Flowire CCo

One of the Flowires in a cluster must be CCo - Central Coordinator. CCo is essentially a bus master. By default the Flowires automatically negotiate by them selves who is to be CCo.

By cluster we mean Flowires on a physical bus that share NMK - Network Membership Key. If several NMKs are used, each "NMK-group" will be a cluster with its own CCo. (The Homeplug term for cluster is AVLN.)

But if there is more than two Flowires in a cluster it can make a difference which Flowire is the CCo. If the CCo Flowire is lost, then the communication in the whole cluster will stop for several seconds until a new CCo is agreed up on. Therefore it is best that a network-side Flowire is CCo, so that a endpoint-side Flowire out in the field can be lost without affecting the rest of the cluster.

For point-to-point link between two Flowires it does not matter.

Configured PLC Role

Since Flowire SW version 4.1.3.10 it is possible to configure CCo mode, under the section "Configured PLC Role" in the device web.

There is a choice between three modes:

• auto: Default - Negotiate who to become CCo
• CCo: Force this Flowire as CCo. Only one Flowire in cluster can be forced CCo!
• not CCo: This Flowire is never CCo.

If you select one of the Flowires as forced CCo, then all the other in the cluster ones must be set as not CCo!

Guideline:

• Set endpoint-side Flowires as not CCo
• If there is only one Flowire in the cluster connecting to the network, set it as forced CCo
• If there are two redundant Flowire connecting to the network (using RSTP), leave them as Auto