RPi 4B 4GB - No WiFi SOLVED

System has operated LC 2.8.4 on Debian 10 (Buster) with Mesa 7196 for 2 years reliably without WiFi.

I have a cubicle with the RPi close to the Mesa, both just below the Leadshine stepper drivers.
This is a turret mill with large(ish) steppers.

Recently I decided to try and fix the WiFi.
All the usual messing around, with occasional flashes of possible operation, but no real success.

The OS shows detection of my WiFi house router and workshop extender, but no connection to either.

Whilst searching solutions, I came across a suggestion that the WiFi in the RPi could be faulty.

Can anyone report failed WiFi when RPi is close to the stepper drivers ?
Or damaged WiFi due to close proximity of the drivers ?

Edit: Testing done with steppers off, tested both the LCNC image and the original Raspian OS.

John.

Physically isolate the RPi from your setup (ie take it out of the system) and try to get wifi working. Take all the other "bits" out of the equation, then work from there.

Thanks cornholio.

My first RPI purchase was an 8GB, not used because of reported problems with LCNC (at the time).

Powered the 8GB Pi up near the CNC cubicle without the steppers energised.
Loaded LC 2.9.2, and could not get the WiFi to work.

Took RPi into house not far from router.
It would not connect to router on the 2.4 GHz channel, but would on the 5 GHz channel.

Back in workshop re-configured the WiFi Extender to operate on the 5 GHz channel.
Tested two old laptops, an IPad and a Surface.
Both laptops operate from the extender when configured 2.4 GHz, but neither when configured 5 GHz.

Complete incompatibility !

So, my fear of damage to the RPi WiFi from interference appears unfounded.
And, my current equipment will not route WiFi to the RPi.

John

Technically the RPi4 does support both frequencies. There are many articles dealing with this when using an official RPi image.

Since the most recent RPi image is a custom image, most of those articles are not of much use unless of course you are able to extrapolate the information.

You could try a USB to wifi dongle or a usb to ethernet adapter to connect to your local lan if you have available lan ports in the vancity.

Or you could start with a Raspberry Pi OS and install the RT kernel and Linuxcnc, which does work and gives you access to the official RPI tools to setup the system.

The issue I can see is that Rod, the guy who puts the images together, has neither a working RPi4 or Rpi5 and relies on others to point out any issues. Unfortunately it is a bit of a mess ATM, even the download page claims the RPi5 image works with mesa SPI boards but that is not so.

Wifi does funny things sometimes. 5G is less reliable then 2.4 G, particularly in a shed/industrial setting.
Whilst I put the image together, It was tested on the 4b and 5 by Andy, the release manager. He also wrote the download page (and wrote the pi hal driver) 

But the downloads page does tell you how to cofigure wifi.

IMO no wifi is a good thing, and I always recommend not using wifi, latency stuff

Retried the RPI 4B 8GHz in the house near the WiFi router.
Installed the current ISO download, Debian 12 LC 2.9.2

Can reliably get it to connect 2.4 GH Channel 4 and 5GHz Channel 36.

My problem is obviously the WiFi extender in the workshop.

I will mark subject SOLVED, in case someone else gets the wrong impression.
John

Sweet.
Glad you got it sorted.