Thread config for larger networks (90 nodes)

[fittrack]

Hi!

We have developed a set of custom boards that feature the Rigado R41Z modules running the latest build of the NXP Thread Stack available from the sdkbuilder.
Recently we deployed a set of ~80 nodes and we ran into several issues:
As we increased the number of nodes the network got less and less stable ending in a situation where nodes were online for a few seconds/minutes only to then lose connection.

Attached you’ll find the adapted config files for the end nodes (routing is currently disabled as we tried to use dedicated USB-KW41Z routing devices that are powered by a wall plug), routing devices and the USB-KW22Z based border router. The Master Key and the PSK_C are hardcoded for testing purposes (and I've also changed them to some dummy value for this forum post).

As you can see we’ve tried to change a ton of entries in the config files ourselves. However, due to the documentation not being very clear about what most of these entries do and no access to the stack source code we had a very hard time figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve seen that there’s an application node talking about larger scale setups (ASN12099). However, I couldn’t find any information about the actual config used and the stock configuration didn’t work for more than a handful of nodes for us.

Could you please provide us with some guidance as to which config values we need to change on which device in order to get a set of up to 90 nodes connected to the Thread network?

Also is there any dedicated documentation one can consult for this kind of setup?

Thank you in Advance!

Kind regards,

Bernhard

[estephania_mart]

Hello, 

We have set a Large Thread Network setup (~250 devices) and it uses the default configuration of a Host Controlled Device, the only modification is that it uses Out of Band commissioning.

Here are a few comments and questions, could you please help us clarify? 

Comments:

• NVM is disabled, there won’t be a reconnection upon reset
• Trickle parameters were modified, this can impact the network behavior

Questions:

• According to files, you are using Out of Band commissioning, can you confirm?
• Are you joining all devices at the same time or one by one?
• If all nodes joined at the same time, how much time did it take for the network to become stable?
• How do you detect that the devices are losing connectivity?
• Is the issue present after the network was settled? Are you sending data when this happens or is the network idle?
• What kind of addressing are you using (RLOC, LL, Global, ULA)? If you use RLOC, this address can change
• Unicast, Multicast?
• What is your network topology?
• Is the Border Router also the Leader

Best Regards, 

Estephania