So, in my head I was thinking that one of the biggest issues with fiddling with my network has been the times in which something went wrong and my wife was complaining about the loss of TV. This happened primarily because I was using the Managed Switches to connect the TiVo Bolt and Minis to the Quantum gateway. I simply had those devices on a separate VLAN from my internal network.
However, if I blundered with some configuration that might cause a problem with the network I would sometimes have to reset the switches (probably to update the ARP tables) and that would disconnect the TV signal to the Minis for a short period of time. I decided that what I would do was to put the Bolt, Minis, and the weather Raspberry Pi on a completely separate network connected to the Quantum gateway, bypassing all of the managed switches and router connections. That way, if I decide to monkey around with the network it wont disturb the TV flow. It will still affect the wi-fi signal but that is less of a problem. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. All it cost me was to make up a new cable to pass through a wall, add a switch, and run one long cable downstairs. Everything is now connected by Ethernet directly to a gigabit switch below the Quantum gateway and then connected to the gateway via an Ethernet cable. What I have noticed with this setup is that there is very little activity going through the Quantum gateway. Most of the activity is absorbed by the gigabit switch. So this was definitely a good choice for me.
This is a blog mostly about techie things, what I am doing to my apartment network on the cheap, IOT, 3D Printing, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, ESP32, ESP8266, Home Automation, Personal Weather Stations, Things That Go Bump in the Night, and some side issues that need discussing. Remember, sometimes the journey to an end is as much fun as the goal achieved!
