💬 Arduino UNO NRF24L01+ Shield

[openhardware.io]

https://www.openhardware.io/view/694/Arduino-UNO-NRF24L01-Shield

[boozz]

@openhardware-io
Looks as a nice and clean design. Too bad you didn't place a capacitor near the power pins of the nrf24L01+ module.
With my UNO I only got this module working when adding the capacitor...

[mfalkvidd]

@boozz isn't that what C1 is for?

[boozz]

@mfalkvidd
I think you’re right. I only had a look at the first image and there the C1 location was not visible as the nrf-module was in front of it.
My bad

[tbowmo]

The design assumes that the 3v3 on the arduino board is enough to power the NRF24, which it isn't on the cheap china clones.

Also be aware that if you add a high powered NRF24 with PA/LNA onboard, the LNA is not 5V tolerant, and you need to have a level converter on the CE pin (if I remember right)

[boozz]

@tbowmo

You mean this item?:

I never used the CE pin via a level converter up till now. I use 3 of them and some have ran for over 3 years now. So I guess they must be 5V tolerant.
Of course, power pin should be 3v3.

[tbowmo]

@boozz said in Arduino UNO NRF24L01+ Shield:

@tbowmo

You mean this item?:

I never used the CE pin via a level converter up till now. I use 3 of them and some have ran for over 3 years now. So I guess they must be 5V tolerant.
Of course, power pin should be 3v3.

Yes..

Some of the chinese modules, have the CE pin wired to the PA/LNA chip RXEN, which is not 5V tolerant, like the NRF24 are. So it is not safe to assume that it is OK to just apply 5V to the input pins.

You are just lucky, that the designer of the radios that you are using, didn't do this..

You should always check the datasheet from your vendor, as they might do things that are less than ideal

[tiana]

Hello,

Even without capacitors work well, for all of my sensors. With the capacitor only the range is little bit increased.
The SMD version of the NRF module works only for some vendors, there exist different pinout of those NRF modules.
Also there have one issue with the design, the one of the mounting holes are not align to Arduino hole at the moment i work to fix this, after fixing the gerbers will be updated.

I don't like one think here in openhardware.io there haven't project versions and when some change is made cannot be visible as changed, if somebody had already download the gerber files, will have old version of them and is not be alerted for new design change.

[mfalkvidd]

@tiana I have not used it, but it is possible to create different revisions. See https://www.openhardware.io/view/4/EasyNewbie-PCB-for-MySensors#tabs-revisions as an example.