Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.

Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh
Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh
2023-05-01 19:28:47 - last edited 2023-05-01 19:41:24
Tags: #Mesh
Model: EAP650-Outdoor  
Hardware Version:
Firmware Version:

Hello all, hopefully a quick question.

 

I operate a pop-up Omada mesh of typically between 10 and 15 EAD-225Outdoor,  all accessing the internet via a 'root' AP node and all is typically fine.

 

I had a couple of the APs fail at the weekend and know the 225 outdoor has a max of 4 immidiate downstream APs that it can connect to in the mesh.

 

Rather than replace them with the same model, I'm considering starting a slow upgrade to the 650Oudoor, but wondered if the 650 supports more downstream connected APs?

 

I have searched and looked and cannot find an answer. From memory, I only discovered the 4 limit of the ead 225 after initial setup, so maybe this can only be answered by people that have used the 650 in a mesh (this is immidatly connected AP not the total of all the hops) 

 

Many thanks in advance   

 

Steve

  0      
  0      
#1
Options
3 Reply
Re:Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh
2023-05-02 03:50:17

  @SteveHeathfield 

 

I don't talk to the actual TPlink specfications, but I do have experience in real-world mesh optimizations.  I would never recommend more than 3hops+3neighbours as a rule, so that means a theorectical max 14 APs hanging off a single wired 15th AP, and only if the 14 can self organize into a reasonable binary tree.  If any kind of performance at all is needed, I'd really recommend using 2 x EAP225-outdoors wired up to the switch and operating the wired APs on different channels as that will be much more performant.

 

An example of a (barely) 'valid' mesh organization (in my opinion) as throughput will be terrible 

Starting from the blue Wired node #1:

 

 

<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
  0  
  0  
#2
Options
Re:Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh
2023-05-15 16:08:35

  @d0ugmac1 

 

Thanks for your reply, I had to dash to an event last week but did reorganise the network based on your thoughts. We have also learned to bring up the APs in a specific order which seems to reduce the occasional odd uplink choice the TPlink algorith sometimes makes!. 

 

We were able to wire a few of the APs together to give us some zones with a reduce wifi 'back-bown*' between AP which did seem to improve things over the same event last year, but based on your advice I am now planning a 'dual root' with two APs wired for these events. I will probably makes these the 650 as I already have 16x 225s. 

 

Many thanks again for sharing your experiance.

 

Steve

 

*misspelt to get round the forums overly scrict use of language...

 

  0  
  0  
#3
Options
Re:Max number of connected APs to EAD 650 in a mesh
2023-05-15 16:26:02 - last edited 2023-05-15 16:27:40

  @SteveHeathfield 

 

Keen to hear how this progresses.

 

One other tactic you can use is in the Row2-Row3 links by joining the ethernet ports of the 225's (is this your 'reduced back-boan'?) with a cable (between their respective injectors), BUT fixing their 5Ghz radios on different channels.  The biggest issue with meshes is that all the backhauls have to operate on the same radio channel, which creates a lot of contention, and a lot of noise (as APs on the far right try to talk to a central node, they cannot 'hear' an AP on the far left and so don't back off and the L and R nodes wind up talking all over each other forcing a retransmit of all those packets, plus the lost time for the central AP to upload.

 

For every wired pair (tandem) in the middle of your mesh you can introduce a new frequency for use further downstream.  Again, performance tactic.  If you are clever about both selecting and fixing the 2.4 and 5.8 radio channels, you can mount the APs quite close to each other (ie same pole or whatever) to simplify the tandem wiring etc etc.

<< Paying it forward, one juicy problem at a time... >>
  0  
  0  
#4
Options