wireless router on battery
wireless router on battery
I want to use a wireless router to control fireworks by computer. The one I have has a wall wart for it's power. Can I just clip off the wall wart and hook the router to a battery that has the same voltage and enough amperage to match the wall wart's output? Has anyone out there tried such a thing and had it work? Thanks to all.
That all depends on if the router requires a "regulated" source or not. For the most part you can do exactly what you suggest. PLEASE be sure that you SECURE your router if you plan on controlling fireworks with it. Don't name the node "FIREWORKS" or something like that. I would also suggest turning off SSID broadcasts as well.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced!
wireless router on battery
The router will beway out in the country, so there will be very little interference with other wireless networks and a slim to no chance of hackers. I have one more wuestion though, the wall wart says it puts out 9 volts, would there be a problem if I used a 12 volt auto battery?
I would suggest a 9V regulator instead of a direct connect to a 12V car battery. A fully charged car battery may float to 13 or 14V.
Set up soap box. Climbing on top. Putting on the asbestos suit and awaiting the flame war to begin.
A slim to no chance of hackers? I live way out in the country. My main router has the radios turned off unless I'm going to connect to it wirelessly; which is RARE. I bought a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router off eBay to experiment with DDWRT and similar distros. (These are Linux based OPEN SOUCE packages you can reflash certain routers to turn a cheap router (under $75 new) to have features found on a $500 router.) Well the seller sent a WRT54G; not what I wanted as it can't handle the full DDWRT packages. It is not useful to me for much.
For grins I configured it for open wireless and then disconnected all Ethernet cables from it. This became a "default" configured Linksys router broadcasting in the clear. But it was "safe" in that none of my computers or my Internet gateway were connected to it. I let it run for several days then connected a computer back up to see what activity was logged. Checking the DHCP log I found that maybe a dozen people had connected to this router in an attempt to get "FREE" Internet. And these were "casual" drop ins. I left the "default" password. If any of these were like me they would have covered their tracks and deleted their DHCP entry or possibly all of them. I'm not saying that DIDN'T happen at one point, but that nobody at the time I looked at it had. A dozen separate entries and nobody cleared the list.
This is way out in the country. How far out in the sticks? My neighbors to the east operate a full dairy farm and have lots of chickens as well as huge corn and soy fields. North of me is one neighbor then large areas of farms. The neighbor directly south does not even own a computer let alone a laptop with WiFi. The best I can figure is these connections were people Wardriving. (Look it up.)
You plan on controlling the firing of EXPLOSIVES by computer. Further you plan on using WiFi. You asked what I consider a very basic question regarding the powering of a device by battery. I suggested (and still strongly do) that you secure the wirelss router. When I suggested securing the device you imply that this is not important because of a slim to no chance of hackers.
There is a unique group of individuals that setup things called CARPUTERS or CarPC. I am short a mini LCD monitor of putting one in my car. This is a computer built into a car; they carry MP3 players, GPS systems, WiFi mappers, and so on. Those with the WiFi mappers will also install programs like NetStumbler and other applications I will not suggest here. I regularly carry a laptop with me as I need to get into my work network in cases of emergency problems. I consider myself to be fairly ethical and do not damage networks that do not belong to me. But there are numerous IT people out there in the same boat I am in. And they are not nearly as honest.
Some of my primary job functions require that I wear a "white hat". I make some vendors very unhappy when I show them holes in their software or devices. Here is a real life example. A vendor was demonstrating IP cameras to my company. I happened to be researching IP cameras and found a thread concerning a bug in the firmware of certain camera chip sets and a simple hack to gain ADMIN rights to the camera without knowing the password. The vendor gave me the IP address of the web camera which was in FREE VIEW mode. But I implemented the hack without letting them know. I was using the PAN TILT ZOOM features of the camera; something I should not have been able to do in VIEW mode. The vendor remarked that it was "interesting" that someone was playing with the camera as it is almost never moved. He knew that he had not given me the login information. I then showed him it was me that was moving the camera. There was silence. I then let him know that he needs to update the firmware as his camera is not secure. Needless to say we did not buy the product.
You may not be so lucky and a "black hat" may decide rebooting the router or possibly locking you out of it in the middle of the show would be funny. Or worse you might be running an unpatched system and someone may find a way to take control of your computer at the desktop. There are many "on the fly" ways to do this. Did you change the administrator password on you system? Is it "password", "12345", "letmein" or some of the other easy passwords. And yes, they can take FULL CONTROL of the desktop as if they were sitting in front of the computer. Some smart hacker might change the password, lock you out of your own PC, blank the screen from you, and still have full control of the show. All while your are wondering what is going wrong.
I don't wish to have wrath of bodgy or MrAl come down on me so I won't say things I probably should not in an open forum such as this. But based on the basic question you posted and the lack of detail to even simple safety measures I feel you are way over your head. You may want to consider rethinking this project.
Putting soapbox away for another time.
Set up soap box. Climbing on top. Putting on the asbestos suit and awaiting the flame war to begin.
A slim to no chance of hackers? I live way out in the country. My main router has the radios turned off unless I'm going to connect to it wirelessly; which is RARE. I bought a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router off eBay to experiment with DDWRT and similar distros. (These are Linux based OPEN SOUCE packages you can reflash certain routers to turn a cheap router (under $75 new) to have features found on a $500 router.) Well the seller sent a WRT54G; not what I wanted as it can't handle the full DDWRT packages. It is not useful to me for much.
For grins I configured it for open wireless and then disconnected all Ethernet cables from it. This became a "default" configured Linksys router broadcasting in the clear. But it was "safe" in that none of my computers or my Internet gateway were connected to it. I let it run for several days then connected a computer back up to see what activity was logged. Checking the DHCP log I found that maybe a dozen people had connected to this router in an attempt to get "FREE" Internet. And these were "casual" drop ins. I left the "default" password. If any of these were like me they would have covered their tracks and deleted their DHCP entry or possibly all of them. I'm not saying that DIDN'T happen at one point, but that nobody at the time I looked at it had. A dozen separate entries and nobody cleared the list.
This is way out in the country. How far out in the sticks? My neighbors to the east operate a full dairy farm and have lots of chickens as well as huge corn and soy fields. North of me is one neighbor then large areas of farms. The neighbor directly south does not even own a computer let alone a laptop with WiFi. The best I can figure is these connections were people Wardriving. (Look it up.)
You plan on controlling the firing of EXPLOSIVES by computer. Further you plan on using WiFi. You asked what I consider a very basic question regarding the powering of a device by battery. I suggested (and still strongly do) that you secure the wirelss router. When I suggested securing the device you imply that this is not important because of a slim to no chance of hackers.
There is a unique group of individuals that setup things called CARPUTERS or CarPC. I am short a mini LCD monitor of putting one in my car. This is a computer built into a car; they carry MP3 players, GPS systems, WiFi mappers, and so on. Those with the WiFi mappers will also install programs like NetStumbler and other applications I will not suggest here. I regularly carry a laptop with me as I need to get into my work network in cases of emergency problems. I consider myself to be fairly ethical and do not damage networks that do not belong to me. But there are numerous IT people out there in the same boat I am in. And they are not nearly as honest.
Some of my primary job functions require that I wear a "white hat". I make some vendors very unhappy when I show them holes in their software or devices. Here is a real life example. A vendor was demonstrating IP cameras to my company. I happened to be researching IP cameras and found a thread concerning a bug in the firmware of certain camera chip sets and a simple hack to gain ADMIN rights to the camera without knowing the password. The vendor gave me the IP address of the web camera which was in FREE VIEW mode. But I implemented the hack without letting them know. I was using the PAN TILT ZOOM features of the camera; something I should not have been able to do in VIEW mode. The vendor remarked that it was "interesting" that someone was playing with the camera as it is almost never moved. He knew that he had not given me the login information. I then showed him it was me that was moving the camera. There was silence. I then let him know that he needs to update the firmware as his camera is not secure. Needless to say we did not buy the product.
You may not be so lucky and a "black hat" may decide rebooting the router or possibly locking you out of it in the middle of the show would be funny. Or worse you might be running an unpatched system and someone may find a way to take control of your computer at the desktop. There are many "on the fly" ways to do this. Did you change the administrator password on you system? Is it "password", "12345", "letmein" or some of the other easy passwords. And yes, they can take FULL CONTROL of the desktop as if they were sitting in front of the computer. Some smart hacker might change the password, lock you out of your own PC, blank the screen from you, and still have full control of the show. All while your are wondering what is going wrong.
I don't wish to have wrath of bodgy or MrAl come down on me so I won't say things I probably should not in an open forum such as this. But based on the basic question you posted and the lack of detail to even simple safety measures I feel you are way over your head. You may want to consider rethinking this project.
Putting soapbox away for another time.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced!
:O WOW :O wireless router on battery
Thanks a lot jollyrgr for such good input. Obviously, being in a rural area is no longer a protection from hackers and I am really glad you made me aware of the danger. I definitely will re-think my project and will probably just hardwire it to the computer and start the show out in the field with the computer out there but protected. I am a total amateur and I have been on this forum for several years and I always appreciate your posts!
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