Bridge between RF24 and RS485

[dk_iot]

Are there plans (or code) to create a bridge (repeater) between a RF24 and RS485 mysensors network?

I'd like to have a some RS485 nodes to a few central locations in the house, from there on use a RF24 network.
Now I am enabling the Repeater functionality on every node, which should not be necessary and is prone to more errors.
(I tried to google for an answer, but could not find the right keywords to find an answer)

Looking forward to a nice discussion :)

[rejoe2]

Sounds like an interesting idea. As my controller (FHEM) seems to get a little confused when using more than one GW, the option to have one wired RS485 backbone with one or more "relay stations" towards a few NRF-Nodes would be really cool.

Made some investigations wrt. to this, but I didn't even suceed in finding the place of the code used for "regular" repeater nodes. As the normal repeaters also seem to buffer the info to forward, it should not be impossible to make them send info received from RF-side to RS485 and vice versa. It is quite obvious, this will eliminate the "regular" RF-repeater functionality, but imo. that would not be a problem.

[sundberg84]

+1 on that, I like wired when possible but need wireless for most part.

[gohan]

If you can run a cable, you could make a new ethernet gateway

[sundberg84]

@gohan - not within the same network and nodes in between have to be configured to choose one - if i got this right.

[gohan]

By choosing correct nodes id and channels I don't see why you can't have more gateways

[Yveaux]

@gohan You can have as many gateways as you like, as long as these form separate networks.
A single controller can connect to many gateways (networks).

[gohan]

That's what I meant 😀

[marceltrapman]

@dk_iot I have been playing with the same idea but then realised that using repeaters should be ok as well.
'What are you issues with repeaters' could be a more interesting question because I get the feeling that you are trying to give the patient some medicine without really knowing what to cure...
Or am I wrong?

[sundberg84]

Its possible both ways - yes, but with a repeater you would not have to specify your network and the "healing" process which is one of the nice features in mysensors would work for a node in range of both repaters. This would not work with two different networks/gw.

[dk_iot]

@marceltrapman
One of the problems I had that the auto healing of the network started to loop/route into each other. So packets never arrived to the Gateway. The other one was a female NRF connector attached to a female antenna connector (took some time before I figured out). My current solution is one USB Gateway, and only one repeater, and two BIG antennas (with a male-to-male cable) between them...
I am hardcoding Node-ID's and Parents ID's now in my scripts.
What I am really missing is a way to define/set the parent ID in my script (Arduino Sketch), it would mean that I can have a single script for all my nodes, and configure the next hop (parent ID) before starting the NRF radio.
Do you know if this exists?

[hugch]

A repeater feature would be amasing. I posted a feature request on github, but i think it is better here:

I would like to build a wired network with RS-485 based sensors, because wireless signals can't go through the location where the sensors are. But outside of the metal house i can send and receive messages via NRF24L01.

So but the current MySensor library supports only a LAN, WLAN or serial gateway, but i need a NRF gateway. ;-)
Because there is no LAN or WLAN available. Would it possible to do this?
I think two ways could be useful:

1. a real gateway function
2. only pass through between RS-485 and NRF without an extra gateway

Which one would be easier to implement? I could help with this, but i don't exactly know the best point to start at. Allows the current library structure this modification?

[ArduiSens]

This would be a great step forward because today I can't find a good solution for connecting a RS485 wired sensor network to my Synology NAS without using USB (USB is complicated when using Arduino boards)

By option 1, do you mean a gateway-interface device like translating RS485 data into Ethernet?

I can do some integration testing :wink:

[gohan]

Rs485 gateway exists already in mysensors

[ArduiSens]

I know but not with the interface RS485 to Ethernet or NRF24L01+.
Only RS485 to USB which doesn't work when connecting to Synology NAS, in this case you also should wire it up to your NAS.

[hugch]

@ArduiSens No i mean not a ethernet gateway. I mean a gateway between RS485 and the wireless network.
Currently there exists only a gateway from RS485 to UART but not to the wireless network.

[gohan]

@ArduiSens actually it should be working with all gateway types