Subscriber Discussion

Ubiquiti Wireless Camera System With 10-12 Links, Redundant Path/Loop?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Jul 15, 2018

We are designing a camera system that will have 10-12 wireless links in it. Normally we would split off, and do 5 one way, and 5 another way. The way this community is set up, we could easily connect the links at the end. I want to know if there is a way to connect  A to B, B to C, then C back to A?

 

We do quite a bit to ensure the wireless stays up, ping watchdog, UPS etc, but in case one wireless link goes down, we would like for the network to have an alternate path.

 

 

I will post a design soon.

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #2
Jul 16, 2018

What is the distance between nodes?  It is hard to comment without seeing the design but instead of doing point to point you could do mesh, you mention Ubiquiti in the title, they have a mesh option: https://unifi-mesh.ubnt.com/#home 

 

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Daniel S-T
Jul 16, 2018

Mesh would seem to be the way to go for me, unless the cost is significantly higher?

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MM
Michael Miller
Jul 16, 2018

UBNT mesh APs are designed for WIFI and are not dedicated for backhaul.  Not saying they would not work but you need to keep this in mind. 

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U
Undisclosed #3
Jul 16, 2018

If you have C going back to A then STP should see that as a loop and shut down the port. However if A to B fails the loop goes away and STP should enable the disabled port allowing A to C and C to B pathway. Hope that makes sense, there are some other methods which take more configurations but if you are looking to just have the links route through your last radio then Spanning Tree Protocol may work out for you. There are some STP setups and configurations in the UBNT forums to pick up on.

 

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Jeffrey Hinckley
Jul 18, 2018

I do many of these, and have never had a reason for redundacy.  I have power directly from power company on poles, and never lose radios.  I did have to use watchdog, though, when v 5.9 came out.  Those problems were corrected in 6.x (and 5.6 was stable for so many years...why do manufacturers mess with a good thing).

Do not use mesh for a planned cluster of HD cameras, unless it is custom designed with seperate upstream and downstream frequencies.  You will quickly outgrow it.  UBNT now released the nanostation AC with dual nics if these are short range.  Perfect for repeating and/or hopping around blocks.

You could always put an additional radio on C back to A and manually change to A ssid.  If you could go A to C, though, why not just do seperate links AB and AC?

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