Swapped out my burnt up Manta M8P with a Jackpot controller. Had absolutely no problems with the install. Connected with my phone, added it to my network, updated the firmware on the web UI, plugged in all the wires. Homed the LR3, and started squaring the setup. Wow, that was frigging easy!
So… I have another Jackpot board for a LR3 I’m building for my son in-law. Went to set it up and it did not go well. Long story short the new board has to be with eight feet of the router access point to boot up on wifi. After its up and running the board can be moved and stay connected. After googling around about the ESP32’s there is a common thread about poor wifi on the boards. One problem is the antenna not being great. The other is a voltage drop on the board during wifi startup causing problems.
The boards are cheap enough, I’m going to try one with an external antenna. Also for using at my house I have four hardwired wifi access points in 1900 sq". So it will work fine at home.
One of the strange things I saw was the board would show up on the network but would have no IP.
So if you’re have trouble with wifi try boot up on top of your router. Also if Fluidnc shows up on your phone in AP mode, then you are not connect to your home network, even if your network shows it.
How does AP mode work for both of them? I highly suggest only using that.
STA mode depends heavily on your specific network. I agree it is odd they are different, did you switch back and forth to see if a new device connected, or are several devices auto-connecting? home networks are pretty crazy, not a place for a $3 device to try to muscle in.
AP is by far the best option.
Fluid is recommending you only use STA mode on a router by itself.
Are you sure about that? In the wiki it says to use STA mode as it is more efficient. They only mention a router by itself as a means of use in case you don’t have an available wifi network already set up.
The way I read it, they just meant, even if all you have is an old slow router to connect it to, that’s still better than AP mode.
If you look a t the discord anytime we mention the issue they say STA is best on its own router otherwise AP. Jamie jumped through a lot of hoops with that.
I assure you AP mode is going to be your best bet.
How are those APs configured? The ESP32 on my jackpot really didn’t like getting handed back and forth between APs, amongst the other things it didn’t like (busy network with lots of broadcast traffic in particular pissed it off badly)
Get a good pigtail and use a decent antenna (meaning a real one with an SMA connector). The little crap flex antenna that comes with lots of cheap ESP32 external setups is even worse than the built in ones because of reliability issues with the connector staying secured to the ESP32 and the antenna itself being garbage.
But I haven’t seen anywhere where they recommended isolating it as a general case/preferred method. I don’t read every thread there closely, but I have tried to keep up with the ones that seemed like it might affect us.
I surely could have missed something, and will definitely go read through some more, but if you have anything specific related to that recommendation I would be interested in it.
If you can provide me info on exactly how that happens, I would love to use it to test with. So far with 3.7.8 low memory seems to only happen now (3.7.8 and the 9/10 configs) with more than one browser logged in at the same time. I can even transfer large files without issue and could not when we first got the boards. Now that we do not get low memory issues any more we stopped looking into it. (Jamie is probably still poking around…)
Those messages are before any of Jamie’s fixes got implemented, I think. I swear a little further down, one of them said something along the lines of “we only support them on their own router”. So I stopped pushing. I am also under the impression us not using a genuine espresiff esp is also not well received. So if you ask them directly, I am sure they will tell you to get a genuine chip for any testing.
Best I can say is I have done all my testing in AP mode. I have asked very specific questions of the fluid team, sometimes I get an answer, sometimes I do not. I am confident the only way I can help troubleshoot wifi issues is AP mode. I have no way to know what sort of home network stuff you have going on for STA mode.
Another way to think of it is, however you are controlling your machine (laptop, tablet, phone) is sure to be a few feet from the esp32. I would say a large portion of users home routers are bound to be much much further away. AP is going to give you the best signal as well.
All that said, you are free to use it however you please. I can only hope to provide any help in AP mode and do not recommend STA mode.
I certainly understand how AP mode can help in troubleshooting and simplify the support by eliminating another variable.
If I didn’t have a strong wifi signal nearby I definitely would get a dedicated router and place it near, but I just spent the last 10 minutes searching through all messages in their help forum and github that contain “AP Mode” and have found many messages that are similar to
I am aware of the fixes Jamie put in and have them set in the config. I’d have to find the thread again, but I believe I sent you one where I was having low memory issues that I’m pretty sure might have been post 3.7.8. I think the 3.7.8 made the memory a little better, but still gave warnings. I switched to STA and they cleared up, so I haven’t looked back.
Edit: Here is where I tested it. This was in 3.7.8.
If STA works for you no reason to switch. It is not an option for me so I can’t even test it. I have tested AP mode, I use it nearly every day.
From that old thread I tested your file, my much larger file, Laser raster files, and a large pen plot torture test. I can’t trigger a memory issue.
If you want to use AP mode and you are still getting memory issues, we can swap out your esp with the one I have been using (know good). Then we would know for sure if it is the environment or the hardware? I thought polling mode made your issues go away in AP mode, I changed the config files to set polling=3 as a default becuse of that. I have not had any other reports of memory issues other than you since. It very well could be the esp.
You have two boards one works as expected one doesn’t. Swap the esp’s and see which part the issue follows. I will replace either.
If it is the esp than it sounds like changing to genuine is the best course of action and an extra ~$6.80 won’t kill anyone, I was just trying to hit the $60 mark.
I tried to transfer my squaring Gcode file the other day, copied and edited for my size from your YouTube. can see the whole file on one screen. I got low memory warnings for it. Started just bringing the SD card in after that. Ill try again tomorrow and send you screen shots if it happens/I remember
Sorry Steve, I just realized it was two different people.
First I am not sure when you got the boards. Please make sure they are running 3.7.8 and the most recent configs from my github. Both are linked in the instructions. Both of those updates have proven to help a lot with connectivity.
Next up would be swap the esp’s to see which the issue follows.
I highly suggest AP mode for troubleshooting. If you are confident with networking STA is also fine, a static IP was suggested somewhere if you go that route.
I’m ok sticking with STA Mode. It has the added benefit of being able to upload my files from my computer 80ft away without having to power down the machine and pull the SD card.
I’m more than comfortable dealing with network issues and have already verified that when it loses connection it falls back to AP mode with my settings.
If changing out the ESP is straightforward, I would be interested in knowing which ones are “genuine” and compatible. I’m kinda interested in testing one of these ones with the 4MB PSRAM rather than just the 380KB we are dealing with now.
If you can repeat it I am interested in trying it, also interested if it happens in AP mode. I don’t have a good enough connection for STA mode though.
That first unit I got setup is a Beast. Connects every time. I’ve had three active computers at one time on the WebUI. Performed so well that after a week of torturing it, I turned off AP mode and never looked back.
hmmm… I might have gotten carried away with my network.
I’ve swapped things around and the problem is consistent. Must just be a slight difference in manufacture. I have a router node (access point) right next to my LR3 table. So the flaky ESP should be fine there. Looks like the in-law gets the “Beast”.
