Ethernet connection problems: Can we summarize our understanding?

[sparkman]

W5100 Based Shields

Hi all,

Saw on a few forums that many of the W5100 based ethernet shields have incorrect terminating resistors on the ethernet jack which could be causing the reliability issues. Apparently they are 510 ohm (marked as 511) instead of the required 51 ohm (marked as 510). I checked my clone shields and they all seem to have the 511's so will try one of the fixes. See https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?t...687#msg2659687 for more details.

Cheers
Al

[petez69]

Good find Al........

[apluck01]

I tried a new mega with a genuine Ethernet shield as board 5. The LCD doesn't work with it, and the board disconnects after a while and stays disconnected. So another fail.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[fvhemert]

An easy and satisfactory solution is to come up with a couple of 100 to 120 ohm resistors to tack across the HanRun connector pins. One goes between pins 1 and 2, the other between pins 3 and 6. Leave the bogus resistor pack in place, it works to supply the necessary bias. No need to fiddle with sourcing and changing the tiny pack.

I have 5 arduino's connected over ethernet, all of them experiencing intermittent connectivity issues (disconnected and connect)

Following the instructions on https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?t...804#msg2538804 I have just added two 100 oohm resistors in parallel and started testing.

I have setup a counter that logs connection failures, it was at 134 over a 1 week period. The counter is reset and time will tell....

Keep you posted

[petez69]

I have 5 arduino's connected over ethernet, all of them experiencing intermittent connectivity issues (disconnected and connect)

Following the instructions on https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?t...804#msg2538804 I have just added two 100 oohm resistors in parallel and started testing.

I have setup a counter that logs connection failures, it was at 134 over a 1 week period. The counter is reset and time will tell....

Keep you posted

Perfect. Look forward to your findings..

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[apluck]

Petez, just to clarify - apluck01 is me - I tried a mega.

My board 3 has always worked fine. It is a genuine ArduinoBoardEthernet. It is down the garden in the shed which is probably 40 or 50m as the cable runs. It has never disconnected.

I swapped the board out for my other ArduinoBoardEthernet (board 1 which disconnects every day or so, but then reconnects straight away) a couple of days ago and so far it is working fine with no disconnects.

[fvhemert]

I have 5 arduino's connected over ethernet, all of them experiencing intermittent connectivity issues (disconnected and connect)

Following the instructions on https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?t...804#msg2538804 I have just added two 100 oohm resistors in parallel and started testing.

I have setup a counter that logs connection failures, it was at 134 over a 1 week period. The counter is reset and time will tell....

Keep you posted

Unfortunately the situation did not improve, seeing as many connectivity errors with the boards that are modified as with the ones that are not.

The loss of connectivity usually is very short (less than seconds) and seems to occur when the network or HS is busy. Could it be a timer in the plugin that is just too tight?

[mbirrell]

Hi all,

I had the same problem as apluck. How I fixed it was I set the Arduinos to use DHCP and configured my router to reserve the IP addresses for both Arduinos. The IP addresses that were set manually in the sketch were within the DHCP scope of my router. If you are having problems it is well worth a try.

Regards,

Martin

[damiene77]

I'm very interested in using this plugin and an Arduino to create an irrigation system control. I'm torn at the moment because of the ethernet connection issues as I would have to locate the Arduino and relays quite a ways away from my HS3 PC and would have to utilize an ethernet based connection.

Something that came to mind while reading up on all of this and just throwing this out there as a shot in the dark (and please don't take this as an insult on anyone's intelligence here as I'm sure all of you know a ton more than I on the subject) but I had an issue once with a computer on my network dropping connection after making my own ethernet cable. It was about 45 feet long and I thought at the time it was simply matching colors at both ends and putting the connector on....lol. Well, this was before I learned about interference over long Cat5 runs and that ethernet cable is designed to combat that interference as long as you stick to spec and pin out on the cable. After terminating to spec all of my connection issues went away. Let's just say that before I figured this out I used several fittings trying to figure out what I did wrong.

Could some of these connection issues that are being experienced be related to an improperly terminated Cat5 cable? and possibly this is just interference?

[mbirrell]

Could some of these connection issues that are being experienced be related to an improperly terminated Cat5 cable? and possibly this is just interference?

Could do... anything is possible. I found my problems went away on the networking side when I set the boards to use DHCP.

Why don't you try just use the Arduino unconnected to HomeSeer for now and get the Arduino going to manage your irrigation system... then you could go the next step and get is talking to HomeSeer.

[apluck]

Martin, just tried setting DHCP on one of my boards. Will see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestion.