I’ve got an area where sensors are not close enough to IIoT Gateway A for reliable communication, so I’m planning to install Gateway B on the other side of the property to cover the further sensors.
What will happen if both gateways pick up the same sensor data? Will I then receive the message twice, once form Gateway A and once from Gateway B on my backend? Or is there some configuration I need to setup?
Hi,
With default configurations you will receive sensor data from the sensors on both gateways provided that they are within range.
There are two common solutions for this:
Option 1 is to only install a single gateway and use repeaters to extend the range of the further sensors in order to reach that single gateway. This is probably the simplest solution, but can be complex depending on the environment. 1 to 2 repeaters located high up in the building with as close to line of sight to sensors and gateway will generally cover most large buildings.
Option 2 can be done through software. You will want to document exactly which sensor is reporting to which gateway so you don’t have to troubleshoot which gateway a sensor should be reporting to if it ever stops reporting.
In Node-Red set the Network ID of your serial port to something other than the default for one of the gateways. The easiest way is to go into the configuration nodes through the menu in the top right, find your ncd-gateway-config node that you’re using, double click it, and change the network ID.
You will need to configure the sensors you want to talk to that gateway to use the same network ID. You can configure sensors using the standard configuration methods, just make sure to set the Network ID field to 7FFE or whatever you set the gateway to.
Keep in mind if you plan to use the OTF config you’ll want to change the network ID of the gateway after all sensors have been succesfully reconfigured to the new network ID.
