Z-Wave over PoE kit

tube0013 · January 22, 2024, 12:38am

I’ve (TubesZB) been selling in Ethernet/PoE connected zigbee coordinators for a while now, and every few so often I’d get a request for a Z-Wave version.

I’m sort of half way there now: Z-Wave PoE Kit

I’m now offering a kit that you can plug a Zooz ZAC93 or Razzberry Pro 7 into to use over PoE no pi required. Other pi gpio radios will likely work but the two above are tested and fit in the case I’ve designed.

I also have the pcb available which I ship with the required pins to be soldered on and used if you want to do it all yourself. I’ll post the gerbers and case stls to GitHub soon.

nmpu · January 22, 2024, 6:36am

I like the idea, especially the external antenna, but that only comes with the $85 RaZberry 7 Pro. Total cost $45 + $85 + shipping + tax.

I recently accomplished the same with an $8 (eBay) WS-AP3825i access point and a $26 (Amazon Warehouse) Atrim 800 series Z-Wave USB adapter. Costs include tax and shipping in the US. The AP is larger than your enclosure, but it’s designed to mount on a wall/ceiling with the Ethernet cable tucked behind. It also has rubber feet if you want to sit on a shelf. The AP has 5 status LEDs (3 are bicolor) and dual Gigabit POE ports. For me it was a no-brainer because it was already mounted and in use for Wi-Fi. I just plugged in the USB radio which is hardly noticeable parallel to the ceiling. Yes, I had to flash OpenWrt and shop for bargains on the hardware.

mwolter · April 26, 2024, 4:42pm

@tube0013 Which way should the board be soldered?

I purchased Raspberry Pi GPIO to Olimex UEXT for Z-Wave Adaptors pcb kit and soldered it according to the image below from your site (note the board orientation also matches the image in your original post), connected the Zooz ZAC93 and powered up the ESP.

img_3544-scaled-600x450

Unfortunately the olimex-esp32-poe board no longer works. It does not power on, report logs or respond to reset.

I then looked at your site again and on the page for the pcb itself, you show the board soldered upside down with respect to the connectors.

Both images I’ve posted are from your site. As you can see the stencil outline for the UEXT connector is on different sides of the board in each image.

Which is orientation is correct?

tube0013 · April 26, 2024, 5:02pm

The side labeled UEXT is on the top side of the keyed female connector. The side labeled with zwave is on the bottom.

Sorry for the confusion. The 1st photo showing the device installed is correct.

mwolter · April 26, 2024, 8:24pm

Thanks for the quick reply. Tried another olimex-esp32-poe board and it appears to be working fine. Looks like it was a coincidence the board died.

mvank · May 19, 2024, 7:43am

Hi @tube0013, your zwaven poe kit with ZooZ ZAC93, how many devices can it hold?
Just looking into to get zwave poe enabled to get rid of the old aeotec gen5 stick, which have been solid for many years…

tube0013 · May 19, 2024, 10:46am

I don’t actually sell the z-wave radio, so you’ll need to look up the specs of the Zooz or Razzbery to see which one will work best for you.

mvank · May 19, 2024, 4:19pm

Ok no problem. When do you think the zwave poe kit will be in stock again?

lundy · May 29, 2024, 2:55pm

I love your Zigbee POE stuff but so far, I have had nothing but trouble with this Z-Wave POE board. I don’t think it’s any fault of yours though I have even ordered a spare Olimex board to see if it was just a bad board, but I get constant disconnects where the ESP device becomes unresponsive, and I get a driver failure in Zwave JS. I’m using the Zooz 800 GPIO module and have tried 2 of those as well with no change in reliability. Seems that ever 2-4 hours it just hangs and requires a power cycle of the Olimex board to restore Z-Wave JS to functionality. Looking on the Olimex Github there do seem to be some reports about the power supply not being stable over POE and that using USB to power the board is more reliable. I have not attempted this but it will kind of defeat the purpose of the board in my opinion.

Driver: Failed to initialize the driver: ZWaveError: The driver is not ready or has been destroyed (ZW0103) at Driver.ensureReady (/opt/node_modules/zwave-js/src/lib/driver/Driver.ts:2867:10) at Driver.sendMessage (/opt/node_modules/zwave-js/src/lib/driver/Driver.ts:5269:8) at ZWaveController.queryCapabilities (/opt/node_modules/zwave-js/src/lib/controller/Controller.ts:936:37) at Driver.initializeControllerAndNodes (/opt/node_modules/zwave-js/src/lib/driver/Driver.ts:1458:46) at Immediate. (/opt/node_modules/zwave-js/src/lib/driver/Driver.ts:1259:16) (ZW0100)

help swap_horizontal_circle infohistory

tube0013 · May 29, 2024, 3:54pm

Have you tried flashing the Olimex ESP32 over microUSB? this will erase it and put a clean FW on it, sometimes this solves issues. FW is on my github (yaml and binaries)

ScottR · May 29, 2024, 4:29pm

@lundy. I had this same problem about a year ago with my first TubesZB Zigbee controller and I purchased a second Olimex POE module thinking it was rebooting or something causing it to go offline but new new Olimex module didn’t resolve it. If you use pfSense or Ubiquiti router with a reserved static DHCP ip address this seems to be a known problem. I found it can be resolved by hard coding a static IP address for the ESP32 module in the yaml code. I have both TubesZB Zigbee and the TubesZB Z-Wave (with RaZberry 7 Pro radio) ESP32 POE modules with static IP addresses assigned in the ESP32 yaml code and they have been rock solid.

Example with static IP address:

#Olimex ESP32-PoE Ethernet
ethernet:
  type: LAN8720
  mdc_pin: GPIO23
  mdio_pin: GPIO18
  clk_mode: GPIO17_OUT
  phy_addr: 0
  power_pin: GPIO12
  
    # Optional manual IP
  manual_ip:
    static_ip: 192.168.0.8
    gateway: 192.168.0.1
    subnet: 255.255.255.0

lundy · May 29, 2024, 10:08pm

Yep I have done that. One of the Olimex boards I just ordered from Digikey so it had to be flashed manually. I am reflashing now with the static hardcoded to see if this resolves the issue as @ScottR suggests because I do currently have a static IP assigned in pfSense. Should know rather quickly if this solves my issue.

lundy · May 30, 2024, 1:16pm

Well heck that absolutely fixed the issue. Can’t believe I’ve been chasing this issue for 2 weeks and that’s all it was.

tube0013 · May 30, 2024, 1:29pm

Yes, thanks @ScottR for mentioning the PFSense / static IP fix.

joneshf · May 30, 2024, 1:59pm

@tube0013 Echoing a previous question: when do you think the kit will be back in stock?

Judman13 · June 4, 2024, 3:50pm

EDIT: I decided to answer my own question and fire up another instance of Z-Wave JS and when I got it set up, the coordinator WebUI showed Serial Connected ON and the Z-wave board picked up just fine in the Z-wave JS UI.

~~Can someone sanity check me here?~~

~~I got my olimex board, zooz zwave board and the lovely adapter pcb in from Tubez and got it all soldered up, but I am not getting any zwave signs of life.~~

~~Do I need to connect to Zwave JS UI to know if it is working or should the ZW Serial Connected be on when the Zwave board is plugged in?~~

~~Thanks!~~