Arduino Pro Mini adapter card and nice box from "biltema"

[fot]

Hi! My first post

I have developed a small card that fit my needs (and probably more).

It has space for 3.3V regulator for the NRF card (and other 3.3 components) and most of the available pins in one place.

The sensors inputs are designed with RC servos in mind. The power is in the middle so it does not make smoke when you connect your 3pin dupont cable the wrong way.

Power input is designed so that you can choose with a simple jumper if you want to use the internal regulator within the Pro Mini card or have regulated power from the outside directly to Vcc.

In the bottom of the card I have two unconnected power rails that can be connected from "PWR JMP" to get VCC, 3.3V regulated or raw input for sensors that require different power levels.

The only problem with the current sent of cards I have is that the NRF card is so close to the Pro Mini card that I had to tilt the socket a little bit to make it fit and that the silkscreen for the Arduino is wrong.

For v1.1 I will probably also add som indicators what pins that are available as well so that I don't have to guess or check the schema every time

It's designed to fit into a box from biltema (http://www.biltema.se/sv/Bygg/El/Fast-installation/Kulodosa-35469/).

The battery holder is hot glued to the top of the box.

/Magnus

More images:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5INDuuflyspfmNKWVktSEdjd0xGdHM2YzV1bjMyeXI2OWIwNTByTVdkY0dsNWgzNUhqeGs&usp=sharing

[napo7]

Nice card !

It seems that you power your arduino mini with 2x1.5V ?
Is that working well ?
Do you sleep your adruino ?
How many life does last the batteries ?

[fot]

Yes, I'm using 2x1.5V and it seams to work well..

The card uses around 30uA (+- the precision of my multimeter) in idle/sleep and that should give a pretty long run time on batteries.

I have nodes that has been online since before Christmas and still going strong.

/Magnus

[bjornhallberg]

I think I looked at that box the last time I was at Biltema but I never got around to buying them. The ones I got from Ebay are ok, though a bit bulky in retrospect, plus the screws rust like crazy. So I'll pick up a couple of these next time. Can never have enough boxes.

[Stric]

Same card, different box (slightly too small). I cut the LED after taking the picture..

[gadu]

Where can one find these boards?

[fot]

@gadu said:

Where can one find these boards?

Hi, I developed the boards to fit my own needs.

Currently I don't have any spare but will order more shortly.

/Magnus

[Mickey]

can you share this board schematics?

[gadu]

When you order, lägg till 5st

[Dirk_H]

@fot said:

Yes, I'm using 2x1.5V and it seams to work well..

The card uses around 30uA (+- the precision of my multimeter) in idle/sleep and that should give a pretty long run time on batteries.

I have nodes that has been online since before Christmas and still going strong.

/Magnus

Have you something else connected than Arduino and NRF? Any Sensors or Powersupply? I got down to below 4uA with Atmega and NRF sleeping, measured with Agilent precision desktop multimeter. (Nothing else connected because it was a remote with only buttons). If you have your ATMega in deepsleep you should have less than 10uA (datasheet says so). Just seeing that you use the Arduino Pro Mini. I used dedicated ATMega w/o Arduino HW... Anyways 30uA is also quiet good I think. it should give you more than a year stand by time (theoretical).
(800mAh Battery / (30uA circuit + 30uA self discharge) /24h = 555 days)

[fot]

@gadu

Sure.

/Magnus

[fot]

@Mickey said:

can you share this board schematics?

Sure,

I have some improvements that I need to sort out first but I'm not
intending to make money from this it's for my personal benefit.

/Magnus

[fot]

@Dirk_H said:

@fot said:

Yes, I'm using 2x1.5V and it seams to work well..

The card uses around 30uA (+- the precision of my multimeter) in idle/sleep and that should give a pretty long run time on batteries.

I have nodes that has been online since before Christmas and still going strong.

/Magnus

Have you something else connected than Arduino and NRF? Any Sensors or Powersupply? I got down to below 4uA with Atmega and NRF sleeping, measured with Agilent precision desktop multimeter. (Nothing else connected because it was a remote with only buttons). If you have your ATMega in deepsleep you should have less than 10uA (datasheet says so). Just seeing that you use the Arduino Pro Mini. I used dedicated ATMega w/o Arduino HW... Anyways 30uA is also quiet good I think. it should give you more than a year stand by time (theoretical).
(800mAh Battery / (30uA circuit + 30uA self discharge) /24h = 555 days)

The regulator on the pro mini is still connected it might drain some uA still.
I just removed the power led from the board.
I had one DS18b20 connected at the time of measuring.

When i hit 30uA I did not dig any further into it.

I have > 800mAh batteries so I will get > 2 years of operation.

Might do some more analysis of it later on.

/Magnus

[ahhk]

Hi,

would u share / show the schematic? I actually do the same: A small battery-powered "Baseplate" for the pro mini and a NRF24l01. But i wanted to use a HT7733 instead of HT7133 and definitivly NO SMD parts

greetings

Andreas

[fot]

@ahhk said:

Hi,

would u share / show the schematic? I actually do the same: A small battery-powered "Baseplate" for the pro mini and a NRF24l01. But i wanted to use a HT7733 instead of HT7133 and definitivly NO SMD parts

As I wrote before. I have some modifications I like to do before but after that I will probably release the card to the public including Eagle files.

/Magnus

[bjornhallberg]

I went and picked up one of these boxes. As suggested, the box fits perfectly, has clips (no screws), removable terminal blocks and has a nice stylish front that would probably work in most homes.

Thanks again for the tip! At 20 SEK ($2.3) it is quite affordable also. Makes me question 3D printing and CNC routing.

[tbowmo]

I picked up the smaller variant (http://www.biltema.dk/da/Byggeri/El/Elektrikervarktoj/El-dase-35209/?artId=35209)

If it wasn't for that darn screw in the middle, it would be a perfect fit for the Mysensor micro.

I'm thinking about modifying the box, and remove the screw. But then nothing is holding the box together.

/ Thomas

[tbowmo]

just made a box for my serial gateway, with the small variant I mentioned above

[lundebc]

I am wondering if you have done improvements and published this schematic or eagle files? These are exactly as I have been thinking about to make the package better than simply using jumper wires to build my desired sensors. If you published them to OshPark or similar I would definitely buy several.

Regards,

Bruce

[fot]

@lundebc
No, I'm in a "no time left on device" mode right now.

I'm thinking of publishing the eagle files for anyone to use but have not done it yet.

/Magnus