Extending 1-Wire Range with Ne

Abstract: This document will cover a methodology for extending the 1-Wire® range to a limit of near infinity using proxies. The best analogy to describe the basic proxy is to imagine the proxy server in most companies (sometimes referred to as the company firewall). In this setup, only one computer (the proxy) has an actual connection to the Internet and the rest of the user machines only have access to the proxy. All network packets on the LAN that are intended for computers outside the LAN are repeated on the WAN and vice-versa. This idea is transferable to 1-Wire networks. Connecting to a 1-Wire network through a proxy requires a couple of software modules: the client module and the host module. The host module is the code that runs on the 1-Wire Proxy Server (a PC, TINI®, or microcontroller) that has hardware access to the 1-Wire network. The client module is the code that runs on the distant machines that have only network access to reach the host module. It is possible that the host module, rather than having hardware access to the 1-Wire network, could have access to a client module, which would refer to yet another host module. In this way it is possible to chain together the proxy for reaching the 1-Wire network.