luckily, this card contains no Z-Wave specific information (that is all contained on the daughter card with the green light on it).

    What I would do is to swap the SD card from the working unit and see if that brings the other unit back to life. If so, you can buy a new card and copy the good card to that and your back in business.

    If that doesn't work out, or your not comfortable opening up the units, you would restore your backup to the working unit. Since you're doing it "in place", I'm thinking that it should go pretty smoothly. You might need to run network optimization, but in a perfect world (don't laugh) the restored Z-Net will look just like the original one and the switch would be transparent.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by zwolfpack View Post
      Generally it seems that the most fragile piece of the Z-Net is the SD memory card in the Raspberry Pi. Luckily, this card contains no Z-Wave specific information (that is all contained on the daughter card with the green light on it).

      What I would do is to swap the SD card from the working unit and see if that brings the other unit back to life. If so, you can buy a new card and copy the good card to that and your back in business.

      If that doesn't work out, or your not comfortable opening up the units, you would restore your backup to the working unit. Since you're doing it "in place", I'm thinking that it should go pretty smoothly. You might need to run network optimization, but in a perfect world (don't laugh) the restored Z-Net will look just like the original one and the switch would be transparent.
      You got that right! Thanks!

      When I get the new SD card. You say to just copy the contents of my "good" card onto new card. Okay. Do I need to format the card first? Any particular brand of card I should get, etc? Existing card is a 4GB Transcend micro SDHC...I assume I should use a PC to do the file copying?

      Thanks again...

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Ricky View Post

        You got that right! Thanks!

        When I get the new SD card. You say to just copy the contents of my "good" card onto new card. Okay. Do I need to format the card first? Any particular brand of card I should get, etc? Existing card is a 4GB Transcend micro SDHC...I assume I should use a PC to do the file copying?

        Thanks again...
        Download Win32DiskImager (It's free)
        Use it to make a backup image of the good card, then write the image to the new one. No formatting needed; the program will take care of that.
        There's a good chance too that the "bad" card data is simply corrupted, in which case it would be worth trying to restore your good image to it.
        Real courage is not securing your Wi-Fi network.

        Comment


          #5
          Pardon me jumping in, but creating stand-by SDs for my z-nets has been on my to-do list for a while. I have a 16gb and a 64gb microSD laying around. Any reason they can't be used, as opposed to matching capacity of the stock cards? Thanks.

          edit: also have a 2GB sandisk card from long long ago, but possibly too small? Does speed matter?
          -Wade

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by cc4005 View Post
            Pardon me jumping in, but creating stand-by SDs for my z-nets has been on my to-do list for a while. I have a 16gb and a 64gb microSD laying around. Any reason they can't be used, as opposed to matching capacity of the stock cards? Thanks.

            edit: also have a 2GB sandisk card from long long ago, but possibly too small? Does speed matter?
            The first thing I did, before even powering the Z-Net for the first time when I received it, was to backup the original card just in case of this type of eventuality.

            SD cards made by various manufacturers (and sometimes various models by the same manufacturer) can vary slightly in actual storage capacity due to their internal structure. The best bet is to try. Use a card of the same or larger size than what you have. If you go with the same size, and the image doesn't seem to fit, go to the next size up. What you cannot do is use a smaller card. Personally, I've had good luck with Sandisk, Verbatim and Lexar cards in the Raspberry Pi.

            Note though, once you write your image to a larger card, any backup made from that card will NOT fit a smaller card.
            Real courage is not securing your Wi-Fi network.

            Comment


              #7
              You know... I haven't done that yet. Smart thinking Greg. What size are the SD cards?
              HS3PRO 3.0.0.500 as a Fire Daemon service, Windows 2016 Server Std Intel Core i5 PC HTPC Slim SFF 4GB, 120GB SSD drive, WLG800, RFXCom, TI103,NetCam, UltraNetcam3, BLBackup, CurrentCost 3P Rain8Net, MCsSprinker, HSTouch, Ademco Security plugin/AD2USB, JowiHue, various Oregon Scientific temp/humidity sensors, Z-Net, Zsmoke, Aeron Labs micro switches, Amazon Echo Dots, WS+, WD+ ... on and on.

              Comment


                #8
                4GB is what comes (or at least used to) with the Z-Net. These days, the smaller cards are becoming harder to come by and often more expensive than their larger cousins.

                This is my current go-to model: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073K14CVB...v_ov_lig_dp_it

                As you can see, my older go-to 4GB now costs more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SMVQK8...v_ov_lig_dp_it

                That Win32DiskImager won't allow a downsize is inconvenient. There are other solutions that can do that (search rpi-clone if interested); however they are generally for more advanced users.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by langenet View Post
                  You know... I haven't done that yet. Smart thinking Greg. What size are the SD cards?
                  Bought a Z-Net a few weeks ago. 8G Transcend was in it.
                  And yes, as zwolfpack stated, there are tools which can downsize an image by eliminating the unused space on the card, but only to the point that the actual required size doesn't exceed the size of the target card. 4Gig cards are rather hard to find these days anyway. I keep a few handy to use in devices which won't support anything larger, like my Monoprice Mini 3D printer which only has a 32 bit buss, thus 4Gig max.
                  Real courage is not securing your Wi-Fi network.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I just ordered this Transcend 4GB, as my card was 4GB. From the sales pic looks to be identical to what I have. I bought my z-nets a while ago, pretty close to when they first appeared.

                    https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

                    Comment


                      #11
                      OK.
                      Wrote my image using Etcher & Win32DiskImager. Results were identical. Write with Etcher and verify with DiskImager worked as well; no differences.
                      Real courage is not securing your Wi-Fi network.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        The thing is my F:\ drive shows 42.4 MB free of 62.9MB. So that's 20 MB for the OS? That's it??

                        Perhaps bad on my part, but I don't want to even touch my working Z-Net and play around with removing/inserting the SD card. I've been in this business too long to know not to test/fix things if they work. In hindsight, I should have don't this 3 years ago when I first got the Z-Net...

                        RIch had stated Use the program Win32DiskImager.exe to write the image to your micro SD card. SD card needs to be 4GB or larger. So basically > 3.98GB for swap???


                        Robert
                        HS3PRO 3.0.0.500 as a Fire Daemon service, Windows 2016 Server Std Intel Core i5 PC HTPC Slim SFF 4GB, 120GB SSD drive, WLG800, RFXCom, TI103,NetCam, UltraNetcam3, BLBackup, CurrentCost 3P Rain8Net, MCsSprinker, HSTouch, Ademco Security plugin/AD2USB, JowiHue, various Oregon Scientific temp/humidity sensors, Z-Net, Zsmoke, Aeron Labs micro switches, Amazon Echo Dots, WS+, WD+ ... on and on.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by langenet View Post
                          The thing is my F:\ drive shows 42.4 MB free of 62.9MB. So that's 20 MB for the OS? That's it??

                          Perhaps bad on my part, but I don't want to even touch my working Z-Net and play around with removing/inserting the SD card. I've been in this business too long to know not to test/fix things if they work. In hindsight, I should have don't this 3 years ago when I first got the Z-Net...

                          RIch had stated Use the program Win32DiskImager.exe to write the image to your micro SD card. SD card needs to be 4GB or larger. So basically > 3.98GB for swap???


                          Robert
                          The image contains a partition that isn't visible to Windows.

                          If you don't test the card now, you may be out of luck if/when you need it down the road. Just shut down the ZNet (pi), swap the cards and restart. If it works for you, and there's really not much reason it won't, you could just leave that card installed and keep the original as a backup.
                          Real courage is not securing your Wi-Fi network.

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