General Discussion

hi guys thanks all for the responses. Tis all clear now and makes sense

@TD22057 said: @John-Connolly You may want to the try the client gateway from this thread: http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/524/mqtt-client-gateway It's a real MQTT client (point it at your Mosquitto broker) which I find easier to understand than the pseudo-broker that the MQTT gateway uses. That's EXACTLY what I need/want! Thanks! I'll give it a shot the second the new kit arrives from AliExpress...which is taking its time.

Great,Thnx, Exactly what I was looking for! Mark

I've been planning on using JST PH (2.0 mm pitch) connectors on my custom PCB's to connect the external connectors (GX12, 3.5 mm headphone jacks, 5.5 mm power sockets) from the sensor case to the board. They're nice in that they're fairly small, polarized, and cheap. But - you need to buy a good crimper - the pins are incredibly tiny. I almost decided to by the plugs with wires attached because they're so hard to crimp. None the crimpers I own was small enough so I ordered the (Engineer PA 09)]http://www.ebay.com/itm/Engineer-PA-09-Mini-Molex-Amp-JST-Crimp-Tool-Wire-Terminal-Crimping-Pliers-/252030460510?hash=item3aae2fa25e] which seems to be the cheapest "good" option. Another option on the board (I wouldn't use these on the sensor case) are Dupont 2-pin connector. These "Dupont" connectors require a female pin (which is also really cheap) and push on to standard 0.1" pitch pins on a PCB (like the 4x2 NRF radios). They have the advantage that they use less space than the JST connectors but are not polarized. Search for "Dupont connector" on ebay to find tons of options. I can't decide if the easier crimping and less board space are worth the risk of mounting connectors backwards and potentially wrecking components.

@fets No - the NRF radio has 5V tolerant inputs (you still need to supply it 3.3V on VCC, but it can handle 5V on the signal lines). The RFM radio does not - it needs 3.3V on the signal lines. So the NRF works fine w/ 3.3V and 5V arduino's. The RFM radio needs this modification when used with 5V arduino's. FYI - I found someone who build a small break out board for the radio and had an optional level shifter using a simple resistor network and said it worked great. I liked the idea, but not his board layout so I modified it and ordered some from OSHPark a few days ago. The original board is here. My modified board (no 3.3V regulator or flash support) is here. I wanted minimum width in order to mount the board on the side of a box (thickness dimension). Warning: I haven't tested this yet (order arrives in 2 weeks) so I haven't published schematics or anything else for it yet so I wouldn't order it if anyone is interested. There are tons of RFM69 breakout boards with various features (including one that plugs into an NRF 2x4 socket) if you search for them on OSHPark.

I m on win10, no pb tu use IDE 1.6.5 ftdi and ch340 drivers are default include

Ok got the scroll to work, it is in from the edge of black area, I need to touch and bee still for a second ... Then drag. Thanks for your help.

A smartphone could be useful as a sensor, multiple sensors or output device. Like the 1sheeld project. Otherwise I would think the smartphone app can better interact with a controller. (imperihome/ vera)

You can actually combine both I think. Search for sleep. There is a sleep function bool sleep(int interrupt, int mode, unsigned long ms=0); that both listenes to an interrupt and wakes up after a certain time. The return boolean value indicates which one.

Although i like the idea, it will force you to send a value even if it has not changed. Defeats a bit a battery optimized sensor node.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P1xG32Feo

@Cliff-Karlsson Yes, you can power them from the same pins. You do have to make sure that the Arduino can source enough current for all of the sensors that you have. The amount they can source will depend on which Arduino you have. Cheers Al

@JoeStrout said: I started setting up a Z-wave network a couple months ago when I moved into this new house. For the most part, things are working pretty well. But I have a node in the back yard that controls the yard lights; it's located in the pool pump area, behind a concrete wall, and the far edge of the property. At first I couldn't reach that node at all, but then I stuck another module on one of the outside outlets on that side of the house. Then I was able to reach that remote node fairly reliably. But it was still a bit flaky, and for the past two days, I haven't been able to reach it at all. That means trudging out to turn the yard lights on and off by hand. WAF is low, and I'm not happy either. Moreover, we want to add Z-wave control of the pool pump as well, which would be in the same area, but that's going to require an extensive electrical refactoring — so we need to be sure it's going to actually work! So! This is why I'm asking: How can I best extend the range out to a remote node, when there are no outlets in between? Are there dedicated "relay" modules that have bigger antennas or more power? Or is there some sort of wired relay (the wire of which I suppose I could bury in the yard)? (And sorry for the non-MySensors-specific question... but I've found this forum to be friendlier and more helpful on all topics than other Z-wave forums on the net!) What controller are you using? I successfully changed antenna in my Vera Edge wich gavel alot better range :)

@Cliff-Karlsson There's a good example in the MySensors lib with sleep and two switches. https://github.com/mysensors/Arduino/blob/master/libraries/MySensors/examples/BinarySwitchSleepSensor/BinarySwitchSleepSensor.ino My adaption of that one to my own need and with one swtich looked like this #include <MySensor.h> #include <SPI.h> #define SKETCH_NAME "BinSwSleepBat" #define SKETCH_VERSION "1-2" #define CHILD_ID 0 #define BUTTON_PIN 3 // Arduino Digital I/O pin for button/reed switch. On Atmega328p (nano and pro mini) D2 and/or D3 are interrupt pins. MySensor mys; MyMessage msg(CHILD_ID, V_TRIPPED); // Change to V_LIGHT if you use S_LIGHT in presentation below int sentValue=2; void setup() { mys.begin(); pinMode(BUTTON_PIN, INPUT); // Setup the buttons digitalWrite(BUTTON_PIN, HIGH); // Activate internal pull-ups mys.sendSketchInfo(SKETCH_NAME, SKETCH_VERSION); mys.present(CHILD_ID, S_DOOR); } void loop() // Loop will iterate on changes on the BUTTON_PINs { mys.sleep(50); // Short delay to allow buttons to properly settle uint8_t val = digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN); if (val != sentValue) { // If value has changed from last transmission, send the updated value mys.send(msg.set(val==HIGH ? 1 : 0)); sentValue = val; } mys.sleep(BUTTON_PIN-2, CHANGE, 0); // Sleep until something happens with the sensor }

@zuru The gateway will dump info on the serial port, so you could write a script or application to parse that. The API info is here: http://www.mysensors.org/download/serial_api_15. Note that the controller also assigns node IDs so you would need to hard code them if the script or app you build does not respond to those requests. Cheers Al

I looked at your recommendations when provided, but was busy with other things so forgot to reply. I now have 3 systems of sensors reporting to the Uno (Blueline power meter reader, Acurite 5n1 weather station, Acurite 592TX temperature sensors (1 currently, but up to 3 channels))and will be adding 1 or more local sensors to it as well (barometric pressure currently, but probably temperature also at a minimum). I have all of this sending data to the RPi via MQTT and am working on optimizing the location for the Uno for best reception/least packet loss. I'm also planning on tracking UPS performance as well as RPi CPU/memory. That being said, I looked into emoncms again this morning and it appears that the data is stored on the cloud somewhere. If so, that's not ideal due to reasons I originally posted. I thought this would be the option I would utilize until I saw that. I've looked at Grafana/influxdb and they look great, but it will take more effort to figure them out. I decided against freeboard since I specificially want plots and not gauges. I considered using rrdtools, but it looks like it's only capable of storing at a single frequency and then purges anything over a certain age (maintains a certain database size and loops to overwrite the oldest data next). There's a number of tutorials/guides, but I haven't found one that's a close enough match to proceed. I have a working HA server at the moment, so I'm leery of installing too much and risk corrupting things. When I do proceed, I'll certainly back up the SD first!

Ahh..That seems to be the "green it" everyone speaking of a few years ago. ;)

cheers for that sparkman ... i was thinking of trying some sort of 433mhz sniffer to wifi serial setup..and hook up a 70cm coliner antenna to the radio with a bit of filtering and narrow the band down and see what is out there that can be used in a local (mesh) of sensors.. i turned my 70cm ham radio and tuned it down to 433.92 and there is a load of traffic out there .. how many are remote weather sensors same with 315mhz ...could be handy in mapping local climate hotspots and microclimates.....

Let me UP this thread. mb @tekka could help?