Advice about using a mobile hotspot Vs cabled internet?

Easel
1

Hi folks. I am getting exited about receiving my x carve 750 in the next week or so. I have a couple of questions about internet connection.

I have a couple of different options with connecting my garage which is separate from my house by about 60 meters and not sharing the same meter box.

Has anyone had any success using their mobile phone as a hotspot for their laptop and secondly, does Easel require a constant internet connection throughout the whole cutting process. (If I take my phone up to the house half way through a process will it stop)

Looking forward to getting going with this. Cheers Ian

2

have you also considered homeplug? It is a very cheap but reliable solution. It will work if both locations are on the same side of a transformer. It is cheap, easy and portable. You connect the main device to the electrical plug by your router and with a cat5 wire, you connect it to the router. You connect the other side to the electrical plug in your workshop and connect the computer or a secondary router to it. Some even have a wifi built-in. As the old laptop in my workshop has a broken wifi, I use Homeplug and connect to Internet. For best results, connect the homeplug device on an outlet connected to a circuit that does not have electric motors connected to it as it will reduce performance.

Another solution would be to install a wifi booster near your shop assuming you have wifi in the house.

Personally, I would not rely on cell service for a reliable Internet connection.

3

I use a signal booster for my machine and it works great for me. I would not rely of cell service either. If you lose signal during a carve your carve will stop. Better to find the most reliable method possible,

4

You do not need internet connection during the carve. Internet is only used by Easel to load and save projects.

5

Thanks Luc. It turns out that the shed is on a different transformer. In Australia where I am I think the homeplug is called a DLink. Same principle. I have tried this and had no luck. The WiFi booster is looking like the way to go. Cheers Ian.

1 Like
6

Thanks Joe4re. It looks like the booster is going to be the way to go.

7

Hi Sam. Thanks for the reply. Do you reckon that if I used the mobile phone as a hotspot I would only need it at the start of the carve?

8

According to Inventables, yes. Do a test cut and see what happens

1 Like
9

Sam, yes you are correct. I was thinking about the computer timing out during a carve. My mistake.

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10

Something else to consider. One way to remove the need to have an Internet connection in your workshop is to change sender and use something like UGS or CNCjs instead of Easel to control your X-Carve. They do not need to be connected to Internet to operate. You still design in Easel or something else like VCarve then download the GCode onto a memory stick and use the other sender to operate your X-Carve.

11

Thanks again Luc. I’ll work on getting a connection first I think but it is nice to know there are other options available.
Cheers Ian

1 Like
12

So its been a month or so now and I’m having a ball. In the end I have just been using my mobile phone as a hotspot and I have not had any issues as at all. Ian