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Welcome to the MySensors forum @justin-ordonez

If you can post what you want to do, what you have tried so far and what happened when you tried, it will be a lot easier for us to help

@mkaiser yes, that's correct

@dbemowsk what you're looking for is called a dcdc buck converter.

A linear regulator burns the unused voltage. So if the input is 12 and the output is 5V, 7V is burned away, causing an efficiency of 5/12=42%. 58% will be converted to heat.

A buck converter usually has about 80-90% efficiency. 10-20% will be converted to heat.

The lm2596 could be a good choice. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33008773592.html The datasheet says 80% efficiency at 5V output which mean 20% will be converted to heat. That's about 1/3 of the heat produced by a linear regulator.

The downside with a buck converter is that they have ripple on the output voltage. The nrf24 is very sensitive to ripple, so you might need extra capacitors to smooth out the ripple.

It is probably possible to find a buck converter that has higher efficiency and lower ripple for your use case if the lm2596 is insufficient.

10X Lm2596 Dc-Dc Step-Down Power Module 3A Adjustable Buck Module Stable Tension 24V Zu 12V 5V 3V

$7.70

@jimy-aguirre might it be possible to move the gateway closer to the antenna so you can get rid of (at least some of) the cable attenuation?

@jimy-aguirre you might be able to use these (but I am not 100% sure because I have not used them myself):
#define MY_DEFAULT_RX_LED_PIN
#define MY_DEFAULT_TX_LED_PIN

See https://www.mysensors.org/apidocs/group__lEDSettingGrpPub.html for details.

Or even easer, implement MY_INDICATION_HANDLER as described in https://forum.mysensors.org/post/89230 to switch on/off the LNA.

An alternative might be to switch to RFM69 with lower frequency (if legal in your area), or to a RFM95/96/97/98 with LoRa support that can get you sensitivity down to -148dBm.

Going down to 1200 bps should give you 4dB compared to 4800. The datasheet says you can an additional 2dB by doing this: "Set SensitivityBoost in RegTestLna to 0x2D to reduce the noise floor in the receiver" but I am not sure of MySensors supports that.

@mrhutchinsonmn I would probably use a diffuser instead of lens but yes that would work very well

@mrhutchinsonmn just put any thin sheet of white plastic on top of a led

@mrhutchinsonmn what type of light panel are you thinking of?

Something like https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20303063/ (60x60cm)?

Or something smaller like https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32959082165.html ?

Or something super easy like a single RGB diode (or one red, one green and one yellow) behind a piece of white plastic to act as a diffuser?

Nice work @k5austria

The code is a bit too complex for me to follow, so I can't guess why something happens every 8 minutes. Sorry.

@didou could you clarify what you mean by "wait state"?