Wireless RS232

[Dag]

Well you can do it very simply with the ACII and Aquanotes.

Kattner, I have the ACII and Aquanotes, and I have Comcast broadband. I also have a laptop connected to teh ACII. I also have an extra laptop.

Currently, I have no home network.

Can you give me a little bit more help how to do this? I understand the concept of a router. And I think I can connect to my tank computer either by wireless or by using a CAT5 line from the router to the tank computer.

But then what? How do you access it remotely?

I may need remedial help ...

 

[kattner]

Dag, Here are some thoughts

It all depends on what you want to do. Putting the ACII on an ethernet connection is helpful when you want the computer running aquanotes to be located at some distance from the tank. If you don't need the distance then you can stop here and just hook the computer via the serial interface to the ACII.

If you have one computer or need to locate it far from the tank, you need some way to connect the ACII to the computer at a distance. What some people do is use their existing ethernet network as a means to hook the two together. Your existing ethernet network can be as simple as the ethernet wire from your computer to your router or the wireless ethernet link from your computer to wireles router. In theory all you are doing is putting the ACII into the ethernet network so the aquanotes software running on your computer can find it.

But, an ethernet wire is still a wire that will need to run from the ACII to your router. If this is ok, then you just need a serial to ethernet adapter This device has a serial connection on one end that plugs into the ACII and the other end has a cat5 ethernet plug connection that your ethernet cable plugs into and then runs to the same kind of plug on your router. Tonga_Man has some recommendations above in this thread on the type of adpater to get and the configuration of the software that comes with it.

If you need wireless, then you need to get an ethernet to wireless bridge like the Dlink unit that Tonga_man and I discussed above. This unit plugs into the ethernet cable (a short 6 inch cable will do) going to the serial to ethernet adapter. So it looks like this - ACII plugs into the serial to ethernet adapter, serial to ethernet adapter plugs into ethernet to wireless bridge. From this point, if you have a wireless router, the ACII can communicate with the router wirelessly. You dont need a wire or computer anywhere near the tank. Once the ACII is linked to your wireless router, any computer you have that is hooked up either by wire or wirelessly to the router will be able to run aquanotes and communicate with the ACII


. So some folks have converted the

You may want a dedicated computer to run aquanotes so it is always available

 

[Dag]

I have a dedicated computer connected to my controller. The computer is near the controller and wired to it. That's fiine.

What I want to do is to be able to view my tank information when I'm on vacation in another state.

I'm gonna have Comcast set up my home network, and then I'll configure it as best I can using the Aquanotes manual. The problem is that none of these words mean anything to me.

 

[kattner]

lol

ok, you don't need all the stuff in this thread if you have a dedicated computer hooked to the ACII. Half the battle is done.

When you get a home network, you need to make sure your computer that is hooked up to the ACII is wired into your home network (or use a wireless card to hook into your network). You will see how this is done when comcast gets you hooked up (hopefully)

Holler back when you get that far and I'll help as best I can. I think there are some other threads I'll try to find for you.

 

[Dag]

Kattner,

Thanks for the offer. Could we continue the discussion over here: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=732042&perpage=25&pagenumber=2

This way Jose could participate in the conversation.

 

[pperez]

How can i use the serial connection of my aq2 to connect via usb? I bought a serial to usb cable but the controller is not being picked up. Can someone give me any options. Please only recommend something you have tried and that it worked, not something you heard.

Thanks.

 

[Carlos]

In order to connect to USB, you still need a way to convert the existing serial connector to an USB plug. In order to do so, you need something like this:

http://www.gridconnect.com/usbcanin.html

For the price, you are better off using Serial to Ethernet which would be faster and also, be able to access it from any computer and not just the computer that it is connected to.

Carlos