Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?
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Well, this is a good example of how having a PPK2 helps to troubleshoot the CAD problem. We can see from the PPK2 that the CAD actually is activated, once per second, as per my code:
So, just knowing that narrows down the problem considerably. The problem now is no longer that but instead why it isn't setting the IRQ flag to indicate that it has finished its detection cycle? The Rx completion flags aren't being set either. -
@NeverDie Super. It will be fun to see what you do with it. Glad you have the OC scope to leverage the tool. Cheers.
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@Larson You'll want to add some jumpers to your BOM if you don't already have them:
The above are two motes. The one on the left is used for measurement, and the one on the right isn't.@NeverDie Super, thanks for pointing out the jumpers - very clear to see how they would be used.
For a long time, I've wanted to make ESP programmer boards that would use springs to temporarily hold the ESP. I actually built one using pogo-pins and a 3-D printed housing pocket. It worked but was fiddly. I may try again on your radio carrier board but differently this time. I’d like to use stiff carbon steel music wire that would be mounted in drilled holes in the existing pads and create new pads on the back-side for mechanical-solder support. Some trace revision would be in order on the back-side, and Captain Tape could cover the new solder pads if needed. Think of it as a bed of nails. Carbon steel music wire is used in springs, I think, and that is what I'd like to use for its stiffness. Perhaps I’ll make the dimension between the rows of holes about 1 mm shy of the distance between the castellated indents. Then to use, push the SX1282 down into the field of springs getting 4 or 5 mm from the carrier board or until the springs start to splay out. If it works, the castellated indent would snuggly fit the wire if I can select the right gauge. One board could then serve different radios of the same class with the same pinouts. The downside may be that I have 16 new unintended antennae. Maybe I could trim these springs shorter after learning how it works.
The compelling reason for this is to preserve the radio for later permanent installation elsewhere, if needed. There may be some performance degradation as the effective trace length would be longer. I have no idea of the electrical properties of this wire. I'll find out. I’ve got too many ESP’s that are permanently attached to dead testing, or otherwise abandonded, boards. What do you think of the idea?
Atmega328P selection question: is this linked choice the right pin configuration for the footprint you used? There are so many other choices. Digikey is out of stock, but I'm presuming I'll find them elsewhere.
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@NeverDie Super, thanks for pointing out the jumpers - very clear to see how they would be used.
For a long time, I've wanted to make ESP programmer boards that would use springs to temporarily hold the ESP. I actually built one using pogo-pins and a 3-D printed housing pocket. It worked but was fiddly. I may try again on your radio carrier board but differently this time. I’d like to use stiff carbon steel music wire that would be mounted in drilled holes in the existing pads and create new pads on the back-side for mechanical-solder support. Some trace revision would be in order on the back-side, and Captain Tape could cover the new solder pads if needed. Think of it as a bed of nails. Carbon steel music wire is used in springs, I think, and that is what I'd like to use for its stiffness. Perhaps I’ll make the dimension between the rows of holes about 1 mm shy of the distance between the castellated indents. Then to use, push the SX1282 down into the field of springs getting 4 or 5 mm from the carrier board or until the springs start to splay out. If it works, the castellated indent would snuggly fit the wire if I can select the right gauge. One board could then serve different radios of the same class with the same pinouts. The downside may be that I have 16 new unintended antennae. Maybe I could trim these springs shorter after learning how it works.
The compelling reason for this is to preserve the radio for later permanent installation elsewhere, if needed. There may be some performance degradation as the effective trace length would be longer. I have no idea of the electrical properties of this wire. I'll find out. I’ve got too many ESP’s that are permanently attached to dead testing, or otherwise abandonded, boards. What do you think of the idea?
Atmega328P selection question: is this linked choice the right pin configuration for the footprint you used? There are so many other choices. Digikey is out of stock, but I'm presuming I'll find them elsewhere.
@Larson AFAIK, any atmega328p with a 32TQFP package should work. Yes, they are in surprisingly short supply right now. Because of that, some people (like Great Scott!) have taken to desoldering them from Pro Mini's, which aren't cheaper but are easier to find. If you go that route, I recommend you buy some ChipQuik to make your desoldering a whole lot easier: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0019UZP7I/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 But that's me. Maybe you have your own preferred method. Whatever works. If you have old projects you no longer use, now is a good time to recycle their parts.
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@NeverDie Super, thanks for pointing out the jumpers - very clear to see how they would be used.
For a long time, I've wanted to make ESP programmer boards that would use springs to temporarily hold the ESP. I actually built one using pogo-pins and a 3-D printed housing pocket. It worked but was fiddly. I may try again on your radio carrier board but differently this time. I’d like to use stiff carbon steel music wire that would be mounted in drilled holes in the existing pads and create new pads on the back-side for mechanical-solder support. Some trace revision would be in order on the back-side, and Captain Tape could cover the new solder pads if needed. Think of it as a bed of nails. Carbon steel music wire is used in springs, I think, and that is what I'd like to use for its stiffness. Perhaps I’ll make the dimension between the rows of holes about 1 mm shy of the distance between the castellated indents. Then to use, push the SX1282 down into the field of springs getting 4 or 5 mm from the carrier board or until the springs start to splay out. If it works, the castellated indent would snuggly fit the wire if I can select the right gauge. One board could then serve different radios of the same class with the same pinouts. The downside may be that I have 16 new unintended antennae. Maybe I could trim these springs shorter after learning how it works.
The compelling reason for this is to preserve the radio for later permanent installation elsewhere, if needed. There may be some performance degradation as the effective trace length would be longer. I have no idea of the electrical properties of this wire. I'll find out. I’ve got too many ESP’s that are permanently attached to dead testing, or otherwise abandonded, boards. What do you think of the idea?
Atmega328P selection question: is this linked choice the right pin configuration for the footprint you used? There are so many other choices. Digikey is out of stock, but I'm presuming I'll find them elsewhere.
@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
What do you think of the idea?
I think it would be easier and less iffy to simply solder it on as per usual and then use ChipQuik if you later wanted to desolder it and move it to another board. But again, that's me. That said, I somewhere have one of those springy jigs that I bought on aliexpress for programming virgin ESP8266's, and it seems to work fine--well, at least for the purpose of installing bootloaders. I never tried to do wifi with them in such a jig, so I don't know what the RF consequencies might be, if any. If you can tolerate some impairment, maybe it's good enough.
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@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
What do you think of the idea?
I think it would be easier and less iffy to simply solder it on as per usual and then use ChipQuik if you later wanted to desolder it and move it to another board. But again, that's me. That said, I somewhere have one of those springy jigs that I bought on aliexpress for programming virgin ESP8266's, and it seems to work fine--well, at least for the purpose of installing bootloaders. I never tried to do wifi with them in such a jig, so I don't know what the RF consequencies might be, if any. If you can tolerate some impairment, maybe it's good enough.
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
... then use ChipQuik if you later wanted to desolder it...
Okay. One more item for my BOM and skill set. Thanks for the 32TQFP tip also. I do happen to have several Pro Minis and Nanos on hand since I bought them by the dozen - but they are so perfect as they are. Okay, I'll risk one and see how it goes. I am very excited to test the power difference between fuse settings and excluding the external crystal. Andrew Retallack wrote a great series on Beyond the Arduino for power savings and programming in C. I'll have to go back and look but I think it all was based on the external crystal.
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@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
... then use ChipQuik if you later wanted to desolder it...
Okay. One more item for my BOM and skill set. Thanks for the 32TQFP tip also. I do happen to have several Pro Minis and Nanos on hand since I bought them by the dozen - but they are so perfect as they are. Okay, I'll risk one and see how it goes. I am very excited to test the power difference between fuse settings and excluding the external crystal. Andrew Retallack wrote a great series on Beyond the Arduino for power savings and programming in C. I'll have to go back and look but I think it all was based on the external crystal.
@Larson Here's all you need to know in one place on how to get to 100na sleep current on the atmega328p: https://www.gammon.com.au/power He covers all the different methods. TL;DR: burn your fuses to:
External: 0xFF
High: 0xDC
Low: 0xC2
and then run Sketch J from the Nick Gammon link. That's all there is to it, provided you have an external device/circuit to wake up your atmega328p. -
@Larson You're doing the right thing by getting the PPK2. It will do 99% of what you want, and much more easily than an oscilloscope.
By the way, in case anyone is interested, there are a couple of reasons why a direct-to-oscilloscope connection beats hooking a typical 1X/10X oscilloscope probe up to, say, a uCurrent Gold or TinyCurrent. The first is that, obviously, there's less noise involved because of the short connection. The second reason is far less obvious, though, which is that the typical 1X/10X oscilloscope probes make for fairly lousy 1X connnections. For measuring small voltages on a 1X connection, you're better off using regular coax or, better still, a direct connection and eliminate the coax altogether. Why? Well, the TL;DR is that oscilloscope probes are optimized for use as 10X (which really meas divide by 10), as explained in the EEVLOG video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiAmER1OJh4
Meanwhile.... I've been trying to get Channel Activity Detection to work on the SX1280, but so far no joy. In some sense it's its own mode, because it "supposedly" times out automatically and returns to Idle mode after a fixed number of symbol periods that's set by SetCadParams. So, I'm puzzled as to what's going on and will have to take a deeper dive to figure this one out. Unfortunately, the library does not support CAD, so there's no working example to start from. There have been some alternative libraries posted on github, so I'll see if they shed any light on how to get CAD working.
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Meanwhile.... I've been trying to get Channel Activity Detection to work on the SX1280, but so far no joy.
Is there a CAD register that can be polled? In the SX1280 datasheet section “11.6.8 SetCAD” there is discussion of a CadDone IRQ. Maybe that can be used outside of the library? Maybe with its own interrupt? It looks to be bit 13 of the IRQ Register per table 11-73. I’ve never played with these radios but have found other devices (simpler devices) to be register friendly. Most of the references to CAD are in section 11. You, no doubt, have already been there. If so, I leave the comment for others.
[edit: on second read I see you have already been to section 11 with your comment on SetCadParams. Hmmm... wish I knew more. I'll play with it when I get set-up.]
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@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Meanwhile.... I've been trying to get Channel Activity Detection to work on the SX1280, but so far no joy.
Is there a CAD register that can be polled? In the SX1280 datasheet section “11.6.8 SetCAD” there is discussion of a CadDone IRQ. Maybe that can be used outside of the library? Maybe with its own interrupt? It looks to be bit 13 of the IRQ Register per table 11-73. I’ve never played with these radios but have found other devices (simpler devices) to be register friendly. Most of the references to CAD are in section 11. You, no doubt, have already been there. If so, I leave the comment for others.
[edit: on second read I see you have already been to section 11 with your comment on SetCadParams. Hmmm... wish I knew more. I'll play with it when I get set-up.]
@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Meanwhile.... I've been trying to get Channel Activity Detection to work on the SX1280, but so far no joy.
Is there a CAD register that can be polled? In the SX1280 datasheet section “11.6.8 SetCAD” there is discussion of a CadDone IRQ. Maybe that can be used outside of the library? Maybe with its own interrupt? It looks to be bit 13 of the IRQ Register per table 11-73. I’ve never played with these radios but have found other devices (simpler devices) to be register friendly. Most of the references to CAD are in section 11. You, no doubt, have already been there. If so, I leave the comment for others.
[edit: on second read I see you have already been to section 11 with your comment on SetCadParams. Hmmm... wish I knew more. I'll play with it when I get set-up.]
Yeah, I'd say the Semtech SX1280 architecture is quite different than a lot of previous Semtech chips, which, you're right, in prior times were very register oriented. There still are some registers, but for SX1280 Semtech adopted a less transparent op-code architecture where you can issue commands--but in some cases there's no way to verify whether the command "sticks" like there is with a register oriented architecture, where you can always read-back the register to confirm that what you think you wrote to a register was actually written exactly as you wrote it. This is making troubleshooting relatively hard, because the chip has some internal states that you can no longer read like you could with a more register oriented architecture. Instead, you send an op-code over SPI, and maybe some parameters to go with it (the type and number of which can vary), which you "hope" works. I don't like it at all, because, among other things, it assumes that the documentation is 100% complete and flawless--and documentation never is. In particular, the SX1280 datasheet never gives the exact protocol for launching CAD, and whatever that protocol is, I seemingly haven't found it yet, despite testing numerous possibilities--though I may have gotten close. And in a system with more than one SPI device, what happens if there's some conflict in your SPI communication? How do you ever unravel what it is if there's no way to verify? Seems like heartache waiting to happen. I don't understand why the opcode system is thought to be better. Anyone know?
Anyhow, Stuart's Projects never implemented CAD, and internally I'm finding it makes, IMHO, some seemingly improper assumptions about which IRQ's are assigned to which DIO's in how it operates. That makes it brittle. That's something one just can't know when looking purely at a library's veneer. Anyway, the good news is that late last night I found a different, more general library which claims to have a working SX1280 CAD example, so I'll be giving it a test drive soon. https://github.com/jgromes/RadioLib It's not radiohead, but it's a similarly ambitious library project that spans multiple different kinds of radios and multiple different kinds of MCUs. If the CAD demo code works, then I'll adopt the new library and drop Stuart's Projects. If nothing else, I admire the authors ambition to be the one library to rule them all. As I hate changing libraries, I truly hope this is "the One" library that can do that. :-)
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Well, the Radiolib CAD example compiles and runs, and it nominally looks like it should:
I just need to introduce a separate LoRa transmitter to the vicinity to confirm that the detection actually works. I'm guessing the LoRa parameters have to be an exact match (SF at minimum and maybe other parameters as well). Then, sending a long enough string--and maybe reducing delays in the CAD detector loop--should lead to a detection.
[Edit: Yup, I tried running the generic SX1280 Radiolib transmit example, with delay removed, and the CAD detector easily detects it. It works! :-) :-) :-) ]
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Since the Barebones v001 is, after all, a test platform, I'm going to assemble a mote and SX1280 adapter that use Dupont headers. The reason is that the 8 sense pins on the PPK2 work with Dupont wires, and I don't see an easy way to make those work with machine pin headers. No change in the PCBs is required. @Larson You may want to assemble your motes this way from the get-go.
By the way, can anyone here recommend where I can buy "good" Dupont wiring and connectors? If I buy from China, I seem to often get very loose-goosey connections.
P.S. I could be wrong, but the RadioHead library seems to have stopped progressing. None of the newer LoRa chips are in any of its examples. Too bad, as it was a very progressive library in its day. That leaves RadioLib as the library to rule them all. However, it has a very different overarching paradigm than, say, StuartsLibrary, which was easier to grasp.
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Since the Barebones v001 is, after all, a test platform, I'm going to assemble a mote and SX1280 adapter that use Dupont headers. The reason is that the 8 sense pins on the PPK2 work with Dupont wires, and I don't see an easy way to make those work with machine pin headers. No change in the PCBs is required. @Larson You may want to assemble your motes this way from the get-go.
By the way, can anyone here recommend where I can buy "good" Dupont wiring and connectors? If I buy from China, I seem to often get very loose-goosey connections.
P.S. I could be wrong, but the RadioHead library seems to have stopped progressing. None of the newer LoRa chips are in any of its examples. Too bad, as it was a very progressive library in its day. That leaves RadioLib as the library to rule them all. However, it has a very different overarching paradigm than, say, StuartsLibrary, which was easier to grasp.
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Dupont headers
My plan is to use female headers on the Barebones board, then to use doubled long-legged male headers on the SX1280 adapter board like these from Digikey. It all stacks together and bed of nails will stick out the top of it all. That way the PPK2 Dupont females can nicely plug onto the any of the protruding males in the stack that I select to use as a signal or interrupt. Again, I risk a bed of 16 inadvertent antennae with all that metal in the air. I can always snip-off the pins I don’t use. PPK2 is expected on Monday!
I spent the day shopping for parts at Aliexpress, Digikey, and Amazon. I found some 328P's at Aliexpress. Could be some time for the Aliexpress parts (SX1280 module). In the meantime I'll be learning KiCAD. I'm hoping that Eagle and KiCAD might allow file swapping as Eagle is familiar ground for me. Or ... I could just take the easy path and go directly to OSHPark since you have made it so easy.
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@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Dupont headers
My plan is to use female headers on the Barebones board, then to use doubled long-legged male headers on the SX1280 adapter board like these from Digikey. It all stacks together and bed of nails will stick out the top of it all. That way the PPK2 Dupont females can nicely plug onto the any of the protruding males in the stack that I select to use as a signal or interrupt. Again, I risk a bed of 16 inadvertent antennae with all that metal in the air. I can always snip-off the pins I don’t use. PPK2 is expected on Monday!
I spent the day shopping for parts at Aliexpress, Digikey, and Amazon. I found some 328P's at Aliexpress. Could be some time for the Aliexpress parts (SX1280 module). In the meantime I'll be learning KiCAD. I'm hoping that Eagle and KiCAD might allow file swapping as Eagle is familiar ground for me. Or ... I could just take the easy path and go directly to OSHPark since you have made it so easy.
@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Dupont headers
My plan is to use female headers on the Barebones board, then to use doubled long-legged male headers on the SX1280 adapter board like these from Digikey. It all stacks together and bed of nails will stick out the top of it all. That way the PPK2 Dupont females can nicely plug onto the any of the protruding males in the stack that I select to use as a signal or interrupt. Again, I risk a bed of 16 inadvertent antennae with all that metal in the air. I can always snip-off the pins I don’t use. PPK2 is expected on Monday!
Somehow I had gotten it in my head to use extra long female headers (such as these, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071GTP5V6/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1, or similar) on the adapter board and then regular female headers on the basic atmega328p PCB. Maybe it's a wash?
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@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Dupont headers
My plan is to use female headers on the Barebones board, then to use doubled long-legged male headers on the SX1280 adapter board like these from Digikey. It all stacks together and bed of nails will stick out the top of it all. That way the PPK2 Dupont females can nicely plug onto the any of the protruding males in the stack that I select to use as a signal or interrupt. Again, I risk a bed of 16 inadvertent antennae with all that metal in the air. I can always snip-off the pins I don’t use. PPK2 is expected on Monday!
I spent the day shopping for parts at Aliexpress, Digikey, and Amazon. I found some 328P's at Aliexpress. Could be some time for the Aliexpress parts (SX1280 module). In the meantime I'll be learning KiCAD. I'm hoping that Eagle and KiCAD might allow file swapping as Eagle is familiar ground for me. Or ... I could just take the easy path and go directly to OSHPark since you have made it so easy.
@Larson KiCAD 6 allows for importing Eagle projects right from within KiCAD 6 itself. Not sure what options, if any, might exist for exporting to Eagle. I think you'll like KiCAD 6. It's pretty easy to pick it up--much easier than earlier versions. I previously used Diptrace, because it was so easy, but I've since moved completely over to KiCAD 6 because it's just as easy, but also more widely supported in terms of parts libraries. Also, unlike Diptrace, it makes sharing projects a snap--just create an archive (literally a one menu click operation), and share the resulting zip file.
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@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Dupont headers
My plan is to use female headers on the Barebones board, then to use doubled long-legged male headers on the SX1280 adapter board like these from Digikey. It all stacks together and bed of nails will stick out the top of it all. That way the PPK2 Dupont females can nicely plug onto the any of the protruding males in the stack that I select to use as a signal or interrupt. Again, I risk a bed of 16 inadvertent antennae with all that metal in the air. I can always snip-off the pins I don’t use. PPK2 is expected on Monday!
Somehow I had gotten it in my head to use extra long female headers (such as these, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071GTP5V6/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1, or similar) on the adapter board and then regular female headers on the basic atmega328p PCB. Maybe it's a wash?
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Somehow I had gotten it in my head...
So many ways to cook an egg. The pleasure is in eating it. I'll take a picture of my wedding-cake-of-a-board stack when I finish. It may not be until July at my pace.
Re KiCAD: I look forward to trying. Recently JLCPCB made me learn EasyEDA and it really went well. Learning Eagle took me a week the first time, 2 days the second time, and still... I have to retrain. That is the joy of it all, right?
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By the way, I've recently been reporting some other progress on the SX1280 on my radio-comparison thread: https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/11954/most-reliable-best-radio/27?_=1654402718278 For things that are both battery operated and subject to remote control, the importance of being able to quickly wake them up at a moments notice, but with minimal ongoing energy drain, is an important topic. Examples: key finder fobs, remotely opening/closing blinds at the push of a button, etc.
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By the way, I've recently been reporting some other progress on the SX1280 on my radio-comparison thread: https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/11954/most-reliable-best-radio/27?_=1654402718278 For things that are both battery operated and subject to remote control, the importance of being able to quickly wake them up at a moments notice, but with minimal ongoing energy drain, is an important topic. Examples: key finder fobs, remotely opening/closing blinds at the push of a button, etc.
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From the perspective of having some kind of general purpose platform--not just for testing but as a "go-to" for general use--it would be nice to have some kind of project box or enclosure of some kind for it. That would prevent things in the environment from pushing up against the electronics/PCB and possibly shorting it out. Anyone have any ideas on what form that should take? There's always the option of custom 3D printing something, but if there were a box of the right size already out there, that would be much easier. In that case one could customize the PCB to fit it precisely instead of 3D printing a box to precisely fit the PCB. Having a nice enclosure is one of the things that typically separates store-bought sensors from hobbyist projects.
By the way, the SHT45 TH sensor that I mentioned in the OP is now available on mouser. Unfortunately, it seems they nearly doubled their asking price over what they had earlier projected, so that's a bit of a disappointment. I guess these days a lot of chips are marked up due to the widespread shortages going on.... The chip itself is quite small, but it only has four landing pads, so I'm thinking that hand soldering it should be manageable. A simple adapter board, like this one for the SHT40, would allow it to easily fit the platform:
because the platform's pinout already anticipates adding up to two I2C devices without any fuss, like thus:
FYI, I updated the project page with a bunch of photos. -
From the perspective of having some kind of general purpose platform--not just for testing but as a "go-to" for general use--it would be nice to have some kind of project box or enclosure of some kind for it. That would prevent things in the environment from pushing up against the electronics/PCB and possibly shorting it out. Anyone have any ideas on what form that should take? There's always the option of custom 3D printing something, but if there were a box of the right size already out there, that would be much easier. In that case one could customize the PCB to fit it precisely instead of 3D printing a box to precisely fit the PCB. Having a nice enclosure is one of the things that typically separates store-bought sensors from hobbyist projects.
By the way, the SHT45 TH sensor that I mentioned in the OP is now available on mouser. Unfortunately, it seems they nearly doubled their asking price over what they had earlier projected, so that's a bit of a disappointment. I guess these days a lot of chips are marked up due to the widespread shortages going on.... The chip itself is quite small, but it only has four landing pads, so I'm thinking that hand soldering it should be manageable. A simple adapter board, like this one for the SHT40, would allow it to easily fit the platform:
because the platform's pinout already anticipates adding up to two I2C devices without any fuss, like thus:
FYI, I updated the project page with a bunch of photos.@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Anyone have any ideas on what form that should take?
Looks great! I’ve had good luck at Aliexpress with a variety of boxes like these. Some boxes have mounting lugs on the bottom. Your board has no space for mounting holes. I could help with the redesign??? Then I'd use stand-offs to get to the lugs and suspend the batteries in the air off the bottom. The antenna could be curled inside the box, but I've found that to have a negative impact (probably the polairity thing.
[Edit: Forgot to say that I've thrown in the little bags of desiccants for good measure. I find them in my pill bottles.]
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From the perspective of having some kind of general purpose platform--not just for testing but as a "go-to" for general use--it would be nice to have some kind of project box or enclosure of some kind for it. That would prevent things in the environment from pushing up against the electronics/PCB and possibly shorting it out. Anyone have any ideas on what form that should take? There's always the option of custom 3D printing something, but if there were a box of the right size already out there, that would be much easier. In that case one could customize the PCB to fit it precisely instead of 3D printing a box to precisely fit the PCB. Having a nice enclosure is one of the things that typically separates store-bought sensors from hobbyist projects.
By the way, the SHT45 TH sensor that I mentioned in the OP is now available on mouser. Unfortunately, it seems they nearly doubled their asking price over what they had earlier projected, so that's a bit of a disappointment. I guess these days a lot of chips are marked up due to the widespread shortages going on.... The chip itself is quite small, but it only has four landing pads, so I'm thinking that hand soldering it should be manageable. A simple adapter board, like this one for the SHT40, would allow it to easily fit the platform:
because the platform's pinout already anticipates adding up to two I2C devices without any fuss, like thus:
FYI, I updated the project page with a bunch of photos.@NeverDie I've made progress. I've ordered these items (mostly radios):
SX1278
SX1280
nrf24012mg E01's
nrf2401+
Bunch of antenna parts
TPL5110
Atmega328's
I cannot find any SX1262's and after your other post ("Best") I see that this is the darling to have. Any idea of where to find some?Fun to see the photos of the current meter in sleep action on your other post.
One addition I would like to make to your boards is a GPS chip. The idea would be to walk about in a field and collect RSSI and SNR data. Combining these elements would give a pretty good picture of signal vs the 2-dimensions of GPS data - for each radio and different modulations, spreading factors... Trouble here is that there are too many parameters to play with. I see Excel graphics coming into play. I have no experience with GPS, although I own a few of the chips.
