gscaletrains.org

ssh into the pi. pi@rpinetwork

Change the Network and Hostname

The name of the network and the name of the pi itself in this image is ‘rpinetwork’

If you want to change it to something else, follow these steps:

You will have to edit a couple of files and reboot your Pi.

/etc/dnsmasq.conf

find the following lines:

# Add local-only domains here, queries in these domains are answered
# from /etc/hosts or DHCP only.
#local=/localnet/

local=/rpinet/

Change ‘rpinet’ to whatever you want your computer to be called

next edit

/ext/hostapd/hostapd.conf

interface=uap0
driver=nl80211
ssid=RPiNetwork
hw_mode=g
channel=7
wmm_enabled=0
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=mypassphrase
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP

Change the ssid to change the wifi access point name. You can also change the pass phrase but be careful, if it’s too short it won’t work.

You must also change the host name of the raspberry pi, do it with

hostnamectl set-hostname newhostname

You will also have to edit

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1       localhost
::1             localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1         ip6-allnodes
ff02::2         ip6-allrouters

127.0.1.1       rpinet
192.168.4.1     rpinet

Replace the two rpinet entries with the same thing you set with hostnamectl. They need to match.

I have updated this page to more fully reflect the current Protothrottle Configuration WebApp

It is a very simple setup, here is an image. A RaspberryPiZW is used as an access point connected to a regular Xbee for the protothrottle network. Like the Protothrottle receiver, this Xbee needs to be set to the same Channel and PanID and one more parameter is required.

This is not a complete setup guide as I don’t quite have all the parts online yet. However, for those that have gotten the ‘ready to run’ package from me, this will get you connected.

This all runs on a 16GB disk image. Except for the Xbee configuration, this is a plug and play sort of thing. The file is a bit large, it’s meant for a 16Gb micro SD card, compressed it comes to about 2Gb. You can download it at the following link:

Download Rpi Zero W Disk Image

Install

The following instructions assume you have a Windows Machine to work with. I am sure a Mac would probably work but I don’t have easy access to one so I’ll stick to windows here. Also be aware this ONLY works with the Raspberry Pi Zero W, no other flavor of Raspberry Pi will work with this image.

Once downloaded, unzip it and use a SD burner program like DiskImage32 to program it onto a 16GB micro SD. It must be 16Gb, as the image was created from one. Once the image has been burned and verified, plug it into your RPiZW.

Use a standard micro USB cable to apply power to the board. It will flash it’s little green LED quite a bit as it comes up and comes online. Once it’s sat there for several minutes and stabilizes you can connect to it.

Connect

To get to the Pi, you will need to connect to it’s wireless network. When it asks you for the password or passphrase, it’s ‘mypassphrase’.

Browser

Use a browser on your computer or phone to access the web page- simply put http://rpinetwork into the browser url bar:

To see anything you will have to have at least the Protothrottle turned on. Click the ‘scan’ button and wait a few seconds. You may have to click it a couple of times- the Xbee connected to the Rpi is issuing a network ID message so every Xbee should send a response saying who they are. Once you have found a node, you can click on that to ‘zoom’ into the internal parameters of the receiver. (Note that you can’t edit anything in the Protothrottle)

Note that this webapp should work with any device that has a browser. Phones, Tablets, Computers, etc. As long as you can connect via Wifi, you should be able to edit the parameters in the Protothrottle Receiver.