Little update to the project,
Wanted to get my dual antenna setup using ethernet rather than WiFi,
A because always concerns me with slight delay / lag using the wireless, and B / more importantly, WiFi always takes 30-60 seconds to re-connect and start talking everytime you start the tractor as the WiFi AP has to reboot, then the connection has to establish, its not a huge issue, but a little annoying, the ethernet to the autosteer board is virtually instant, 3-4 seconds on power up, and data is moving / things are working, so wanted this for the antenna setup also.
At this point there was no ethernet code / support directly, so I used a TTL-UDP server/client module (many available from china, very cheap), configured it for this application, put the ESP into serial output mode, actually entirely disabled the wifi and hotspot for fast boot, just configure using the code, then it just outputs over TTL to the UDP server, and then over ethernet to AOG. RTCM comes back in via the same link.
While I was doing the conversion I also built a new box, using an @Aortner Dual PCB, there was nothing really wrong with my old stack setup, and was very compact, but did make it awkward to work on, access, and also, required mods to the F9P’s by means of soldering wires on, which meant in the event of a failure, you had to mess around modding etc, vs now can just pull one card out, and drop a stock new one in… I havent had one fail, but its always nice to know in the event of a failure, its just a config flash, plug it in and away you go…
For anyone wanting to use ethernet its a solution, although I think @MTZ8302 is now working on a implementing ethernet support directly in the ESP, which would be even better again / one less step, if and when this is working I will just remove the TTL-UDP server and replace with whatever Ethernet module is decided to use with the ESP.
Photo of the new arrangement:
