Putting how Chunksin and Nam9 assisted me in case it is helpful to others. The following is Chunksins post on the WiPi thread.
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OK, here is my breakdown of your current situation:
WiPi uses 2 network configurations, wired for the Naomi side and wireless for connections to the website running on the Pi. By default the ranges are:
Wired: 10.0.0.1
Wireless: 192.168.42.1
This is how it is configured out of the box and will work if you are just using the WiPi-Netbooter wireless SSID. The issue has come when you've added the Pi to your home wifi network which clashes with the wired IP range on the Pi. Most people use a 192.168.0.0/24 or similar IP range for their home network, using a class A 10.x.x.x range is unusual but it can be worked around.
Firstly I would reset your wifi configuration by creating a file called reset.txt in the boot partition then starting up the Pi. Look at the activity lights, it will restart twice and you should then be able to see the WiPi-Netbooter SSID again.
Connect to WiPi-Netbooter and open up the WiPi interface in a browser, go to Setup and Network Configuration. Go to the Wired setup and you'll see it is set to 10.0.0.1, in the form on the page change it to a new static address: 192.168.0.1, subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Apply and the Pi will reboot with the new address.
Reconnect back to WiPi-Netbooter SSID and go back into Setup and Network Configuration to check that the wired interface now has the 192.168.0.1 address. If that has worked you can now join your home wifi network from the wireless configuration screen. Choose the SSID from the drop down and enter your password and apply, the Pi will reboot twice, watch the activity lights and when the Pi is back online you should be able to access it on your home network.
Depending on your router setup you may or may not be able to reach
http://netbooter.local - if you can't you can scan your home network for the Pi, I use a mobile app called Fing. If the Pi appears on the list you can connect the IP address rather than the name, in the format http://<ipaddress>.
You have the option to set a static IP address on your Pi for the wireless network so it is easier to find, you need to know what DHCP addresses are given out by your router for this and choose an address that sits outside of that range.
You can now plug your Pi into the Naomi and set up an IP address in the service menu on the Naomi itself, use 192.168.0.2 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 and restart. Then go into the Netdimm Config menu and create a new Sega Naomi netdimm with the matching IP address 192.168.0.2. The entry should turn green if everything is OK and then you start sending games.
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following these directions to the tee helped fix everything!
So I think my mistakes were bountiful.
1. I was trying to set the static ip for the WiPi Ethernet thru dietpi-config which requires a gateway for the 192 range and I was guessing on that.
2. My 5ghz and 2ghz NETGEAR router came up with the same SSID for when scanning (even tho ugh they are separate) so I saw the same SSID in the wireless network list twice.
3. The 5ghz NETGEAR SSID had a hyphen in it. I removed the hyphen. Once I did that it seemed like only one option for the NETGEAR SSID came up within the WiPi netbeooter.local settings.
A combo of those mistakes seems to be the culprit.
But if you follow these instructions above for this scenario you will be golden! Thank you Chunksin. You really modernized this arcade experience from the 90s and made my “mini Sega arcade” awesome!
