Most reliable "best" radio

[NeverDie]

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

I didn't have any issues with the files though it did warn that the footprints for the radio modules are in MyGlobalLibrary, which I don't have. See the screenshot below. If they could be put into a library within the project, it would be more portable than it already is but I was able to work with it as is.

OK, I updated the project archive to include nRF24L01 symbol and footprint libraries which include those symbols and footprints. Let me know if it works out OK.

Apparently best practice is to put literally every single symbol and footprint that gets used on a project into project-specific libraries so that they can be freely shared. At least for now I just put in the unique nRF24L01 symbols and footprints that aren't part of the generic KiCAD 6 build.

[NeverDie]

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Please do though consider lining up the pins such that they would also fit a breadboard layout.

Yes, agreed. Unless I made an error, this should already be true.

[alphaHotel]

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

OK, I updated the project archive to include nRF24L01 symbol and footprint libraries which include those symbols and footprints

Awesome! Thank you.

[alphaHotel]

UPDATE:

• I've created a Github repo for my version of the nRF24L01 adapter board.
• I've created an OpenHardware.io project for it referencing the Github repo to extract/generate the files.
• My OpenHardware.io project is being reviewed before it is published. When its available you'll find it at https://www.openhardware.io/view/32973/nRF24L01-Adapter-Board-AH.

I've done it this way partly as a test as it ties back to this thread about sharing a complete set of KiCad design files. I'd appreciate any feedback on being able to open and edit the files. Also, feel free to submit a pull request as a test of collaborating with Github and KiCad but only if you're interested in the results too.

Edit: OpenHardware.io project is now available publicly.

[skywatch]

@Larson A bit late as the dry weather has me doing outdoors work and I'm knackered!

But yes, I agree with your thoughts and method as a good solid starting point. I would clamp the modules in place so they cannot move at all and do first test, then solder wire to one module in situ and do test 2, then finally solder wire to second module and do test 3.

This way you get to cover all possibilities in the shortest steps and time with minimal messing.

[Larson]

@skywatch said in Most reliable "best" radio:

@Larson A bit late as the dry weather has me doing outdoors work and I'm knackered!

But yes, I agree with your thoughts and method as a good solid starting point. I would clamp the modules in place so they cannot move at all and do first test, then solder wire to one module in situ and do test 2, then finally solder wire to second module and do test 3.

This way you get to cover all possibilities in the shortest steps and time with minimal messing.

Great. Thanks for your review. It may take me a couple of weeks to get to it.

[Larson]

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

UPDATE:

I've created a Github repo for my version of the nRF24L01 adapter board.

Thanks for the version. I have made a few tweaks to your version. I don't have an openhardware account, yet, but will make one when I have the time. In the meanwhile below are the pictures of my changes. In words:

• I shrank the frame of the board to minimize the interference with the TestPlatform neighboring pins
• rerouted two traces to make the ground plane cleaner
• moved some components as needed
  

[NeverDie]

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

I've looked for tiny piezo's that could maybe do this, but they all seem to be different degrees of large. I know it should be possible to be tiny, becaue, for example, a digital wristwatch is able to make audible beeps. On the other hand, after looking at some teardowns, I guess digital watches uses piezo disks that are at least 1/2" in diameter. Hmmmm.... Is that really as small as it gets? Anyone here know? What about hearing aids? Surely they have something smaller. The smallest thing I've found so far has been this: https://owolff.com/page140.aspx?recordid140=534&output=pdf&delay=3000&margin=1cm which is 5mm in diameter. So, I guess forget mounting anything directly to the PCB board: wired discs are the way it's done apparently and then just tuck it somewhere inside the project enclosure.

I found these recently: https://www.cuidevices.com/micro-buzzers. Digikey seems to carry them but the smallest was listed as "0 quantity in stock" (https://www.digikey.ca/en/product-highlight/c/cui/micro-buzzers). The 4mm square version was available but of course that's just my local digikey, YMMV.

Adafruit's Clue device uses the KLJ-5030, which is 5mmx5mmx3mm: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832675250640.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.4ef473807sKXlG&algo_pvid=a8ed0732-081a-414b-8b9a-5745c9f7e7ff&algo_exp_id=a8ed0732-081a-414b-8b9a-5745c9f7e7ff-1&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id"%3A"65468584514"}&pdp_npi=2%40dis!USD!!47.0!47.0!!!!%402101e9d016559352842771526eafc4!65468584514!sea

At higher cost I notice that there also exists a KLJ-4020, which is 4mmx4mmx2mm: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832613970385.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000060.1.58582227hEwQ40&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreThisSeller&scm=1007.13339.274681.0&scm_id=1007.13339.274681.0&scm-url=1007.13339.274681.0&pvid=6e57d5b5-3669-4301-96cd-4254603eb5f8&_t=gps-id:pcDetailBottomMoreThisSeller,scm-url:1007.13339.274681.0,pvid:6e57d5b5-3669-4301-96cd-4254603eb5f8,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238110%231995&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id"%3A"66402727672"%2C"sceneId"%3A"3339"}&pdp_npi=2%40dis!USD!!13.0!13.0!!!!%40210323b116559355333711431e5503!66402727672!rec

[alphaHotel]

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Adafruit's Clue device uses the KLJ-5030, which is 5mmx5mmx3mm:
At higher cost I notice that there also exists a KLJ-4020, which is 4mmx4mmx2mm

Yikes! :flushed: Watch out for those shipping costs. Check my math, 4mm x 4mm x 2mm x 20 pcs = 640 cubic mm = 0.640 cubic cm = 0.0391 cubic inches, from China for $72 shipping? They must weigh a ton (or a tonne). LOL! :joy:

Seriously though, good find! I think I'll keep shopping around for a better price though. :grinning:

[alphaHotel]

@Larson said in Most reliable "best" radio:

I shrank the frame of the board to minimize the interference with the TestPlatform neighboring pins

Nice! How wide is that VCC trace/plane at its narrowest point now?

If you got it from Github, are you able to send me a pull request?

[NeverDie]

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Adafruit's Clue device uses the KLJ-5030, which is 5mmx5mmx3mm:
At higher cost I notice that there also exists a KLJ-4020, which is 4mmx4mmx2mm

Yikes! :flushed: Watch out for those shipping costs. Check my math, 4mm x 4mm x 2mm x 20 pcs = 640 cubic mm = 0.640 cubic cm = 0.0391 cubic inches, from China for $72 shipping? They must weigh a ton (or a tonne). LOL! :joy:

Seriously though, good find! I think I'll keep shopping around for a better price though. :grinning:

Yeah, the price is awful. I only linked it as an example. Looking a bit harder, I see they can be had for $1.53 each from a more reliable source: https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Buzzers_KELIKING-KLJ-4020_C556936.html The other thing to be wary regarding it is that the manufactures website says is only audible within a 0.5 to 1m range, which, if true, would be pathetically weak.

So, it has me thinking "close but no cigar."

In comparison, having heard it myself, the KLJ-5030 is reasonably loud I would say.

[NeverDie]

Looks as though FUET has some good low-priced alternative buzzers:

It must be something about the physics of buzzers that the thinnner they get in these small packages, the quieter they are.

[Larson]

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Nice! How wide is that VCC trace/plane at its narrowest point now?

KiCad tells me the narrowest VCC trace is about 0.045" (1.1 mm). I think the conventional 0.5 oz. copper is the common underlayment thickness. Is it too narrow? The return path is much narrower (Pin 1 nRF24L01). Does that matter?

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

If you got it from Github, are you able to send me a pull request?

Yes, I think I got your version from Github. I will learn how to send a pull request. Cool, so this is how collaboration works? I'm new to this.

[Larson]

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

It must be something about the physics of buzzers that the thinnner they get in these small packages, the quieter they are.

I'm thinking of speakers of the 1970's: the drivers, midrange and tweeters would be nothing without the cabinet boxes. Does that apply here? In the 2010's these "soundbars" come into the picture. But there is still a box involved. Yes, it is probably about the physics of sonics... I'm thinking.

[alphaHotel]

@Larson said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Yes, I think I got your version from Github. I will learn how to send a pull request. Cool, so this is how collaboration works? I'm new to this.

Please don't add to your personal learning curve to create a pull request. It's not that important, at all.

[NeverDie]

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

This is what I came up with for a platform that has both pluggable MCU's and pluggable radios:

It's a bit wider than the previous test platform to give enough space between both the two AA batteries themselves and between those batteries and the pin headers. It also has a separate row of pins along the outside in case you want to have any shields that go on top. I did away with the switch entirely. Now if you want to power it off, you just remove a battery. So, doing all that renders the backplane/power-source very simple. Also, I included two mounting holes so that the whole thing can be mounted inside a project box. Yesterday I ordered this PCB along with a pluggable atmega328p MCU board and a pluggable radio board from a fab, so nothing physical to show-and-tell just yet.

In terms of having "plugable" compute modules, I'm thinking that maybe edge connectors might be a good way to go. I say that because I've lately been looking at expansion slots for the Adafruit CLUE, which has a similar pinout to the BBC micro:bit. Even though those modules have only a little more than 20 pins to expose, some of the edge connectors on the market that are compatible with them can support as many as 80 pins! For a plugable compute module, the more pinouts the better. That way, if you need access to a lot more pins, you would simply plug the same compute module into a backplane that gives you access to a lot more pins to, for example, directly drive an LCD display instead of having to do it all (more slowly) using an SPI interface.

Well, that's all I've learned so far. I guess in the absence of any better ideas, maybe picking one of those 80 pin edge connectors that's compatible with micro:bit would perhaps be a worthwhile experiment to build a plugable backplane around. Especially for mcu's that come with a switchable fabric that can re-assign which logical pins are assigned to which physical pins, it would perhaps open up a lot of options for exploiting much more capable MCU's while still keeping the real estate small.

Here's an example of one of those 80 pin edge connectors that's micro:bit compatible: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HS27D51/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A22NPL1KB8AOV0&psc=1

as well as a PCB showing how it is wired for a micro:bit:

As you can see, lots of room to grow! The downside is that it's not small. Maybe an edge connector that's half as long would work well enough (though obviously sacrifice micro:bit compatability) and still keep things small. If there were a smaller, much higher connection density connector, that would obviously be better. Maybe @Larson 's idea of using zebra strips as connectors is more practical. Not sure. I suppose in a way the little aliexpress modules, with their array of contacts on the back of their little PCB's, are a type of connector, just not a plugable/unplugable one.Anyhow, I don't have the time to pursue it further at this juncture, so those are just some notes to either future self or to anyone who might want to tackle it.

[NeverDie]

I was thinking of trying out the nRF52805, but it turns out making the nRF5 jump now isn't much easier than it was 5 years ago when I last looked into the nRF52 series. The main improvement in the interim is that certain popular chips, like the nRF52840 are now better supported, because they are baked into things like the Adafruit CLUE and have at least some familiar Arduino support.

[Larson]

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Maybe @Larson 's idea of using zebra strips as connectors is more practical.

I learned about zebra strips from you - thank you very much. I was unable to re-establish connections for an existing commercial products and I don't know why. My thought was that zebra strips were some technology and complex signaling that is beyond my capacity. The device is probably over 20 years old. Therefore, I would not recommend zebra strips because I don't know enough about them.

This pic from your link is more telling of the capability of your referenced connectors. For now, I don't know why these are called edge-connectors. I thought edge-connectors were flat male blades with double-sided contacts that were fitted in sloted female gaps. The ones I think I've seen have an index slot for, I suspected, polarity protection and alignment. Maybe I've got this all wrong and they are called something else - like card connectors.

[NeverDie]

@Larson said in Most reliable "best" radio:

don't know why these are called edge-connectors.

@Larson I think they're called edge connectors because they mate with the edge of a PCB.

[Larson]

@NeverDie Yes, I think we are surfing the same wave. I'm thinking of a PCB mount that will recieve a perpendicular PCB board with double sided connectors like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/122943051785?hash=item1c9ffa1809:g:daAAAOSwd4tTxdNW

Maybe there is an application of these for the radio modules that have the single row SMD mounting pads? One would need to ignore the opposing connectors. Better yet, maybe there are radio boards (?) that could be designed to slot in... just thinking. The NRF24’s would require double-sided 1x4 board and receivers. That would be cool and compact.

But then there is the ground-plane to think about?