Hopefully I can help you sort out your problem, and save you a 4 hour round trip! Also if my hunch is correct then miraculously everything will work when you visit your dealer and then break again when you get back home (if you plug everything back in as shown by your pictures).
Sorry if I'm telling you to suck eggs or you have tried what I suggest already, but I know how frustrating computer networks can be and I do internet/web/network stuff for a living!
Nightlife and Dutch_Master have provided all the answers and your pictures point to the problem, so hopefully this will help join the dots.
If you want the simple solution, just follow the list in order (only completing it will make everything work), the reasons are listed as well if you are intersted but if it's all seems like a foreign language then ignore!
The simple route of your problems: your home Belkin router.
1) unplug the grey network cable connected to the TP Link router WAN port (I'm guessing you've plugged the other end of the grey network cable to your Belkin home router)
Reason: By plugging in your own home Belkin router to the WAN port of the TP Link router you are in a whole world of hurt. The TP Link knows that the network it sees on the WAN port needs to be isolated from the network that it will be providing, it does this by using a different subnet. A subnet is a different range of IP addresses (also called network addresses), defined by a mask (called the subnet mask) which is usually 255.255.255.0 for small home networks and routers, so it means that IP addresses that have the same first three sets of numbers are in the same subnet. Because you have plugged your home Belkin router into the WAN port of the TP Linkand because the 192.168.0.x subnet is the most commonly used subnet for home networks it sees that the Belkin (plugged into the WAN port) is using the 192.168.0.x subnet already. So to play nicely the TP Link automatically uses the next available subnet of 192.168.1.x. Now because of this, only addresses in the subnet 192.168.1.x are able to be used by the TP Link and because the z21 has a fixed IP address of 192.168.0.111 it is not able to be seen by any network because it's IP address does not match the subnet mask. So I repeat, unplug the grey cable from the TP Link, in so doing disconnecting it from the Belkin router.
2) (optional) reset the TP Link router.
Reason:You may want to skip this step because it is possibly not needed (and could wipe the settings programmed by Roco), but: if the TP Link has stored the fact that is has previously used the 192.168.1.x subnet it may continue to do so, this would prevent it 'seeing' the z21, even through you have disconnected the TP Link from the Belkin router.
3) cycle the power to both the z21 and TP Link.
Reason: Just to make sure, switch it off and on again ;-) Hopefully when everything comes back on the TP Link should be using the 192.168.0.x subnet by default and be able to 'see' the z21.
4) connect your Samsung tablet to the wireless network provided by the TP Link router - NOT your normal home wireless network.
I think the name of the TP Link wireless network suffix and the password are listed on the bottom of the TP Link router (not sure - don't have one!). I think the network name should start with (Z21_ or z21_) and be followed by 4 digits (the last 4 digits of the serial number of the TP Link Router. Or alternatively you could just look for the wireless network that appears when you turn on the TP Link router - this may be needed if resetting the router also reset the TP Link's wireless network name. The password for the wireless network is listed as the PIN on the bottom of the router.
Reason: The z21 is only connected to the network provided by the TP Link router - your tablet needs to join the same network as the z21.
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OK hopefully things should now work.
If it still doesn't work:
Find out the following things as they will help troubleshooting:
a) what is the IP address of your tablet when you connect to the TP Link wireless network?
b ) can you check the IP address of the TP Link router - what is it?
You can always plug a laptop into the other network LAN ports on the TP Link router if you want to use software to find out the above, but you should be able to see the addresses on the wireless setting page on the Samsung tablet.
Let me have the answers - and we'll fix things together from there.
If it does work but you have questions:
a) how do I connect to the internet and the z21?
Simple answer - you don't. You connect to your home wireless network for the internet or the TP Link network for the z21. To make things simple that is why Roco gave you a separate router. The TP Link is totally unnecessary if you know what you are doing with your own router, but if not then the simple solution is to use a completely different one.
b ) no, but what if I really want to connect to the z21 and my home network - how do I do that?
The Roco manual is a little too simplistic in some areas and doesn't make sense in others - so I can understand the confusion. They even say you can plug into the WAN port OK, but then their router configuration manual (in German) says not to use the WAN port at all!!
First - throw the TP Link router in the bin - you don't need it.
Next a quick bit on IP Addresses: there are a limited number of IP address in the world, and indeed in the world of your home network of only one subnet you only have 255 addresses available. You router uses one of these so you only have 254 left. Because you will want an easy life, and because it's never good to run out of IP addresses, routers come configured to dynamically allocate IP addresses to devices by default. This means the router acts as a DHCP server. So every time a device connects to the home network it gets given a dynamically assigned IP address. But here is the problem: every time you reconnect you may get a different address - even if you use the same device. For 99.9999% of the time this is not a problem as everything will still work, even if your IP address continually changes.
However - Roco decided it would be too hard to have the IP address of the z21 changing all the time - how would their tablet software know how to talk to the z21? So they took the easy option and gave the z21 a fixed IP address. This is 192.168.0.111 by default (it would seem). A fixed IP address may cause havoc with a router using DHCP that has more devices connected (like your home router) so hence why they took the simple route and gave you the TP Link router.
If you want to use your z21 on your home network you need to check several things - then (according to the theory) everything should work just fine.
a) plug your z21 into a spare LAN port on your router.
b ) make sure your home network router uses the 192.168.0.x subnet as default.
c) find out the MAC address of the z21 - you'll need some network sniffing software for this - or it could be written on the bottom of the z21 (I don't have one to check).
The MAC address is in the form of 6 hex octets (some thing like 6f:a4:76:0c:e4:bd) it is a unique physical address for the network port on the z21, because there are so may combinations of MAC addresses I really mean unique. Every device/port in the universe has a different MAC address - no single one is shared. So your z21 will have a different MAC address than someone else.
d) You need to reserve the IP address 192.168.0.111 in the DHCP server settings of your router - you need the MAC address for this. You are basically saying 'reserve the IP address of 192.168.0.111 for the device that has the MAC address of {your z21 MAC address here...}'. Every router is different - but I hope you get the idea.
e) Now your z21 should live happily amongst all your other network devices, and when you connect to your home wifi network your tablets should be able to see the z21. Don't worry about any network overloading or conflicts or that you are going to slow down your home network - that'll never happen.
And here endeth the lesson ;-)
Hope that is useful to people and more importantly it sorts out VRR's problem and that the enjoyment can begin.
Cheers,
Matt
Potentially useful, but my BT Homehub 6 does not allow static IPs.
Roco Z21
in DCC Discussion Topics (not questions)
Posted
Potentially useful, but my BT Homehub 6 does not allow static IPs.