I noticed you posted to Peplink forums about trying to configure multiple HD’s etc for clients. I recently installed HD1 with cat18 and an AP One Rugged purchased from Milltech Marine and I’m very happy with performance but I don’t want to purchase another Dome. I’m controlling the AP via the HD1 dome. Because I take my Nighthawk MR1100 with me when leaving the boat, I did not install my second sim in the Dome. Is it feasible to leverage my mobile hotspot MR1100 as a second WAN plugged in with the HD1 dome and AP Rugged? Trying to gain failover or smoothing while onboard…
Hi @Corey,
This is part of the problem with the HD1 in general. If you use it as your primary router, it really can’t have any other WAN or internet source other than the LTE radio inside of it.
If you use two HD1 domes, as I do, then you need a downstream router that has two WAN ports on it, and now you’re administering 2x domes, 1x router, and potentially a SIM injector. Not very easy to manage, and there are a lot of interaction issues and problems if not configured perfectly.
The short answer is that you can’t hang the MR1100 off of the HD1 dome or some other method to make it a secondary source.
What you could do, although it is expensive, is add a SIM injector. That way you could use one or the other of the 2 SIMs you have, but not have to install or remove the SIM from the dome itself. When you leave the boat, you can grab whatever SIM you want to take with you out of the SIM injector, and the dome will switch to the other one if you (a) configure it right and (b) if it is using that one at the time. I do this all the time with my system while using various SIMs to test in other equipment.
Thanks, definitely trying to avoid the large expense of domes and the very expensive SIM injector. Was hoping that I could perhaps turn the router function of the AP rugged ONE on and leverage that. No worries. My least expensive option I guess would be to pay another $60 per month for another cell SIM number/account and put the card in the dome. At least I’d have failover.
The router function on the AP One Rugged is slightly different. I believe that mode is so you could use the AP One Rugged as a client on an existing WiFi network, and then plug something wired into its ports to connect to it. So essentially, a WiFi bridge to Ethernet, not a full fledged router like the HD1 or other mainline Peplink router.
The approach you’re looking at with an additional SIM card is likely the most cost effective for the goals you’re after.
Thanks - yeah, that is how it appears…
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Update to my HD1 experience. I cracked open my satdome on the radar arch where my HD1 is installed and I opened it up to install a second sim. When I reconnected the power/Ethernet cable, the unit hung, flickering on the red status lights for a very long time but eventually turned green. The unit was glacially slow, basically unresponsive. I eventually did a hard factory reset but the performance remained unusable. I created ticket with Peplink and they want to connect externally and troubleshoot but I’m trying to explain it won’t respond- even to turn on the checkbox to enable their connection. I had to put my netgear Mr1100 in it’s place since connectivity is our work life. Waiting for Peplink to respond further.
Sorry you’re having issues with the HD1! I have 3 myself, two that have been abused for almost 2 years and are still working reliably. I’ve also installed many of them, and to date I haven’t seen any fail, but we rarely open them up to put SIMs directly in - almost all if not all of the installs I’ve done have been with the SIM injector.
Hopefully Peplink can solve the issue for you quickly. Once they get in remotely they’re usually able to do a lot if it can be fixed that way.
Thanks for the “pep”-talk. The dome is so dorked up / unresponsive that no one from Peplink can connect. I hope they just let me send this one back soon. Fortunately my AP One rugged connected to my Nighthawk hotspot is working almost as well as the dome.
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