AvcomM TEC SimpleLan web server

R Pankau

I know this is not a parallax product strictly speaking but they have done the homework to make a BS2 easy to interface with this web server.
Does anyone have any experience with this product?· I'm intrigued, I put it on my Christmas list hoping to make it work with my propeller for some home automation.·· The largest cost for home automation can be the Human Machine Interface (HMI).· If the HMI becomes your web browser then it is basically free, AND it has the nice feature of being available· world-wide.·
It appears to be a scaled down PINK like device but at a much lower cost.· A friend of mine (embedded engineer) gave me a LanTronix XPort serial server kit, I was thinking that this would be my web server, I was disappointed to find out that you had to do quite a bit of really fancy Java to make an interactive web page talk to your home based micro.· It did not have the intermediate registers easily·available to the serial side and the html side like PINK and the SimpleLan.·

fishing for opinions.....

Steve Joblin

I just Googled "AvcomM TEC SimpleLan web server", but got no results... what is the website for this product?

MCL9449

I received my SimpleLAN the other day. So far, I have been able to access it, but have not been able to load any files onto it using the provided software (I keep getting errors). If I have any luck, I will post.

Mike

R Pankau

I think I mis-spelled the name of the company.·
Avcom TEC and their website is······ www.avcomtec.com


·

R Pankau

If I end up receiving one in my stocking I'll give it the Ol' college try as well.

Randy

MCL9449

I was finally able to upload the sample files, but only by using a direct connection and a crossover cable. For some reason, I can see the device on my network, but can't write to it if it is on the network. I may not have read the instructions carefully enough. Unfortunately with all the activity this time of year, I have not been able to try connecting it to the Stamp system that is the heart of my home data collection system. The system is currently using a SitePlayer as the interface to the network, but I've been wanting a lower cost backup system and hope these will do the trick. I'll report back when I've made progress.

Merry Christmas!

R Pankau

Well, I have one.··· Now to find the time to try it out...· I'll be using a Propeller to send serial strings so I'll need to figure out a good 3.3 to 5V interface.· I've seen a dozen ideas on this site for that so I'll do some research.··

R Pankau

Took my web server out of the box tonight and actually had some success!!·· I set up the server per the instructions using a crossover cable and setting my PC IP address manually, although I don't think you really have to if you'd just IPCONFIG /all to see what you are to set the simplelan to the same subnet.·

I have a US Robotics Router that I set up so my server was the virtual server.· to test everything I sent the sample files to the simplelan, then tried to browse to it from my PC via both the crossover and connected to my router, works both ways.· Also as a true test I did a Whatismyip.com to see what I looked like the the outside and then logged into a work computer via Citrix and tried to browse back to my embedded server using the ip address given to me by the whatismyip service.· That worked as well!!· I can't believe it.· Now I just need a way that· I can retrieve my non-static ip address and then I could email it autimatically every day.· If I'm away and the ip changes then I'd just wait for the next email to see what it changed to.· not sure how to do that.·

I have not connected a micro to it yet but that was the least of my worries.· I'm going to use my prop chip as soon as I acquire some 4050 buffer chips.·

bassmaster

My simplelan works fine with the propeller wired direcly into tx and rx. and powered the simplelan to 5v

R Pankau

good to know, did you use the bs2 functions or roll your own?

N0QBH

Hi, I'm new to the group.
Has anyone actually sent email with the SimpleLAN?
I've got one mated to a PIC - works great serving a web page, but I've had zero luck sending email.
I've been using SitePlayers for years, but they don't have any provision for sending email without having a PC running somewhere on the network.

R Pankau

Have not tried the email functions.· I just got it to talk to my propeller last night.· In an effort to save myself time and give someone else credit I tried using the bs2 objects, unfortunately I believe that the spin code is too clunky and the timing was off a bit, it was a 5% success, i switched over to the FullDuplex object written by parallax in asm and it works well.·· I may give the email a shot, I'd like to have a "water on the floor" alert for my basement.·

R Pankau

I just got the email working. I had fat-fingered a few things like the Send command does not have a "W" in the string like the others, nor does it require a carriage return. Once my syntax was correct it worked. I also had to check a box in the SimpleLan setup utility for Authentication, so it would use my username and password for the smtp server.

N0QBH

Thanks for the update PPD. That answers one question.
In my case, the Ethereal packet sniffer shows the server not liking the domain name my SimpleLAN is sending.
We've tried it on a couple of different servers, one with auth required and one without - same results.
Would you be interested in comparing the strings to see if I've mangled something there somehow?
Obviously, we'd "x" out the sensitive info.

R Pankau

Sure thing, I believe in verbosity for troubleshooting, I'd forget what i did two days ago if it wasn't spelled out.
Here is the dat file that I'm using...

dat
str_ET byte "!AT0WET:rpankau@uiuc.edu",0 'Email To
str_EF byte "!AT0WEF:ranmolalymilgus@SBCglobal.net",0 'Email From
str_ES byte "!AT0WES:Hello World of Email",0 'Email Subject
str_EC byte "!AT0WEC: This is the body of the message",0'Email Content
str_EV byte "!AT0WEV:smtp.sbcglobal.yahoo.com",0 'SMTP server
str_EU byte "!AT0WEU:ranmolalymilgus@SBCglobal.net",0 'Username
str_EP byte "!AT0WEP:XXXXXX",0 'Password
str_snd_email byte "!AT0SM:",0 'Send Email command



Here is the important bits for sending, I'm using the "FullDuplex" object from Parallax "serial" below refers to that object.

serial.str(@str_EC) 'Email Content
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_ET) 'Email to
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_EF) 'Email from
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_ES) 'Email subject
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_EV) 'smtp server
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_EU) 'Username
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_EP) 'Password
serial.tx(13)
serial.str(@str_snd_email) 'send email command

I tried a test last night by incrementing a byte long counter once per second or so and on the xth rollover I sent out an email, it did work, but tonight I found the server not accepting serial commands from the Prop, I don't hav a scope here to troubleshoot so I'm not sure if the Prop locked up or what. I reset the prop and everything was fine. First I reset the server and same problem, so I'm assuming the Prop is at fault here.

R Pankau

How does the site player stack up to this device? More or less difficult? A good friend of mine works for B&B Electronics and gave me an XPORT from Lantronics for Xmas. I was excited until I realized that I would basically have to create a custom serial interface in Java to communicate with a micro. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, but I didn't want to have to spend a month getting cozy with Java before seeing some results.

N0QBH

Thanks agn for the detailed reply PPD.
Since I'm using a PIC programmed in assembly language, my code looks different from BASIC, but outputs the same string format.
Here's what I'm sending to SimpleLAN
====================================================
N0QBH string inverted and captured by Hyperterm at 2400 baud

!AT0WET:n0qbh@yahoo.com
!AT0WEF:mybad@clearwire.net
!AT0WES:Wx alert
!AT0WEC:Low indoor temperature alarm
!AT0WEV:mail.clearwire.net
!AT0WEU:mybad@clearwire.net
!AT0WEP:xxxxxxx
!AT0SM:

=====================================================

The result is always the same from the mail server(s)
Invalid domain name

I set up a test with our IP person at work to use their server and got the same results.
I've written serial routines to write my strings to the SimpleLAN and then read them back and everything checks out.
I've been at this racket long enough to know that rarely is the problem hardware, but am fast running out of other possibilities.
The only difference I noticed between your strings and my earlier versions was you have a colon after the "!AT0SM" statement that doesn't show in the docs. It seems to behave the same with or without however.

As to your question about SitePlayer, it's a more powerfull platform in many ways, but is also a much steeper learning curve.
The mfg seems to have lost interest in upgrading it, instead focusing on it's spinoff product called Telenet that is a serial over ethernet application. My main reason for going to SimpleLAN was the email feature to let me send text message alarms to my cellphone without having to have a PC running on the local network acting as a mail server.
An example of one of my SitePlayer servers is www.ringowx.dyns.cx which is connected to a homemade weather station I built a few years ago.
Agn, thanks for the help.

R Pankau

I'm no expert here, but my first instinct is to ping·something to see if it responds.· I did see that mail.clearwire.net resolved to an IP address but nothing responded, when I ping my server it responds.· I don't know if Mail servers are typically supposed to respond to ping or not.·

Kevin Wood

A commercial mail server would probably be sitting behind some form of intrusion detection system that wouldn't respond to pings.

R Pankau

That reminds me of my IT professionals, they like to block all UDP unless specifically requested not to, I believe the SimpleLan is using UDP...

N0QBH

I've been in contact with Scott at AVcom and hopefully, we can get this resolved soon.
I'll keep the group in the loop and let you know if it turns out to be operator error or hardware.

N0QBH

AVcom seems to think it's the server(s) problem. Presently I waiting for some more info from them which will (hopefully) tell me what servers WILL work with SimpleLAN so I can move ahead with this project.

buffler

Well, I jumped in with both feet, bought two of these things, and, guess what, the supplied find function won't find the device. dissappointing? you bet! Network Magic? can't find it. I have a small home network. I thought this thing was supposed to work out of the box! Any suggestions? Besides endless tinkering with IP addresses and other arcane things? Why is this kind of thing so d#@$#% difficult? In the 21st century?
Disgusted
DL

R Pankau

Right out of the box I don't think it has the proper subnet mask or IP·to talk on your LAN.·It is 0.0.0.1 by default.· · I set mine up by using a crossover cable directly from my PC·to the SimpleLan.· There should be a document that came on CD that outlines the task of using the crossover cable.· Once the server has an address and subnet mask that are compatibe with your LAN you can just browse to it over the regular network with a patch-cable from the router.
Also it's easier and the instructions suggest that you set your PC's· IP address manually to do this.· Or just·find out your PC's IP address with IPconfig·and make sure you assign the SimpleLan's address·accordingly.· ·

buffler

Pfui. Forgot to read all the stuff. I'll try this tomorrow...
Thanks
DL

buffler

OK, so I followed the directions. Now have found it at its new address. I don't think, BTW, that it says anywhere that the DHCP box has to be unchecked in order for the new address to "take".
so, at least, I'm on the move...thanks!

N0QBH

I've been in regular contact with Scott and Brian at AVcom and it sounds like there's some type of incompatability between SimpleLAN and Clearwire's mail server. No solutions yet, but at least they're trying.

Sparks-R-Fun

N0QBH

Email problems can be tricky to resolve!

Most likely your email server is checking for a DNS hostname and IP address match for the host name and IP address that your SimpleLAN device is using. You may need to create the required DNS entries or add a rule to your mail server to let messages from the SimpleLAN be relayed to the outside.

In the mean time, you might try sending your water alert email directly to a Yahoo mail server. That might work or it might not. Your success will depend upon how picky Yahoo is about the credentials of those who send email to their users!

- Sparks

buffler

Here's a beauty. I have a DSL modem, followed by a switch that services one hub with two computers on it, and four other computers are on the switch. If I put the SimpleLan on the switch, it cannot be found. If I put it on the hub, which goes through the switch, it can! Further, if I put the SL on another hub, by itself, and connect that hub through the switch, again it can be found. Crazy, NO? perhaps this kind of bizarre behavior is what drives network folks nuts...
DL

Robert Kubichek

buffler said...
Here's a beauty. I have a DSL modem, followed by a switch that services one hub with two computers on it, and four other computers are on the switch. If I put the SimpleLan on the switch, it cannot be found. If I put it on the hub, which goes through the switch, it can! Further, if I put the SL on another hub, by itself, and connect that hub through the switch, again it can be found. Crazy, NO? perhaps this kind of bizarre behavior is what drives network folks nuts...
DL

Not really, does the switch auto sense what type of cable(s) are connected to each port????
Do you know what type of ethernet cable you used in each instance???
I would set your lan up as DSL-Router-Switch-HUBS in that order, using the correct cabling between each device...

Bob

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

There are compatibility issues between various brands and models of Ethernet-connected devices. It shouldn't be so, but it is. I ran into one awhile back where a cable modem wouldn't talk to a particular router model. So it's possible that one of your devices is operating outside the fringes of the Ethernet spec and is able to connect only with its more forgiving peers.

-Phil