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    Esp8266 with external antenna in Duet Wifi

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    • oliofundefined
      oliof
      last edited by

      I saw it on the shop yesterday already (-;

      <>RatRig V-Minion Fly Super5Pro RRF<> V-Core 3.1 IDEX k*****r <> RatRig V-Minion SKR 2 Marlin<>

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      • Simonjbundefined
        Simonjb
        last edited by

        Damn.... clicked too soon. The external antenna would have been nice even although I've not had any problems with the internal one in 3 different room in the house.... 👍

        Anet A8 (lots of mods...). Hypercube Evolution with DuetWifi and 5" PanelDue

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        • jhonf441undefined
          jhonf441
          last edited by

          Gracias a todos.

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          • oliofundefined
            oliof
            last edited by

            In my case, the signal improved from 71dB to 56dB with the external antenna ... and that's in addition to an additional wifi hotspot (the hotspot got me from 78 to 71dB, and has other uses so it's not a waste). It's pretty astounding

            The antenna is currently in a holder taped to the enclosure of my CR-20, but all that's missing is a hole of the right size to get rid of the jury-rig.

            0_1561246427508_IMG_20190623_013142.jpg

            <>RatRig V-Minion Fly Super5Pro RRF<> V-Core 3.1 IDEX k*****r <> RatRig V-Minion SKR 2 Marlin<>

            zaptaundefined 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • zaptaundefined
              zapta @oliof
              last edited by

              @oliof said in Esp8266 with external antenna in Duet Wifi:

              In my case, the signal improved from 71dB to 56dB with the external antenna

              Did this increase significantly the file upload speed?

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              • oliofundefined
                oliof
                last edited by

                @zapta subjectively yes, but I need to check the actual throughput (I recently discovered that PrusaSlicer can upload directly to Duet, and they do not show transfer speeds as uploads to Duet happen in the background). I will grab some numbers tomorrow.

                <>RatRig V-Minion Fly Super5Pro RRF<> V-Core 3.1 IDEX k*****r <> RatRig V-Minion SKR 2 Marlin<>

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                • oliofundefined
                  oliof
                  last edited by

                  @zapta I just tested an upload with a large GCODE file (66Megabytes).

                  On my old setup I would achieve between 60 and 80KiB/sec, with the new setup, I got between 5 and 8 times that speed:

                  0_1561302867683_Screenshot 2019-06-23 at 17.12.42.png

                  Of course, the new antenna is also in a different location, so I can't guarantee it's just the external antenna. But I am fairly sure it's a contributing factor.

                  <>RatRig V-Minion Fly Super5Pro RRF<> V-Core 3.1 IDEX k*****r <> RatRig V-Minion SKR 2 Marlin<>

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                  • zaptaundefined
                    zapta
                    last edited by

                    @oliof said in Esp8266 with external antenna in Duet Wifi:

                    with the new setup, I got between 5 and 8 times that speed:

                    That's very significant. I get about 250KiB/s. Not sure where the bottleneck is.

                    I recently discovered that PrusaSlicer can upload directly to Duet

                    Yes, very useful though the progress report could be improved 😉

                    oliofundefined 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • oliofundefined
                      oliof @zapta
                      last edited by oliof

                      OK, here is the surprising result with the integrated antenna located at the point where the external antenna is (which wouldn't physically be possible if I used it with the CR-20 housing and is quite different to the original location due to wire lengths .... -- the antennas are now about 6cm apart):

                      0_1561315877796_Screenshot 2019-06-23 at 20.49.54.png

                      I'm not making this up (-: It just shows that with WiFi, the three most important rules are the same as with real estate: location, location, location.

                      antenna locations:
                      0_1561316341783_IMG_20190623_205730.jpg

                      <>RatRig V-Minion Fly Super5Pro RRF<> V-Core 3.1 IDEX k*****r <> RatRig V-Minion SKR 2 Marlin<>

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                      • dc42undefined
                        dc42 administrators
                        last edited by

                        The built-in antenna on the Duet WiFi is very short, much shorter than the WiFi antenna in a typical smartphone. Also, if you mount the Duet horizontally, it is in the wrong orientation for most routers. So it's not surprising that the external antenna helps a lot.

                        Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer
                        Please do not ask me for Duet support via PM or email, use the forum
                        http://www.escher3d.com, https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com

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                        • oliofundefined
                          oliof
                          last edited by

                          Suffice to say that in my specific case the difference between 80KiB and 546KiB on the built-in antenna is mostly distance to the nearest wall (5cm vs. 55cm). But mounting the board within a sheet metal enclosure probably wouldn't have helped, so going with an external antenna was still the right call.

                          <>RatRig V-Minion Fly Super5Pro RRF<> V-Core 3.1 IDEX k*****r <> RatRig V-Minion SKR 2 Marlin<>

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                          • zaptaundefined
                            zapta @oliof
                            last edited by

                            @oliof, I just made an experiment, moved the printer, router and computer close to each other but max transfer via web interface is still 250KiB max (I am using 2.4GHZ wifi if it matters).

                            I presume that an external antenna will not help in my case.

                            dc42undefined A Former User? 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • dc42undefined
                              dc42 administrators @zapta
                              last edited by

                              @zapta, have you tried a new SD card, formatted to 32k or 64k cluster size?

                              Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer
                              Please do not ask me for Duet support via PM or email, use the forum
                              http://www.escher3d.com, https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com

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                              • A Former User?
                                A Former User @zapta
                                last edited by

                                @zapta said in Esp8266 with external antenna in Duet Wifi:

                                (I am using 2.4GHZ wifi if it matters)

                                ESP8266 is limited to 2.4Ghz so 5Ghz will not be of any help.

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