Hardware

@isaac-ng said in ToF for scanning doesnt work as desired: vl6180x I've not used this particular sensor, but judging from the datasheet it uses IR led illumination and has a 42 degree field-of-view (http://www.st.com/content/ccc/resource/technical/document/datasheet/c4/11/28/86/e6/26/44/b3/DM00112632.pdf/files/DM00112632.pdf/jcr:content/translations/en.DM00112632.pdf, chapter 2.10.1). It probably 'averages' the distances measured withing its field-of-view, causing a gradual transition from distance 1 to distance 2. If you really need a step response in the measured distance you'd likely need a sensor with a very small field-of-view, e.g. a laser bundle. On the other hand, the point with the maximum slope in the transition from 1 to 2 will probably be very close to the actual step in your shape.

@sundberg84 not looking to do hi-fi sound, mainly to amplify an alarm or something simple.

@alexsh1 These boards support the Jlink (Segger) environment. The Segger firmware is available for windows, linux and MacOS..https://www.segger.com/downloads/jlink/#J-LinkSoftwareAndDocumentationPa

@ninkasi @raptorjr Consider the use of resQ tape. Not sure if this is available world-wide, but the use of it is very versatile. I've used heat shrink with and without the glue layer inside. Works for some time, but water gets in. Only the resQ tape has proven to keep the joints (cable entries of the connectors) watertight! See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f2XAiQHtzU BR, Boozz

@ybirch Hi did you see the post I posted? https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/9313/water-pressure-sensors/30 cost efficient, use a salvaged refrigerator compressor and purchase a long aqaurium airpump hose and a pressure transducer - might be fairly cheap

Non-invasive current measurement with HMC5883L is as good as mosquito killing by the hammer - can be done but an overkill! :-) Non-invasive current measurements are greatly done with wire clamp/loops. HMC5883L is highly sensitive and low noise digital compass. It can be used in drones, smartphones, VR sets - any applications that needs to know change of physical object orientation in 3D space. We use it for vehicle detection sensor. Did a benchmark on RMS on temperature stability with half a dozen of other sensors, ST, NXP, Bosch. HMC is the best! :-)

@voslogin did you have any success with this? I'm awaiting delivery of one, was hoping to do the same.

@dbemowsk original query was for a sliding gate. Anything else I would say just use 2 pairs of microswitches and if there is any ambiguity, drive direction until a change is noted. Keep it simple.

@johnrob Be careful. nRF24 radios are easy to blow if you feed them 5V for power.

From the website the SCT-013-050 outputs 0 to 1 volt for a current of 0 to 50 amps. I agree the "burden" resistor is built in on this module. Please verify you are only passing one of the coffeemaker wires through the sensor. If you pass the whole cable through the sensor you will get no output voltage from the sensor. A typical coffee maker requires ~1000 watts. At 230 vac this is ~4 amps. So the output of the current sensor should be about +/- 4/50*1 = 0.08 volts. This means the arduino has to measure readings from 0 to about 0.11 volts then calculate the RMS. doable but the readings are getting somewhat small to be stable. I would suggest: measure the sensor output with a multimeter if you have one. Change the reference of A/D converter on the Arduino from the default to the 1.1V internal reference. Not sure the code but you should be able to find it easy enough. you can increase the output of the sensor by passing the coffee maker wire through multiple times. For each time the wire goes through the sensor the sensitivity is increased by that number. for example if you pass the wire through the sensor 3 times. The output becomes 0 to 1 volt for 0 to 50/3 amps . Add a 0.1µF Capacitor across the sensor (where the burden resistor is shown on your diagram. This will remove some of the noise that exists on all AC lines.

Well.. 2.3 is still in alpha stage, so don't expect much in a short time since the 2.2 is working fine.

@gohan That's correct and I am sure the result is not final

@joaoabs If you want to go the "arduino-based" route: There seem to exist already a lot of projects reading this type of meter with a microcontroller e.g. an ESP8266. The code itself seems to be rather simple (assuming, the code provided eg here: https://github.com/reaper7/SDM_Energy_Meter/blob/master/examples/sdm_simple/sdm_simple.ino really works, but there seem to be some more working projects out there). So you may either combine this with normal mysensors-code and just use send commands instead of serial prints (at lower frequency). Could be you'll need a more powerfull mcu than the ATMega32, but most likely a STM32F103 will have enough resources to fullfill this task.

@tochinet I am just looking for something really small like some atmega328p boards, but more memory. Like this - http://mklec.com/project-kits/kd-circuits/328-board-ATMEGA328P-microcontroller-board or https://www.openhardware.io/view/76/Stamp-size-MySensor-node with (1) signing (2) encryption plus a few libs one can quickly run out of memory.

@sundberg84 said in Can please someone check if my schema for RFM69 is right?: @sineverba - 1 rule of debugging, remove as much as possible. Can you try to use a 3.3v MCU directly with your breakout board? That way you can eliminate that the problem might be level shifting and work down the wiring to a minimum? sure golden rule. It works. Now it works. Directly on a 3v3 mini. Removed all level shifter. Now it works. Thank you for the support!

@nca78 I may end up with two LDO's on a board: XC6206 LDO to provide power while sleeping, to guarantee adequate voltage for a PIR, and a XC6210 LDO, which can deliver 700ma when enabled but which consumes a max of 100na when not enabled. Then I could, in theory, do an OTA firmware upload using LoRa and not run out of juice.

@alexsh1 Wow that's great... It gives me confidence that it will eventually show up. I did contact them and they gave me no real answer. Thanks again.