Hardware

@signal15 probably talking about http://blog.blackoise.de/2016/02/fixing-your-cheap-nrf24l01-palna-module/? I've not written it, but the foil touches the ground on the antenna socket. So yes, it needs to be grounded. In most cases it even works ungrounded though. Even a ungrounded shield has an effect on the circuit.

Well, it's working now. I put a new power supply on it, and shielded the radio. Before I go dotting my house with sensors, is there anything I should do in MyConfig.h or anywhere else? It looks like debugging is turned on by default. Should I leave it? Also, even though I got it working, any insight to the above questions would certainly still be appreciated. [image: 1462224039067-img_20160502_161633.jpg]

@phil83 Share this on OpenHardware.io !

@Anduril Yea thats what I thought, and I see it. Ill check this out thanks

Thanks for your help guys. Got it up and running now :) I used the pulldown resistors but did not use the current limiting resistors at the gates. Afaik you don't really have to but I will add them in my next version. @Admin I think it would be a great idea to update the build part for the leds to also use these resistors and perhaps add some text for RGB(W) leds as there is support for them now.

@Matt Thanks for that. Will follow your advise. Actually I tested the radio with a few other Arduinos and all work except the one which I used in original post. So I guess this is faulty and already trashed. Cheers, SJ

There are standards for PCB hole sizes. You can find Eagle parts for M2, M2.5, M3 drill holes with tight and loose clearance in my Eagle parts library. I created the parts from this blog page.

OK so rather than wait for shipping from China I went to my local Jaycar and got one of these LDRs. If the link gets broken its a cadmium sulphine LDR with a rise time of 50ms and decay of 40ms. Works like a charm. Because its flat I can tape it directly to the LED in my power meter, covering the whole thing with black tape to ensure no ambient light problems. Two pinholes in the tape and the LDR leads go right through no probs. I have some thin wires going to the LM393 unit (so minimal weight on the LDR/Tape itself) and I guess the comparator in there is good enough to pick up the change in resistance on the LED pulses. So if you wind up with one of these units I recommend swapping the photodiode with a high spec LDR and soldering some leads from the module to the LDR to facilitate accurate fixing to the meters LED. I used two bits off an old length of ribbon cable (IDE HDD type stuff).

Ok the issue seems to have been a broken AMS. I just finished a second pcb and that one is working. The AMS gets hot but not so hot that you can't touch it any more. Seems to work now :+1: Now I just have to test the lighting part ;)

Well, uncomment the #define MY_LEDS_BLINKING_FEATURE and to be sure define all 3 LEDS to one (unused) pin. So you will make sure that is/is not the reason for the wrong behaviour.

@moskovskiy82 if it's allways reporting x.0 than you store the result of the reading in a double of long. If you want to get rid of the decimals. You only have to cast the value to an int. This will truncate the value. long x = 2.3; Serial.println( (int)x ); will result in 2

There is several projects on openhardware.io that does this and alot of discussions on the forum for safety regarding 220v to 5v. No project is without disclaimer that you use it on your own risk - because thats what we do here - diy. How I have understood it (can not garatee its right) is that FR4 is the worst material to use (offcourse since its cheapest) and therefore it requers the longest creepage and clearance. Also a good thing is to seperate high voltage (primary side) and low voltage (secondary). Use 3 mm as creepage. Also dont put it in a dirty/high humidity enviroment... this is how far i have come... but I still have alot of questions to work out... Some links: http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/1607/safe-in-wall-ac-to-dc-transformers https://www.openhardware.io/view/13/In-Wall-ACDC-Pcb-for-MySensors https://www.openhardware.io/view/77/AC-DC-double-solid-state-relay-module https://www.openhardware.io/view/83/Smart-Light-Switch-220v

I'm yet to venture into the world of expensive but quality solder and flux. I'm still using materials from Aliexpress. When i get into the more quality of boards i will bring in the extra cost of those high quality products. Thanks for your feedback guys!

@hek, thank you for that. I have had a quick look on his topics page and i will read through in more depth later on. I see he was the guy that created the IR Blaster than i was reading about a few months back. Looks a nice little module for universal controlling with IR. But again, by the looks of things i don't see any sort of PWM control going on with timers and what not. So unless this is handled through PWM pins (which i doubt because its all running through MOSFETS to power the IR LEDs equally) then it is just straight power to the LEDs when needed. I'm pretty sure that as long as the wavelength matches we're good to go without pulsing.

There is already another thread about this device -> http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/3639/the-aaduino

@HarryDutch OMG your a genius, I do have LEDs on....I thought that only applied to gateways for some reason... Don't know why I didn't think of that :) Lee

In my opinion, the only advantage nrf24 has, is that it's cheap.. That said.. A lot of clones exists of the nrf24 chip, that sometimes make it a hit and miss if it works.. Also, it operates at 2.4Ghz, and RF penetration on that frequency band is not as good as on lower frequencies of rfm69. RFM69 operates below 1Ghz, which are better at penetrating walls etc. rfm69 also have encryption build in, that you could use.. Only detail is that it's a bit more expensive to buy, but the coverage of the network should (in theory) be much better, and can be made more secure I started out with NRF24, but consider switching to rfm69 radios for all my sensors, when I come around to it :)

@bjacobse Clear enough and detailed. Thanks very much for your help.