RAK RAK831 User manual
RAK831 User Manual
COPYRIGHT ©
SHENZHEN RAKWIRELESS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD
www.rakwireless.com
1
RAK831 Pilot Gateway
User Manual V1.0
Shenzhen Rakwireless Technology Co., Ltd
www.rakwireless.com
© 2018 Rakwireless all rights reserved.
in this document , the actual company and product
names, trademarks are their respective owners.
After update the new version, this document without prior
notice.
RAK831 User Manual
COPYRIGHT ©
SHENZHEN RAKWIRELESS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD
www.rakwireless.com
2
Contents
1. Build your own RAK831 Pilot gateway
....................................................................3
2. Preparations
...............................................................................................................4
3. Create resin.io account
............................................................................................. 5
4. Create a new application
.......................................................................................... 8
5. Set Fleet Configuration
............................................................................................. 9
6. Add device
................................................................................................................10
7. Write image to SD card
...........................................................................................11
8. Add software to your application
............................................................................13
9. Boot the gateway hardware
................................................................................... 16
10. Add the gateway to the TTN console
.................................................................. 17
11. Configure your device
........................................................................................... 20
12. Contact information
...............................................................................................23
13. Change Note
..........................................................................................................24
RAK831 User Manual
COPYRIGHT ©
SHENZHEN RAKWIRELESS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD
www.rakwireless.com
3
1. Build your own RAK831 Pilot gateway
This documents are from a workshop held during the Things Network Conference 2018, in
this workshop, many developers build a gateway based on RAK831 and a Raspberry Pi model 3.
We can use this tutorial as the reference to understand how to connect RAK831 Pilot gateway to
TTN.
NOTE: Never power on the gateway without the antenna connected as shown in the picture
RAK831 User Manual
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2. Preparations
The workshop requires some tools to be available on your system. Check the list below and
follow the link to the installation instructions if you do not have the tool installed.
GIT command line client. windows,OSX, for Linux use the tools from your distribution to
install.
For Windows and OSX: Etcher, SD card writing software. windows,OSX
You will also need a SSH public/private key pair, generate a key pair if you do not have it.
RAK831 User Manual
COPYRIGHT ©
SHENZHEN RAKWIRELESS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD
www.rakwireless.com
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3. Create resin.io account
If you already have a resin.io account, please go to the http://resin.io website and log in.
And if you do not have it, now is the time to create it. Go to signup to create it. (If you have an
account skip to the next step)
On the first screen enter your e-mail address and a (secure) password.
Next you provide your first and last name, company if applicable and choose whether you
will be using resin.io for a personal or professional project.
RAK831 User Manual
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Now we need to add our public SSH key. Resin.io uses this key when we upload code to
run on our devices. In the upper right of the page click on the down arrow next to your name and
select ‘Preferences’from the menu.
Now select the tab “SSH keys”and click on “Enter SSH key manually”
In the next window you need to paste the public part of your SSH key. This is store in
id_rsa.pub in the folder .ssh in your home folder (Windows: c:\users<your
username>.ssh\id_rsa.pub, OSX /Users/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, Linux: /home/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) Use
your favorite editor to open the file and copy the contents to the form.
RAK831 User Manual
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4. Create a new application
On the resin.io main screen you are able to create a new application. The device type
conveniently defaults to Raspberry Pi 3, which we will be using. Enter ‘lorawangw ’for the
application name and proceed with ‘CREATE NEW APPLICATION’.
RAK831 User Manual
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5. Set Fleet Configuration
The Raspberry Pi model 3 requires some settings to correct the timing and switch serial
ports (not used in this setup, but would be required to access a GPS if it had been mounted).
In your browser go to ‘FLEET’, as shown below:
Add the information as shown below:
Name
Value
RESIN_HOST_CONFIG_core_freq
250
RESIN_HOST_CONFIG_dtoverlay
pi3-miniuart-bt
Application config variables:
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6. Add device
In the application select “Add device”.
Leave all settings set to the default and click “Download resinOS”.
Save the download to disk. (Remember where you save it!)
Once the download is finished, extract the contents of the zip file to disk (keep in mind the
extracted file will be almost 2GB in size). In the next step we will write this file to SD card.
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7. Write image to SD card
Get the micro SD card from the Raspberry Pi.
Insert it into the SD card writer (use a full size SD card adapter if required).
Windows & OSX: Open Etcher, click “Select image”and browse to the ISO file extracted in
the previous step, verify the correct SD card is chosen.
Once the right file and device have been click ‘Flash!’. (On Windows this will show the UAC
dialog, click ‘Yes’)
Proceed to the next step while Etcher is writing the image.
Linux: Use dmesg to check which device is used for you SD card. Check with mount if any
partitions of it are mounted and unmounts if this is the case. Write the image to SD card with dd.
sudo dd if=/tmp/resin-lorawangw-<revision>.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=sync
RAK831 User Manual
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SHENZHEN RAKWIRELESS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD
www.rakwireless.com
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8. Add software to your application
Earlier we have created the resin.io application. Now we need to add the application code
that should be run on the Raspberry Pi. For this we will use a prepared LoRaWAN gateway
application available on Github.
A. Open (OSX/Linux) Terminal or (Windows) Git Bash
B. Create a new directory to store the code on you local system go to it
mkdir lorawan-software
cd lorawan-software
C. Get the code from github
git clone https://github.com/jpmeijers/ttn-resin-gateway-rpi.git
D. The output should resemble:
Cloning into 'ttn-resin-gateway-rpi'...
remote: Counting objects: 27, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (20/20), done.
remote: Total 27 (delta 4), reused 27 (delta 4), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (27/27), done.
E. Go to the newly created directory
cd ttn-resin-gateway-rpi
F. Now we need to couple this reposity to resin.io so we are able to send the code there.
For this we need to execute the git command listed on our application page. (Top right)
G. Copy the text marked in the picture (for your application page) and paste it on the
command line of your terminal/git bash.
git remote add resin <your resin.io account>@git.resin.io:<your resin.io account>/lorawangw.git
If the command runs successfully no output will be shown
H. Now we will push the code to resin.io, run
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git push resin
The first time you run this command you will be see a message like
The authenticity of host 'git.resin.io (54.165.162.194)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:NfwmqnKId5cx1RWpebbEuuM87bCJbdyhzRnqFES9Nnw.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
Reply ‘yes’to the question.
Next you will be prompted for the passphrase for your SSH key:
Enter passphrase for key '/c/Users/kersing/.ssh/id_rsa':
Enter the passphrase.
The upload starts and resin starts to build the image:
Counting objects: 27, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (24/24), done.
Writing objects: 100% (27/27), 2.30 MiB | 3.71 MiB/s, done.
Total 27 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0)
[Info] Starting build for workshop/lorawangw, user workshop
[Info] Dashboard link: https://dashboard.resin.io/apps/951296/devices
[Info] Building on arm02
[Info] Fetching base images
[==================================================>] 100%
[Info] Building Dockerfile.template project
This will take a few minutes. When the build is finished a unicorn will be shown. Proceed
with the next step while the build is running.
RAK831 User Manual
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SHENZHEN RAKWIRELESS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD
www.rakwireless.com
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9. Boot the gateway hardware
Eject the micro SD card from your write and insert it into the Raspberry Pi SD card slot.
(Metal contacts at PCB side)
Make sure the antenna is connected to the RAK831 card (see picture at the top), connect
Ethernet cable and power adaptor to the Raspberry Pi. Now plug the power adaptor into power
socket.
The red LED on the Raspberry Pi should light and (after a few seconds) a green LED
should start flashing.
Switch to your browser, select “DEVICES ”on the left. After 1-2 minutes a device should
appear in on the application page.
If the build we started in the previous step is finished the node will start downloading, if not it
will stay idle.
Click on the device name to open the device details.
The top window on the right shows the output from the device. In this case it shows an error
because the software attempted to start but is missing configuration parameters.
RAK831 User Manual
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www.rakwireless.com
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10. Add the gateway to the TTN console
To configure our gateway, we need to add it in the TTN console.
A. Use your TTN credentials to log in to https://console.thethingsnetwork.org/
B. In the main screen click on gateways
C. Click on “register gateway”(or “Get started by registering one”)
D. In the form enter the following values:
For ‘Gateway ID’, choose a unique name for the gateway, allowed A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and -.
Do not check ‘legacy packet forwarder’.
For ‘Description’, enter a human read-able description.
For ‘Frequency Plan’, choose the one appropriate for your location, for Amsterdam use
Europe 868MHz.
For ‘Router’, choose the one closest to you. Routers prefixed with ‘ttn-‘are public ones
operated by The Things Network. switch-router is based in Switzerland and meshed-router
is Australian.
For ‘Location’, choose your location on the map.
RAK831 User Manual
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www.rakwireless.com
20
11. Configure your device
Switch to your resin.io page. If you do not have the device summary page open, open it
now.
Click on “ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES”.
You need to add three variables:
A. Name the first one “GW_ID”(no quotes) and copy the value listed for the “Gateway ID”
in the TTN console.
B. Name the second one “GW_KEY”(no quotes), on the TTN console click on the little eye
icon to the right of “Gateway Key”, this will display the value. Now use the icon at the end of the
line to copy the value (and display “copied”)
C. Paste this value and add.
D. Enter “GW_RESET_PIN”(no quotes) and value 11.
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