Hardware Contributor

@bcdaus my advise would be to try a larger capacitor. 100uf is working fine for me. Regarding to the differences in the projects. When I started out, 4.7uf was what most people used. But 10uf worked for all. If I'm not mistaking something has changed in the MS library years ago, which caused the radio to use a bit more power, but it made the communication better. So from that point on it is 100uf that most use. But not really sure if that is because of the change. As said I think I use 100uf for at least 4 years now.

If it still doesn't work I need the schematic and the sketch. It is hard to help you without those,

@bcdaus it's always difficult to discover what is wrong. But 9 out of 10 radio issues are always power related. I'm by no means an expert in electronics. But based upon what I learned in here, the capacitor values you use are too low. You say you tried 4.7uF and 0.1uF. But the value I use is a 100uf capacitor. And I think that is what is being promoted to use. I've used 10uf capacitors in the past, but I think that was before MS 2.0. 100uf hasn't given me any troubles.

I do notice sometimes, that sending multiple consecutive messages gives some troubles. So when I add a small delay in between it solves it. But I have to see your Sketch first to see if that might be a problem.

Also how do you power the radio, do you use a separate regulator, or do you take the 3.3V from the arduino?

In all honesty, I'm not quite convinced you'd need two separate networks. Just provide the security sensors, the repeaters, the gateway and your controller - that form the security system - with some sort of ups and they will keep running until the UPS has no more power left.
The none security devices will stop working when the power goes out and, unless I don't really understand your problem well. That does what I think you want to achieve? Unless you have combined a lot of sensors within a repeater it would really be my way to go. It wouldn't mean any modifications to your security hardware, because they need to be battery powered or have some sort of UPS anyway, to keep working when the power goes down.
But again it's hard to judge when you don't really understand the problem some one is trying to solve.

@JohanH - thanks for your reply! I also hope and think people who build commercial products have knowledge of this
But as a hobbyist, there are two ways to go - either you dont have to care or go bare minimum, if something happens its your own fault, or you can try to make is as safe as possible.

My idea was never to make this thread a information source for a commercial product. I wanted to try to make my own products as safe as possible since I have children around. With that in mind, i want to be on the safe side of things so some things i use from here might be exaggerated.

But my PCB (HLK-PM01 breakout) is working great, and I feel safe. I have had it outdoors (under roof covered in IP5* box, -20 to +30 aprox) and its been working for me for a couple of years now. Better than I had before, when i just stripped an old fake samsung charger.

/Andreas

@APL2017 I think the gesture sensor is awesome. But just to switch things on and off. Because dimming with hand gestures is fun at the beginning, but I discovered I didn't use it much after a few months. To me most of my projects are just experiments on finding usable ways to interact with my house.
But there are some good use cases in where a gesture controller is the best switch you can imagine. Because it is contactless. Like in your garage when you are working on stuff like cars and get your hands dirty. You don't want to make you wall switches dirty.
Or in your kitching while cooking. But dimming with gesture is not very convenient. So I would set a max dimmer level of 5 or so.

@APL2017 Posting one question multiple times isn't gonna give you an answer quickly. I just wanted to say that.

I see the code on the website is still in pre MS 2.0. It should be easy to convert it to MS 2.0. The only problem is that I don't have the hardware setup to check if it works. If I can find some time this week I will convert it, so that it at least compiles. But I can not test it and can't promise I will finish it this week.

But @pjjarzembowski version should work, you should only strip out the extra sensors he attached to his node.

After playing with dimmers and Domoticz for quite some time, I've discovered that 15 brightness levels is all I need. Because it's hard to see the difference is brightness level if you have 100 levels. And also it takes a lot of gestures to move from max to min. So the code can be simplified more. By just mapping the Domotics level (1-100) to (1-15) and the opposite when you send the nodes brightness level to Domoticz.

Also Domoticz behaves odd when it comes to dimmer actuators as I discovered during a project I'm working on now. There are some work arounds for that, which envolve storing the brightness levels on the eeprom of your node. I know 100000 times is a lot. But I really don't see the need to store each brightness level change in the eeprom.

In all honesty mixing rfm69 and nrf24L01+, as @evb, suggests seems to me to be a way that isn't complicated and doesn't acquire any additional coding. I think I'd go that route

@skywatch I have looked at resin printers in the past. What's not so appealing is that I have to use chemicals. It is located in a guest bedroom, and even though the might be harmless. I don't think I want to go that route.

@evb thank you for your tips! I was already prepared that this will be a long journey lol. Because I read horror stories about people not being able to print at all.

@NeverDie I think you convinced me to go for the Prusa. I've been reading reviews and it is supposed to be one of the quietest printers. Which is a big plus.

I know you all say go for a bigger one, don't go for a smaller one. I will do some research and see what the footprints of bigger printers are. But if I can find a 3d shop nearby. I think I will stick to a smaller one. It's not that I'm building big robots lol.

@Snyfir Hello my friend,

I'm not the one who's deep into the Mysensors code. But I assume you have to either clone it from github and adjust the code. Which means you'll have to merge all fixes and changes yourself to your clone.
Or you have to implement your own repeater code. But not sure if that is possible. Because I don't think your sketch receives all the messages not intended for the node itself.

I'm not really sure why you'd want this. But I don't know the problem you're trying to solve. As I've always understood it. Each node would always try to connect to the gateway first. If that is not possible it will try to find a repeater.

So if your particular node can not reach the battery powered repeater. It will have no connection to the gateway at all I suppose.

What @BearWithBeard suggests might be an easier fix. But you have to be really sure your node can always contact the battery operated repeater.

@TheoL said in Best 3d printers:

But I can not see what the big differences are. Would it be possible to add auto leveling later on?

Yes. Autoleveling can be added later. I have it on both my Prusa I3 MK3S and my Ender 5 Plus, which came with it stock. The bigger the build area, the more useful it is. My creality doesn't hold its manual bed-leveling all that well (a common complaint among Creality owners), so the auto-leveling really helps a lot. The Prusa I3 MK3/3S is considered a well tuned and reliable printer. My Ender 5 Plus, after a lot of
upgrades, prints almost as well, but from what I've seen Creality's engineering just isn't as good, and upgrades are needed to bring them to a more polished Prusa level. In my view Prusa's are a printer and Creality's are a project. By that I mean Prusa's work well in their stock configuration, whereas with Creality printers you'll probably want/need upgrades. I got the Ender 5 Plus because I'm in the middle of a project where I'm printing not just bigger things than the Prusa I3 MK3S can handle but also because I'm printing a lot of them, and the bigger build surface allows me to do it in parallel.

I think people here are right when they say you'll eventually want a bigger build area, but I started with the same goals as you and for me it took 2 years before I felt I needed the bigger build space (and then only because my goals are now different). I don't really regret buying the Prusa with its smaller build volume first, however: over the last two years prices on bigger build-volume printers has fallen by a lot and quality has increased by a lot. I expect those trendlines will continue. Also, I could probably sell my Prusa today for more than I paid for it two years ago, because it's already built and there's a market on ebay of people who don't want to assemble a kit and who dont' want to wait one or two months for a shipment from Czechoslovakia. In fact, when my current project is finished, there's a good chance I will sell it on ebay while it still commands premium pricing. The Prusa was cutting edge for its day, but the other printer companies are catching up and you can now buy 3 of them for the price of one Prusa.

If I hadn't been in a rush, I probably would have purchased an SK-GO instead of an Ender 5 Plus. That said, an SK-GO is not intended to be anyone's first printer. The Jubilee 3D printer also looks very promising, as it supports automatic changing of printheads (something that usually only multi-thousand dollar 3D printers can do), which is the next big trend. Another kit worth considering is the Voron 2.4, which is a fully open source alternative, but again, as a first printer it would likely be overwhelming for most people.

For comic relief, consider:
Voron life - a film, by Madcat – 04:00
— Andrew K

@Theol I had thought you were in the USA when I recommended amazon or ebay. Not sure what consumer rights buyers in Europe have, so I have no advice on where to buy there.