Field Rollout Guide

This portion of the deployment guide describes how to actually install servers in vehicles and kiosks.

Soekris case issues

The basic Soekris housing does not come with holes drilled for the female antenna mounts. Before installing the the hard drive and wireless cards, remove the mother board and punch holes on both sides of the box for the two antennas.

The center hole diam = 0.440in. Use a punch size just smaller than the diam (7/16 or 13/32 in), and file away to widen the hole so that the pigtail goes in. Now, mark the centers for the two side holes for the screws. The screw diam = 0.094in. Use a punch size just bigger than the diam (1/8 or 3/32 in) for these holes.

Replace the motherboard. If the wireless card has not been installed, install it and attach the pigtails before attempting to install the hard drive. Make sure that the metal ends of the two pigtails are not in contact, and that they are securely pushed in. This is important!

Once the hard drive is installed, attach the wireless pigtails to the inside of the Soekris case. Close the case and attach the external antennas. The hardware setup is now complete.

Setting up a VIA Box

VIA boxes are a little different from Soekrises. You need to build the box differently, and the software setup is also slightly different.

Setting up a VIA

Setting up a Kiosk

Here are some practical concerns in setting up a kiosk.

• Fix the solar panels outside on the roof of the kiosk. Make sure that you tie them in properly so that they do not get blown away in high winds.
• Attach the solar panel outlets into the charge controller input.
• Attach the charge controller outputs into the car battery. Make sure that you get the polarity correct -- always remember that red is positive! Keep the battery inside the kiosk, a few inches from the wall to keep it away from water seepage in case of rain.
• Attach the DC-AC inverter to the car battery, and power the Soekris box through the inverter.
•  ??? switch-off circuitry
• Connect the Soekris box and the kiosk PC through the Ethernet hub. You are all set if the lights are blinking! The next step is to set up the wireless.
• Prepare the LMR cable with N Male on one end and RPTNC female on the other end. You will need special LMR crimping tools for this, and a die-size of 100 and 429 for the LMR-400 crimps. Details on how to do this are available in the book ‘WiFi Toys’ by Mike Outmesguine.
• Mount the omni antenna on the wall outside the kiosk, facing the road. Plug the N Male end of the LMR cable into the omni antenna, and the RPTNC female end into the pigtail on the Soekris.
• XXX testing XXX

Setting up a vehicle

• Put foam padding on the Soekris box. Be careful to not cover the heat vents though.
• Draw a 5 Amp wire from the positive of the car battery, and another wire from the ground. Bring the wires inside the car from openings under the dashboard.
• Attach the wires to the DC-AC inverter, and power the Soekris box from it.
• XXX switch-off circuitry XXX
• Firmly tie in the Soekrix box in a suitable place.
• Plug in the magnetic mount antenna into the pigtail through the N male to RPTNC female adapter, and stick the antenna on to the roof or trunk of the vehicle.

Setting up a gateway

• Set up the Internet connection. Most likely, the technical staff from the broadband company will set it up for you on a Windows PC through a 4 port Ethernet hub.
• Set up connection sharing on the Windows PC as follows:
  • Go to Settings  Network Connections  Select the broadband connection  Advanced  Check the box that says ‘enable connection sharing’
  • Go to Start  Run  Type ‘regedit’  Go to HKLM / System / CurrentControlSet / Services / Tcpip / Parameters  Set IPEnableRouter to 1
  • Note the IP address of the Windows PC by typing ‘ipconfig’ in the command window
• Connect the Soekris box and the hub over Ethernet
• As with the kiosk, mount the omni antenna outside on the wall, prepare the LMR cable, and connect the cable to the omni antenna outside and the pigtail mount on the Soekris box inside.
• Make sure that the Soekris box is powered through UPS if available, or else through a solar panel.
• XXX testing XXX

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