Hiho,
Im thinking of using OmniTik devices to mesh sensor posts and would like to get some feedback and suggestions from the experts here:
1.) Basically I’m having multiple sensor posts that consists of a large battery, four sensors (each with ethernet cable) and an OmniTik that already has a switch integrated. The maximum bandwidth requirement under worst-case conditions is around 1.5MBit. These sensor posts are positioned in a “circle” around an area and can be re-positioned as needed. The maximum distance between sensor-posts is around 100-150m and there is line-of-sight to the two neighboring posts (but not necessarily to others).
2.) There is one main station in the system that processes all data and is equipped with an OmniTik, too.
Sometimes there will be a direct link from all the sensor-posts to that main-station available, sometimes a number of posts will be blocked by obstacles, which is why we need the meshing.
3.) Additionally an iPad is used to check the positioning of each sensor-post. This iPad needs a route to the main-station to view statistics and should roam between the wireless-links of the sensor-posts because a direct wireless link to the main-station can’t be guaranteed.
In the official wiki, I found the following article: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Wireless_WDS_Mesh, which is the base of my following thoughts:
- each OmniTik will have the same SSID (“sensornet”) and basic configuration (AP Bridge Mode, 5GHz, WPA2 PSK with same key)
- The main station will get the IP 192.168.0.1/16, its MikroTik will get 192.168.0.254/16.
- Each sensor-post will be assigned the following IPs: 192.168.[sensor-post no starting at 1].254 for the MikroTik and 192.168.[sensor-post-no].[sensor-no] (e.g. 192.168.1.1/16, 192.168.1.2/16, 192.168.1.3/16, 192.168.1.4/16 for the four sensors and 192.168.1.254/16 for the MikroTik of the first sensor-post)
I can then handle all basic settings in a menu called “Quick Set”.
If I then click on the “Interfaces” and select “wlan1”, I can even set WDS-mode to “dynamic mesh”, but I can’t set WDS-default-bridge to “Mesh-Interface”, because that option doesn’t appear in my dropdown. I have then looked at Mesh and I could add a Mesh called “Mesh-Interface” there (as described later in the guide) however it won’t let me set the MAC-Address as shown in the picture in the guide.
Is my planned configuration useful or should something be changed?
Could someone explain to me what steps would be neccessary to reproduce the desired effect on the OmniTik?
Thanks a lot for your effort helping a total newb.