General Discussion

@Martin_Smith Microwave backscatter can show rain out to some distance. At airports an optical method is used as it also covers fog and snow. It really comes down to why you want to measure distance in rainy days and what sort of distance you intend or need to cover.....

@Eilleesy I suggest you post your code and any error messages you get. A link to the library you want to use might also be useful.

@Westie That feature can also be used with the Arduino Nano, or any other ATmega328P-based board. I had NRF24 + RFM69 running for a couple of days using a Nano as an Ethernet MQTT gateway and it worked fine as far as I remember.

Reporting back: I installed the Gen2 Emporia Vue, and it "just works" on the first try. Ironically, it reports the same amount of power for my refrigerator as the far less expensive TopGreener power module, so I guess the TopGreener is more accurate than what I had thought. At least the Emporia Vue's built in graphing is far superior and involves no switching, so overall I'm glad I made the upgrade. :-)

@Jasonkeel The green is the flex PCB,, as you can se how it' turn 90degree a few times[image: 1616522947005-screenshot-from-2021-03-23-19-08-12.png]

@Julie-Adam Have you considered disconnecting the air-line from the controller and reconnecting it to the air-head ? The cranium woodframe is probably interrupting signals which possibly explains the coupon fascination...

Were you able to find a resolution to this problem? I'm getting a similar issue.

Ok, could not find the root cause for why the embedded forum thread on openhardware.io couldn't detect if user has a valid session/is logged in to the forum. Did a workaround by adding a "Comment" button which redirect user to the thread on the forum.

@skywatch There is also the next "Yet another Arduino with fancy hardware but poor library support" planned: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect [image: arduino_nano_rp2040_connect-1024x576.png]

@pihome Please read full coment before answering. I wrote: ...everithing works well i push reset button on...

Couple of things to think about with capacitors. With electrolytic caps there ESR ( Equivalent Series Resistance) is quite high if you need a lower ESR try going for a polymer electrolytic. Ceramic capacitors, as previously said don’t go for a capacitor that is rated at the same voltage, in my experience at least 1.5 to 3 times the max voltage your working with. So if your working with 5V I would go with a 16V part. The reason for this is the DC BIAS of ceramic capacitors, if you need 1uF of capacitance and use a 6.3V cap the DC BIAS of the capacitor could only 20% to 30% of the stated capacitance. Therefore you would need 3 or 4 capacitors at 6.3V to get the correct capacitance where as with a 16V part you may only need 2 capacitors in parallel to achieve the correct capacitance. Most good capacitor manufactures will have these online in the specifications area of there website. Also be careful depending on the power supply your using they may need electrolytic as the ESR of ceramics is very low and this can cause the power supply to become unstable as the control loop of the power supply can’t cope. These are lessons learned over the years as I alway say you learn more from making a mistake than being told what to do and getting it correct 100% of the time.

@zboblamont & @mfalkvidd - Thank you for that. It never occured to me that rounding might need some help. But now it makes logical sense. @mfalkvidd I guess if you used 'bankers rounding' you would always end up with 0.

@Nca78 Great - I have some of those somewhere (next mamoth task is to find them)! - Then I can remove the regulator and will report back! All done! With sensor only I am seeing 12.9uA in 'untripped' mode and 14.2uA when tripped for about 2 seconds - that is a result! Testing further this module seems to work down to 1.9V which is ideal. Here is a table of results I get.... Voltage Vcc (V) Untripped (uA) Tripped (uA) 3.0 12.9 14.2 2.7 9.4 10.3 2.5 8.5 9.6 2.3 7.7 8.8 2.1 7.0 8.0 1.9 6.3 7.3 These are 'bench' measurements and may not reflect 'in use' performance (ie range may be reduced at lower voltages, I have not tested that yet). Thanks so much for the hints, I only now have to test out to see if the range and spread is good enough for what I need. Maybe later on today or tomorrow.... Cheers! :)

In sketch definitions: ... MyMessage msg1valve(CHILD_ID_IRRIGATION_SYSTEM, V_LIGHT); MyMessage var1valve(CHILD_ID_IRRIGATION_SYSTEM, V_VAR1); MyMessage var2valve(CHILD_ID_IRRIGATION_SYSTEM, V_VAR2); MyMessage var3valve(CHILD_ID_IRRIGATION_SYSTEM, V_TEXT); .. in sketch receive function: ... if (message.type == V_LIGHT) { ... } else if (message.type == V_VAR1) { int variable1 = atoi(message.data);// RUN_ALL_ZONES time DEBUG_PRINT(F("Recibida V_VAR1 de la válvula:")); DEBUG_PRINT(i); DEBUG_PRINT(F(" = ")); DEBUG_PRINTLN(variable1); if (variable1 != allZoneTime[i]) // es un valor diferente del que había anteriormente { allZoneTime[i] = variable1; zoneTimeUpdate = true; //enviar valor al contrtolador send(var1valve.setSensor(i).set(variable1), false); } receivedInitialValue = true; } else if (message.type == V_VAR2) { int variable2 = atoi(message.data);// RUN_SINGLE_ZONE time DEBUG_PRINT(F("Recibida V_VAR2 de la válvula:")); DEBUG_PRINT(i); DEBUG_PRINT(F(" = ")); DEBUG_PRINTLN(variable2); if (variable2 != valveSoloTime[i]) // es un valor diferente del que había anteriormente { valveSoloTime[i] = variable2; zoneTimeUpdate = true; //enviar valor al contrtolador send(var2valve.setSensor(i).set(variable2), false); } receivedInitialValue = true; } else if (message.type == V_TEXT) { String newMessage = String(message.data); if (newMessage.length() == 0) { DEBUG_PRINT(F("No se ha recibido NOMBRE (V_TEXT) para la zona ")); DEBUG_PRINTLN(i); break; } if (newMessage.length() > 16) { newMessage.substring(0, 16); } valveNickName[i] = ""; valveNickName[i] += newMessage; String val = String(valveNickName[i]); DEBUG_PRINT(F("Recibida V_TEXT de la válvula: ")); DEBUG_PRINT(i); DEBUG_PRINT(F(" = ")); DEBUG_PRINTLN(valveNickName[i]); } receivedInitialValue = true; } ... In domoticz: each scene for each valve who on action: script://exec.sh irrigation_single_zone 10 1 0 5 "Zona 1" in /domoticz/scripts/exec.sh: #!/bin/sh case $1 in irrigation_single_zone) python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=$3 --time_all_zones=$4 --time_single_zone=$5 --n$ exit 0 ;; irrigation_all_zones) python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=1 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=2 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=3 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=4 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=5 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=6 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=7 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & python /home/pi/domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py --nodo_id=$2 --child_id=8 --time_all_zones=$3 >/dev/null 2>&1 & exit 0 ;; esac /domoticz/scripts/python/send_vars_to_irrigation_system.py: #!/usr/bin/python3 import socket from time import sleep import sys import argparse #import DomoticzEvents as DE def gwsend(args): nodoID = str.encode(str(args.nodo_id)) childID = str.encode(str(args.child_id)) timeAllZones = str.encode(str(args.time_all_zones)) timeSingleZone = str.encode(str(args.time_single_zone)) nameZone = args.name_zone s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) s.connect(("127.0.0.1", 5003)) sleep(3) #estructura del mensaje #99: Node ID #1: ChildId #1: command (Set in this case) #0: ACK (None in this case) #47: V_TYPE (V_TEXT in this case), 24-25-26 V_VAR1-2-3 #enviar tiempo duracion en modo All Zones (V_VAR1 -> value 24) if timeAllZones != "None": s.sendall(b"" + nodoID + ";" + childID + ";1;0;24;" + timeAllZones + b"\n") sleep(3) #enviar tiempo de duracion en modo Single zone(V_VAR2 -> value 25) if timeSingleZone != "None": s.sendall(b"" + nodoID + ";" + childID + ";1;0;25;" + timeSingleZone + b"\n") sleep(3) #enviar nombre de zona (V_VAR3 -> value 26) if nameZone is not None: s.sendall(b"" + nodoID + ";" + childID + ";1;0;47;" + nameZone + b"\n") sleep(3) s.shutdown(socket.SHUT_WR) s.close() def main(): my_parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog='send_vars_to_irrigation_system', usage='%(prog)s --nodo_id=NODO_ID --child_id=VALVULA_ID, [--time_all_zones=TIME_EN_MODO_TODAS] [--time_single_zone$ description='Envio de parametros de cada zona al sistema de riego') my_parser.version = '1.0' my_parser.add_argument('--nodo_id', type=int, action='store', required=True, help='ID del nodo Sistema de Riego') my_parser.add_argument('--child_id', type=int, action='store', required=True, help='ID de la valvula') my_parser.add_argument('--time_all_zones', type=int, action='store', required=False, help='Duracion en modo Todas las zonas') my_parser.add_argument('--time_single_zone', type=int, action='store', required=False, help='Duracion en modo Solo esta zona') my_parser.add_argument('--name_zone', type=str, action='store', required=False, help='Nombre de la zona') args = my_parser.parse_args() gwsend(args) if name == 'main': main()

AFter more testing it just got better. It seems that the atmel 168 has enough memory (just) for mysensors running nrf24, 2x interrupts and a HTU21D temp and humidity sensor. I tested overnight and it is working as expected. I didn't think the chip was as capable as it appears to be! Also good is that I have tested it working down to 1.64V. This works even sending the temp and hum values, but at 1.63V it no longer transmits anything. Looking at the standard mysensors battery page it seems that the battery percentage is sent using 0V as 0% and Vcc as 100%. In practice the battery levels will be unlikely to go below 50% giving a false reading of how much drop in voltage has actually occured. To make it more accurate I have set brown out voltage as 0% and Vcc as 100% giving the full range to the expected battery life which is a more accurate reflection of battery usage and time left. Here is the code I used to do it...Only the bits added for this to work, include in your own sketch if you want. int oldBatteryPcnt = 0; int batteryPcnt = 0; long result = 0; float vSend = 0.; float BattMax = 3.00; // Maximum battery voltage (take reading before using or use battery rated value...) float brown_out_voltage = 1.7; //lowest battery voltage equating to 0% battery power (ie battery empty). float brown_out = 0.; float divisor = 0.; void setup() { divisor = BattMax / 1024; //Set batt 100% - here it is 3V/1024 brown_out = brown_out_voltage / divisor; //Set batt 0% to brown out voltage } void loop() { readVcc(); //only if using internal method, if not replace with external value. vSend = float((result) / 1000.0); //calc and send batt percent to controller... float sensorValue = vSend / divisor; //Get voltage % int sensorVal = constrain(sensorValue, brown_out, 1023); //constrain values. batteryPcnt = map (sensorVal, brown_out, 1023, 0, 100); //Integer pcnt value. if (oldBatteryPcnt != batteryPcnt) { sendBatteryLevel(batteryPcnt); oldBatteryPcnt = batteryPcnt; } } Now you have percentage between brown out voltage (either measured with volt meter or using the fuse value set on node) as 0% and Vcc (either measured with a volt meter or set for the battery type/combination) as 100% at new.

@BearWithBeard I think that an 80% loss rate is not good whatever the reason. I have suggested a 'knowledge base' in another thread today as a place to keep all updated and more advanced info in one place for reference. For starters I suggest 5 areas that crop up again and again..... Bootloaders Battery Powered nodes Signing Encryption FOTA So have a knowledge base for each of the above with all the hints and tips up-to-date in one place with example code snippets.