Everybody.
I need help setting up a home PC/PLC network.

I have
A PC
An ethernet router with wireless and hardwired ports
A wireless bridge
A PLC 5/40e
A tranceiver to interface between the 5/40E and the CAT-5

I know...
All the IP addresses of my hardware ( I just set it up)
All about the PLC5/50E (I'm talking on DF1-1 now)

I need to learn.
The relationship between the (PLC's IP address, the broadcast address, subnet mask, gateway mask) and my network.

I hate to sound ignorant, but I've been struggling for a couple of evenings trying to get this running.

Best Regards,
Rich

Making network can be frustrating

The simplest thing is to make a small star network with
static addressing. If you are new to this, first thing
to do is probably to make a plan on paper.

Count devices you want to network and choose subnet mask.
Note that subnet mask is a 4byte number such as 255.255.255.0
or 255.255.255.192.
The later one would look like this when converted to binary form:
11111111 . 11111111 . 11111111 . 11000000

What the heck is this? Simple, there are 6 "zeroes" in our example.
This is determining number in a IP address that can be varied.
The "ones" are part of the IP address that must be same
in each IP address for all devices on same network.

Important: Subnet mask must start with "1" and end with "0".
Also all "1"s must be grouped together, all"0"s must be
grouped together.

So if you choose to use such mask (255.255.255.192), you could
have max. 2^6=64 devices on your network (this is just for you
to understand the concept). In this case, all devices would
have first 3 bytes of the IP address same, and the last one would
be unique for each device.
For example:
Device1 (PC)
IP: 192.168.0.13
Mask: 255.255.255.192

Device1 (PC1)
IP: 192.168.0.1
Mask: 255.255.255.192

Device2 (PC2)
IP: 192.168.0.2
Mask: 255.255.255.192

Device3 (PLC)
IP: 192.168.0.3
Mask: 255.255.255.192

Device4 (Xerox Printer)
IP: 192.168.0.4
Mask: 255.255.255.192

Device5 (Fish tank)
IP: 192.168.0.5
Mask: 255.255.255.192
etc.

As you can see, subnet mask is the same, the begin of the
IP addresses is the same, the last number is varied (remember
the group of zeros in the subnet mask?).

If you choose subnetmask 255.255.0.0 for example, you could have
some 65535 devices etc.

Enough of theory, get a hub or switch and couple of STRAIGHT
ethernet cables (not crossover cables!!!).
Connect all devices to hub ports. Do not use port labeled "Uplink".

Power up everything and start DOS box on your PC and check if you
can reach all of the devices by pinging them. To do so just type:

PING 192.168.0.3

and hit enter to check if you can reach that node.
Don't even think of doing any other software configuration or
software troubleshooting if you cannot ping the targets.
If ping works, hardware setup is ok and now you can try to
connect from one to other device.

Now back to the "Uplink". This is used to cascade Hubs or Switches.

Crossover cable is used as direct connection between two ethernet
devices (without hub or switch). You might want to try to use crossover
(instead of straight cable) to connect one device to hub or switch.
In this case you should plug it into Uplink port.

As a side note, there are "smart" switches out there which are
supposed to recognise type of each plugged cable and internally
match it. My experience is that these devices can work but are not
quite reliable yet, specially if used with "wild" hardware (not PCs).
Maybe next generation will be better.
Hope this helps,
regards,

panic mode



Hope this helps