Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?
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@NeverDie But that's only the instantaneous current needed for transmitting data over the radio. The receive current is more like what it will be doing the majority of the time. Put a beefy capacitor or two on the power line and they should handle those short little spikes.
I mean, you're not going to have a super-complicated web page on there or something. The packets being sent out will be what 1kB or something max, even serving a simple web page? According to this page: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/api-guides/wifi.html#esp32-wi-fi-throughput you might get close to 80MBit/s speed. With some overhead, maybe the packet needs 10kBit, so it would only need to be on for 125uS. Even if the packets were far larger, the amount of time the radio needs to transmit is still a small fraction of the overall time. So just choose your capacitor(s) accordingly, and you'll be fine.
@NeverDie Oh, whoops, looks like you're probably talking about a different module? I saw the transmit number, and had been recently talking about the ESP32, which has a similar TX power number, and looks like I misread your post.
The overall point remains, but it depends on the TX time vs. the rest of the time for the overall average power consumption and the size of capacitor needed.
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@NeverDie Oh, whoops, looks like you're probably talking about a different module? I saw the transmit number, and had been recently talking about the ESP32, which has a similar TX power number, and looks like I misread your post.
The overall point remains, but it depends on the TX time vs. the rest of the time for the overall average power consumption and the size of capacitor needed.
@ejlane Yes, good point about using a capacitor to compensate.
27dB Tx power is, not considering inefficiencies, nominally equal to roughly 0.5amp, so the stated 580ma is probably about right and not mostly just in-rush current. LoRa transmissions can be rather lengthy, but I suppose a sufficiently large capacitor could compensate for that as well.As it turns out I already went ahead and did a draft layout in KiCad for it:
Having already invested the time, I'm going to build it. The low noise aspect LT1965 LDO might (?) still make a difference. I also like that it has a USB-B connector on it for a nice solid connection that's mechanically anchored to the PCB (none of that surface mount micro usb rubbish). I've wanted one for quite a while, and now its moment has finally come. If anyone else has interest, I can post it to openhardware.io -
Anyhow, back to the project at hand. I completed design of two different barebones mcu boards (one is just atmega328p and the other allows an Arduino pro mini to dock with it instead) that are 2xAA battery powered:
Given the wait time from a PCB fab, I went with two different designs just in case I made an error and one of them doesn't work. They both have identical test points where I can separately monitor current consumed by the mcu vs current consumed by the radio--all the better to tease apart what's really going on. Then I also have five different radio shields that fit either mcu board exactly the same:
As JLPCB doesn't work on weekends, I'm going to design a few more boards and then submit them all on Sunday night. When they finally do arrive in the mail, I'll not only be better able to evaluate the E28-2G4M27S (because the new design should practically eliminate any hardware noise), but also compare the following radios against one another for their relative performance on the exact same platform: 2.4Ghz E28-2G4M27S, three different kinds of 915Mhz SX1262 LoRa, a number of different kinds of 2.4GHz nRF24L01 (all with PA and LNA to put them on the same playing field as the other radios in the round-up), a 915Mhz RFM69HW, and a 400Mhz Ra-01 LoRa. Of interest to me are what makes for a reliable "worst case" range in my home environment at different transmission power levels and if anything stands out as a clear winner in terms of energy efficiency for bits that are reliably delivered. By worst case, I mean transmitting from behind a cement footer almost 6 feet beneath grade to a second story room across the house diagonally at the point furthest from it. If transmissions can work reliably along that transmission path, then they're probably good between any other two points in the house as well. There is, for instance, no way that a bog standard nRF24L01 could deliver any packets along that path, because its transmit power is just 0dB. However, with appropriate "boosting" via PA and LNA, I think it has a chance. In comparison, I previously tested the 400Mhz LoRa along this path, and it worked without a hitch. Matter of fact it could reach a quarter mile (or better) in all directions outside the house as well using just the default parameters in the old RadioHead libraries. I'll try that test again, but this time with the new library to see if it fares any differently this time around, as well as try LoRa at 915Mhz and 2.4Ghz.
Depending on how the testing goes, I may leverage the same platform to also try out some other inexpensive radio modules that I've seen on Aliexpress that, up to now, I've lacked an easy way to comparison test. For instance, some featuring radio chips made by Texas Instruments (CC1101, CC1310, CC1352, CC1120, CC2450, CC2640, CC2650, and a whole slew of others) and some featuring radio chips made by Silicon Labs (e.g. Si4463). If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know and maybe I can try them for you in a way that will be meaningful because of the comparisons. I'm not expecting that big differences will emerge that aren't already known, but testing will cut through the marketing propaganda and (hopefully) reveal the truth.
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Anyhow, back to the project at hand. I completed design of two different barebones mcu boards (one is just atmega328p and the other allows an Arduino pro mini to dock with it instead) that are 2xAA battery powered:
Given the wait time from a PCB fab, I went with two different designs just in case I made an error and one of them doesn't work. They both have identical test points where I can separately monitor current consumed by the mcu vs current consumed by the radio--all the better to tease apart what's really going on. Then I also have five different radio shields that fit either mcu board exactly the same:
As JLPCB doesn't work on weekends, I'm going to design a few more boards and then submit them all on Sunday night. When they finally do arrive in the mail, I'll not only be better able to evaluate the E28-2G4M27S (because the new design should practically eliminate any hardware noise), but also compare the following radios against one another for their relative performance on the exact same platform: 2.4Ghz E28-2G4M27S, three different kinds of 915Mhz SX1262 LoRa, a number of different kinds of 2.4GHz nRF24L01 (all with PA and LNA to put them on the same playing field as the other radios in the round-up), a 915Mhz RFM69HW, and a 400Mhz Ra-01 LoRa. Of interest to me are what makes for a reliable "worst case" range in my home environment at different transmission power levels and if anything stands out as a clear winner in terms of energy efficiency for bits that are reliably delivered. By worst case, I mean transmitting from behind a cement footer almost 6 feet beneath grade to a second story room across the house diagonally at the point furthest from it. If transmissions can work reliably along that transmission path, then they're probably good between any other two points in the house as well. There is, for instance, no way that a bog standard nRF24L01 could deliver any packets along that path, because its transmit power is just 0dB. However, with appropriate "boosting" via PA and LNA, I think it has a chance. In comparison, I previously tested the 400Mhz LoRa along this path, and it worked without a hitch. Matter of fact it could reach a quarter mile (or better) in all directions outside the house as well using just the default parameters in the old RadioHead libraries. I'll try that test again, but this time with the new library to see if it fares any differently this time around, as well as try LoRa at 915Mhz and 2.4Ghz.
Depending on how the testing goes, I may leverage the same platform to also try out some other inexpensive radio modules that I've seen on Aliexpress that, up to now, I've lacked an easy way to comparison test. For instance, some featuring radio chips made by Texas Instruments (CC1101, CC1310, CC1352, CC1120, CC2450, CC2640, CC2650, and a whole slew of others) and some featuring radio chips made by Silicon Labs (e.g. Si4463). If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know and maybe I can try them for you in a way that will be meaningful because of the comparisons. I'm not expecting that big differences will emerge that aren't already known, but testing will cut through the marketing propaganda and (hopefully) reveal the truth.
@NeverDie I've never done a LoRa project, but I remember reading somewhere that some packets can take multiple seconds! So yeah, that would take a very large capacitor. I'm not sure what I would do in that scenario. I'd have to give it some thought, but I also might go with a dedicated power supply that could just handle the full current. Of course it would also depend on the specific trade-offs that were best for that project. Interesting problem.
Are you sure about JLCPCB not working on weekends? I 95% sure that I've submitted designs on Saturdays before and gotten a reply that they were accepted later that same day. I've also once or twice gotten things rejected when I made a silly mistake that they caught. I'm sure that it's a person reviewing things, and they have caught a couple errors. (Not in logic, obviously, but I had done a quick change one time, and a trace on another part of the board also got moved somehow, and it crossed over another. That's the only one I remember what the problem was.)
However, you can also always add boards to an order that is in process and they'll ship together for one price. Though if you're adding enough boards then there will be a bit of a shipping differential to pay for.
Those sound like some fun tests, and I look forward to hearing the results!
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@NeverDie I've never done a LoRa project, but I remember reading somewhere that some packets can take multiple seconds! So yeah, that would take a very large capacitor. I'm not sure what I would do in that scenario. I'd have to give it some thought, but I also might go with a dedicated power supply that could just handle the full current. Of course it would also depend on the specific trade-offs that were best for that project. Interesting problem.
Are you sure about JLCPCB not working on weekends? I 95% sure that I've submitted designs on Saturdays before and gotten a reply that they were accepted later that same day. I've also once or twice gotten things rejected when I made a silly mistake that they caught. I'm sure that it's a person reviewing things, and they have caught a couple errors. (Not in logic, obviously, but I had done a quick change one time, and a trace on another part of the board also got moved somehow, and it crossed over another. That's the only one I remember what the problem was.)
However, you can also always add boards to an order that is in process and they'll ship together for one price. Though if you're adding enough boards then there will be a bit of a shipping differential to pay for.
Those sound like some fun tests, and I look forward to hearing the results!
@ejlane said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Are you sure about JLCPCB not working on weekends? I 95% sure that I've submitted designs on Saturdays before and gotten a reply that they were accepted later that same day.
On Thursday I asked "Eric", their sales rep, and he said they don't work or do production on weekends. He said that if I send the files Sunday night, it would most likely ship on Wednesday. And he said the same would be true if I sent them on Friday. All this assumes no errors in the gerber/drill files.
I'm impressed with JLBPCB in that they take the size of the board into consideration when quoting larger quantities. So, for instance, on one tiny board, I'll be getting 30 for just $4.40, even though getting 5 would cost me the $4 minimum. For some reason, though, if the order is larger than 30 boards of the same design, then it triggers a new minimum fee of around $9 or $10, IIRC. Not really sure why that is. It's a pity, because if I wanted a hundred or something for cheap, I'd have to panelize onto one PCB (Eric said no v-grooving or mouse bites allowed without paying a price penalty) and then saw/cut the boards apart after they're delivered. Fortunately, for most things, quantity 30 is a big enough number.
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@ejlane said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
Are you sure about JLCPCB not working on weekends? I 95% sure that I've submitted designs on Saturdays before and gotten a reply that they were accepted later that same day.
On Thursday I asked "Eric", their sales rep, and he said they don't work or do production on weekends. He said that if I send the files Sunday night, it would most likely ship on Wednesday. And he said the same would be true if I sent them on Friday. All this assumes no errors in the gerber/drill files.
I'm impressed with JLBPCB in that they take the size of the board into consideration when quoting larger quantities. So, for instance, on one tiny board, I'll be getting 30 for just $4.40, even though getting 5 would cost me the $4 minimum. For some reason, though, if the order is larger than 30 boards of the same design, then it triggers a new minimum fee of around $9 or $10, IIRC. Not really sure why that is. It's a pity, because if I wanted a hundred or something for cheap, I'd have to panelize onto one PCB (Eric said no v-grooving or mouse bites allowed without paying a price penalty) and then saw/cut the boards apart after they're delivered. Fortunately, for most things, quantity 30 is a big enough number.
@NeverDie Okay, sounds like you know more than I do about it, I guess. I was sure that I had gotten responses/work done on a weekend, but maybe my memory is just faulty.
But yes, their service is very impressive. And for a 2 layer board, I can get it delivered here on the west coast USA in usually 6 calendar days from ordering with the quickest shipping. That's shockingly quick, and faster than most local places can even just make the board. (Well faster than any that I know of. I've pretty much switched to only using JLCPCB. Hardly even bother quoting other places these days.)
I believe if you really needed a bunch, they would be a decent price even with the penalties. Every time I've had to pay an extra charge for something, it was a reasonable amount. Though I've never tried to order 100 of anything through them, so I could be wrong.
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@NeverDie Okay, sounds like you know more than I do about it, I guess. I was sure that I had gotten responses/work done on a weekend, but maybe my memory is just faulty.
But yes, their service is very impressive. And for a 2 layer board, I can get it delivered here on the west coast USA in usually 6 calendar days from ordering with the quickest shipping. That's shockingly quick, and faster than most local places can even just make the board. (Well faster than any that I know of. I've pretty much switched to only using JLCPCB. Hardly even bother quoting other places these days.)
I believe if you really needed a bunch, they would be a decent price even with the penalties. Every time I've had to pay an extra charge for something, it was a reasonable amount. Though I've never tried to order 100 of anything through them, so I could be wrong.
@ejlane said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie Okay, sounds like you know more than I do about it, I guess. I was sure that I had gotten responses/work done on a weekend, but maybe my memory is just faulty.
But yes, their service is very impressive. And for a 2 layer board, I can get it delivered here on the west coast USA in usually 6 calendar days from ordering with the quickest shipping. That's shockingly quick, and faster than most local places can even just make the board. (Well faster than any that I know of. I've pretty much switched to only using JLCPCB. Hardly even bother quoting other places these days.)
In pre-pandemic times, I could order on a Monday from allpcb.com and get my order delivered by Friday here in the US. These days... not sure if that's true anymore, as I haven't ordered from them since before the pandemic.
I believe if you really needed a bunch, they would be a decent price even with the penalties. Every time I've had to pay an extra charge for something, it was a reasonable amount. Though I've never tried to order 100 of anything through them, so I could be wrong.
Eric basically said "Please don't panelize" and that it wouldn't save money. Now I think I understand why: if you do a lousy job of either the vgrooving or mouse bites, it's going to interfere with their manufacturing process. e.g. maybe that part of their much larger project board shatters to bits during fabrication because it's too weak structurally. It's much better for them (at least from their cost of business) to be in complete control of it. Otherwise, some engineer might have to remediate somebody's poor panelization, which takes extra time and throws a wrench into their work flow.
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@NeverDie I've never done a LoRa project, but I remember reading somewhere that some packets can take multiple seconds! So yeah, that would take a very large capacitor. I'm not sure what I would do in that scenario. I'd have to give it some thought, but I also might go with a dedicated power supply that could just handle the full current. Of course it would also depend on the specific trade-offs that were best for that project. Interesting problem.
Are you sure about JLCPCB not working on weekends? I 95% sure that I've submitted designs on Saturdays before and gotten a reply that they were accepted later that same day. I've also once or twice gotten things rejected when I made a silly mistake that they caught. I'm sure that it's a person reviewing things, and they have caught a couple errors. (Not in logic, obviously, but I had done a quick change one time, and a trace on another part of the board also got moved somehow, and it crossed over another. That's the only one I remember what the problem was.)
However, you can also always add boards to an order that is in process and they'll ship together for one price. Though if you're adding enough boards then there will be a bit of a shipping differential to pay for.
Those sound like some fun tests, and I look forward to hearing the results!
@ejlane said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
I've also once or twice gotten things rejected when I made a silly mistake that they caught. I'm sure that it's a person reviewing things, and they have caught a couple errors. (Not in logic, obviously, but I had done a quick change one time, and a trace on another part of the board also got moved somehow, and it crossed over another. That's the only one I remember what the problem was.)
I took JLCPCB's capabilities and, to the degree possible, imported them into KiCAD's design rule constraints:
This has surfaced violations that didn't get flagged by KiCAD's default design rule constraints--problems that I'm guessing JLCPCB would have kicked back at me if this method hadn't found them first.
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I just now noticed that Andreas Spiess did a youtube about the same chip, though different model Ebyte modue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYThKZCflJcSmall world: it turns out he also made a breakout board for himself in order to test the module. It doesn't look pin compatible with my module, however, as it has only 14 pins on its pinout, whereas mine has 16. Also, not sure whether Andreas posted his breakout board anywhere. I would expect so. He has a github, but it has almost no descriptive material in it other than the titles, so it's hard to know what is truly what.
Worthy of note: the module he chose is less capable than the one I picked: substantially less potential transmit power, and also, according to Ebyte specs, somewhat inferior receive sensitivity.
Fortunately, he does post links to the libraries that he used to operate the SX1280 chip, so that's probably a good starting point, or at least a point of comparison.
To avoid interference he does report having to turn off the wifi on his esp32 that's driving the module, so having an ethernet connection for the gateway probably makes the most sense. The good news is that with LoRa, you should need only one such gateway, and you can probably put it just about anywhere and still have a good, solid RF connection to your nodes. Probably a raspberry pi could serve that purpose for a low effort solution, though I may go for an arduino-ethernet solution because that may turn out to be even easier, and probably without the need for ongoing updates and security maintenance. i.e. it should "just work". Perhaps setting the target IP address with a dipswitch would avoid any future need to revisit the firmware. Also, a raspberry pi's attack surface seems orders of magnitude larger than a more basic, hardware oriented solution.
Regardless, the next step for me is to wire it up and get it to play ping pong with another node. Then I'll be able to quickly determine whether ambient wi-fi signals in the environment will be a cause for concern or not. I suspect not, but sending thousands/millions of test packets while measuring for packet loss will tell the tale definitively.
I have one node with a 100uF capacitor (pictured in my preceding post), and another node without, so I'll try to determine whether it makes any practical difference or not. I'm guessing that it were powered by a coincell, it's essential, but if by two AA's in close proximity, probably not (though if the batteries are weak, maybe it would, at the margin, still help).
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@NeverDie this video is very useful
@Parkeexant said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie this video is very useful
Which video?
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@ejlane said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie Okay, sounds like you know more than I do about it, I guess. I was sure that I had gotten responses/work done on a weekend, but maybe my memory is just faulty.
But yes, their service is very impressive. And for a 2 layer board, I can get it delivered here on the west coast USA in usually 6 calendar days from ordering with the quickest shipping. That's shockingly quick, and faster than most local places can even just make the board. (Well faster than any that I know of. I've pretty much switched to only using JLCPCB. Hardly even bother quoting other places these days.)
In pre-pandemic times, I could order on a Monday from allpcb.com and get my order delivered by Friday here in the US. These days... not sure if that's true anymore, as I haven't ordered from them since before the pandemic.
I believe if you really needed a bunch, they would be a decent price even with the penalties. Every time I've had to pay an extra charge for something, it was a reasonable amount. Though I've never tried to order 100 of anything through them, so I could be wrong.
Eric basically said "Please don't panelize" and that it wouldn't save money. Now I think I understand why: if you do a lousy job of either the vgrooving or mouse bites, it's going to interfere with their manufacturing process. e.g. maybe that part of their much larger project board shatters to bits during fabrication because it's too weak structurally. It's much better for them (at least from their cost of business) to be in complete control of it. Otherwise, some engineer might have to remediate somebody's poor panelization, which takes extra time and throws a wrench into their work flow.
@NeverDie I've only done my own panelization maybe 2 or 3 times ever. Usually just leave it to the board house, but 10 or so years ago, before the board houses were quite this cheap and I was on more of a budget because of saving for a down payment, I did try it out for some personal projects as an experiment.
But I didn't even try to do v-grooves. Not sure if whichever one I was using would even allow it. I just left extra room between the active parts of the board on the PCB and literally took tin snips and cut them apart with that. With 1 cm between boards it's easy to not hit anything.
Obviously doing it like that wouldn't weaken their board, but if you need precise board shape/size then this wouldn't do it. Ever since then the prices have gotten so low that I don't bother trying. I would be interested knowing what about JLCPCB's process makes them want to limit any order to the 30 pieces. That's always seemed a bit weird to me. I would think they would welcome the extra volume/money.
But weirdly enough, I don't even know where to go for larger orders. I mean, I can do a search like anyone else, but I don't have direct experience. By the time it gets to that qty, then the assembly house deals directly with whoever they work with to get the boards made. At that point it's not me dealing with them directly, except for passing requirements to the client, who then passes them to the assembly house, etc.
I've also entered some of their limitations into KiCad, but I'm not sure if I did a complete job of it. I try to be a bit more conservative than being right at the manufacturable edge. But yeah, get the rules to catch as much as possible. I think my problems came in when I did something that such a minor change I didn't even really think about running the rules again, and of course something like that is usually harmless, but every once in a while it does something unexpected, so obviously the rules need to be checked after every change, and every time before exporting gerbers for manufacturing. And I try to do that, but still these days I'm sure that are times that I forget.
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Anyhow, back to the project at hand. I completed design of two different barebones mcu boards (one is just atmega328p and the other allows an Arduino pro mini to dock with it instead) that are 2xAA battery powered:
Given the wait time from a PCB fab, I went with two different designs just in case I made an error and one of them doesn't work. They both have identical test points where I can separately monitor current consumed by the mcu vs current consumed by the radio--all the better to tease apart what's really going on. Then I also have five different radio shields that fit either mcu board exactly the same:
As JLPCB doesn't work on weekends, I'm going to design a few more boards and then submit them all on Sunday night. When they finally do arrive in the mail, I'll not only be better able to evaluate the E28-2G4M27S (because the new design should practically eliminate any hardware noise), but also compare the following radios against one another for their relative performance on the exact same platform: 2.4Ghz E28-2G4M27S, three different kinds of 915Mhz SX1262 LoRa, a number of different kinds of 2.4GHz nRF24L01 (all with PA and LNA to put them on the same playing field as the other radios in the round-up), a 915Mhz RFM69HW, and a 400Mhz Ra-01 LoRa. Of interest to me are what makes for a reliable "worst case" range in my home environment at different transmission power levels and if anything stands out as a clear winner in terms of energy efficiency for bits that are reliably delivered. By worst case, I mean transmitting from behind a cement footer almost 6 feet beneath grade to a second story room across the house diagonally at the point furthest from it. If transmissions can work reliably along that transmission path, then they're probably good between any other two points in the house as well. There is, for instance, no way that a bog standard nRF24L01 could deliver any packets along that path, because its transmit power is just 0dB. However, with appropriate "boosting" via PA and LNA, I think it has a chance. In comparison, I previously tested the 400Mhz LoRa along this path, and it worked without a hitch. Matter of fact it could reach a quarter mile (or better) in all directions outside the house as well using just the default parameters in the old RadioHead libraries. I'll try that test again, but this time with the new library to see if it fares any differently this time around, as well as try LoRa at 915Mhz and 2.4Ghz.
Depending on how the testing goes, I may leverage the same platform to also try out some other inexpensive radio modules that I've seen on Aliexpress that, up to now, I've lacked an easy way to comparison test. For instance, some featuring radio chips made by Texas Instruments (CC1101, CC1310, CC1352, CC1120, CC2450, CC2640, CC2650, and a whole slew of others) and some featuring radio chips made by Silicon Labs (e.g. Si4463). If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know and maybe I can try them for you in a way that will be meaningful because of the comparisons. I'm not expecting that big differences will emerge that aren't already known, but testing will cut through the marketing propaganda and (hopefully) reveal the truth.
@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know
Since you asked, maybe look at the good-old cheap 433 MHz transmitter/receivers? Maybe you are sticking to transceivers so this wouldn’t fly. Or maybe you are staying away from ASK modulations. I’m sure these cheapo radios won’t pass your fundaments concrete/cross-house test, but it would be another data point. This season I’ve been slowly reworking my limited 433 MHz home network of motion detectors. Having failed to transmit through concrete/cross-house pathways, I built some 433 repeaters that successfully worked on a line-of-site pathways that allowed me to look around the corners. I have found these TX radios & SR501 motion detectors just sip energy and my 4-pack of AA batteries last for, in some cases, over 3 years.
As you are working with JLCPCB are you using them for assembly? I did so last year with different project and had really good results. I did have some difficulty finding compatible components, so I suspect that they won’t be able to resource all your radios… but that was some time ago and I have much to learn. I look forward to doing more assembly with JLCPCB. It was also really inexpensive and a great way to get around my poor home soldering quality.
[edit: forgot to say, @NeverDie and everyone else: What a great thread. Thanks for building and sharing. I have learned much here.]
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@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know
Since you asked, maybe look at the good-old cheap 433 MHz transmitter/receivers? Maybe you are sticking to transceivers so this wouldn’t fly. Or maybe you are staying away from ASK modulations. I’m sure these cheapo radios won’t pass your fundaments concrete/cross-house test, but it would be another data point. This season I’ve been slowly reworking my limited 433 MHz home network of motion detectors. Having failed to transmit through concrete/cross-house pathways, I built some 433 repeaters that successfully worked on a line-of-site pathways that allowed me to look around the corners. I have found these TX radios & SR501 motion detectors just sip energy and my 4-pack of AA batteries last for, in some cases, over 3 years.
As you are working with JLCPCB are you using them for assembly? I did so last year with different project and had really good results. I did have some difficulty finding compatible components, so I suspect that they won’t be able to resource all your radios… but that was some time ago and I have much to learn. I look forward to doing more assembly with JLCPCB. It was also really inexpensive and a great way to get around my poor home soldering quality.
[edit: forgot to say, @NeverDie and everyone else: What a great thread. Thanks for building and sharing. I have learned much here.]
@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
As you are working with JLCPCB are you using them for assembly? I did so last year with different project and had really good results. I did have some difficulty finding compatible components, so I suspect that they won’t be able to resource all your radios… but that was some time ago and I have much to learn. I look forward to doing more assembly with JLCPCB. It was also really inexpensive and a great way to get around my poor home soldering quality.
Good idea. I haven't tried it, because I've been locked in a mindset of using radio modules, in which case soldering things is easy enough that I can do it myself manually without much effort. But for small, fine pitched chips (the kind I've been avoiding for just that reason), it sounds like a worthwhile thing to try. Maybe I could use better components than are typically found in aliexpress modules as well. :grinning:
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@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know
Since you asked, maybe look at the good-old cheap 433 MHz transmitter/receivers? Maybe you are sticking to transceivers so this wouldn’t fly. Or maybe you are staying away from ASK modulations. I’m sure these cheapo radios won’t pass your fundaments concrete/cross-house test, but it would be another data point. This season I’ve been slowly reworking my limited 433 MHz home network of motion detectors. Having failed to transmit through concrete/cross-house pathways, I built some 433 repeaters that successfully worked on a line-of-site pathways that allowed me to look around the corners. I have found these TX radios & SR501 motion detectors just sip energy and my 4-pack of AA batteries last for, in some cases, over 3 years.
As you are working with JLCPCB are you using them for assembly? I did so last year with different project and had really good results. I did have some difficulty finding compatible components, so I suspect that they won’t be able to resource all your radios… but that was some time ago and I have much to learn. I look forward to doing more assembly with JLCPCB. It was also really inexpensive and a great way to get around my poor home soldering quality.
[edit: forgot to say, @NeverDie and everyone else: What a great thread. Thanks for building and sharing. I have learned much here.]
@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?:
If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know
Since you asked, maybe look at the good-old cheap 433 MHz transmitter/receivers? Maybe you are sticking to transceivers so this wouldn’t fly. Or maybe you are staying away from ASK modulations. I’m sure these cheapo radios won’t pass your fundaments concrete/cross-house test, but it would be another data point. This season I’ve been slowly reworking my limited 433 MHz home network of motion detectors. Having failed to transmit through concrete/cross-house pathways, I built some 433 repeaters that successfully worked on a line-of-site pathways that allowed me to look around the corners. I have found these TX radios & SR501 motion detectors just sip energy and my 4-pack of AA batteries last for, in some cases, over 3 years.
Interesting idea. I'll have to give that one some thought. A lot of the cheap wireless temperature-humidity sensors seem to use ASK, and I've never been clear as to why. e.g. Oregon Scientific, and similar companies. There are a number of hacker-type projects aimed at receiving and decoding those signals precisely because the wireless sensors are so cheap. And those cheap wireless key-finder fobs I think may use it as well. Maybe the receiver current can be extremely low? Those fobs always have to be listening for a wireless signal. All I know is that low frequency implies less energy consumption by whatever oscillator is being used.
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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?:
If you know of chips that you're keen to try, let me know
Since you asked, maybe look at the good-old cheap 433 MHz transmitter/receivers? Maybe you are sticking to transceivers so this wouldn’t fly. Or maybe you are staying away from ASK modulations. I’m sure these cheapo radios won’t pass your fundaments concrete/cross-house test, but it would be another data point. This season I’ve been slowly reworking my limited 433 MHz home network of motion detectors. Having failed to transmit through concrete/cross-house pathways, I built some 433 repeaters that successfully worked on a line-of-site pathways that allowed me to look around the corners. I have found these TX radios & SR501 motion detectors just sip energy and my 4-pack of AA batteries last for, in some cases, over 3 years.
Interesting idea. I'll have to give that one some thought. A lot of the cheap wireless temperature-humidity sensors seem to use ASK, and I've never been clear as to why. e.g. Oregon Scientific, and similar companies. There are a number of hacker-type projects aimed at receiving and decoding those signals precisely because the wireless sensors are so cheap. And those cheap wireless key-finder fobs I think may use it as well. Maybe the receiver current can be extremely low? Those fobs always have to be listening for a wireless signal. All I know is that low frequency implies less energy consumption by whatever oscillator is being used.
@NeverDie: Yes, as you describe elswere, and taught me, the design trade-off parameters are frequency, bandwith, dwell time, bit transfer rate, power demand, and most importantly, range. I'm looking forward to your findings.
Regarding the low reciever current: don't know about the FOB's but I have found the transmitter power to be key. My design has the "always on" reciever connected to mains. so I don't worry about that power. But the battery-limited transmitter devices are brought to life and triggered by the signal pin of the SR501 sensors that is high enough, long enough to complete a transmission, or several. The HT12E (encoder) chip is connected to the SR501 pin is fired and sends the settings of the dip-switch pin hi/low settings that is recieved by the always-on HT12d (decoder) that the Atmega 328PU can understand. I think the HT devices are MCUs in a different form, like what I imagine a FPLC to be like... don't know for sure. Why do I drone on? Because of the HT12D and HT12E pariings are very specific and very low on power demand due to their design. When I built my configuration (6 years ago) I knew more than I do now. But I'm relearning more. Andreas Spiess, Great Scott, Big Clive, and YOU, explore this stuff extensively, and I thank you all.
In summary, my repeaters and base RX station are mains powered so I don't worry about power & batteries. The primary focus for conservation of batteries is on the TX/Motion devices. Everything downstream of TX is mains powered or can be suitably backed up in the short term.
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I think I'll pass on the ASK, and the reason is that it tends to be noise/interference sensitive. The usual workaround for noise/interference by ASK garage door openers, for instance, is to send the same packet multiple times, with the hope that at least one of them will get through. Well, I suppose that strategy works "good enough" in some sense for that application, but I'd say that all those extra packets being sent is a waste of energy for a battery powered sensor application that's transmitting, say, once every 5 minutes. On the other hand, if it doesn't really matter if you lose packets from time to time (e.g. a wireless TH sensor), maybe you don't need to send multiple redundant packets in the hopes that one gets through. That said, IIRC, Oregon Scientific TH sensors send their packets in triplicate. Well, that's my off-the-cuff take on it. Feel free to disagree if I'm missing something important.
Anyhow, I think that's why one tends to see ASK being used at 433Mhz: it's a relatively clean channel, so the noise/interference isn't as big a factor as it would be at 915Mhz or certainly 2.4Ghz.
At the end of the day, I think ASK was popular because, historically, it was easy and cheaper to make. Think 1940's, 1950's, and maybe 1960's, before integrated circuits. Now that FSK, its main competitor, is widespread and cheap anyway, I just don't see much benefit in reverting to old school ASK unless maybe you're manufacturing millions of something and want to save every penny possible. Because of the possible noise issue, you're also limited to slower bit rates with ASK than the alternatives, which, in turn, also lead to longer transmit times.
P.S. Build time at JLCPCB is now running 2-3 days. Out of the 10 boards I submitted on Sunday (China time), 9 are still awaiting "data preparation." Only 1 of the 10 is currently in production. I think they're manpower limited right now, maybe because of China's zero-tolerance covid policy.
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I think I'll pass on the ASK, and the reason is that it tends to be noise/interference sensitive. The usual workaround for noise/interference by ASK garage door openers, for instance, is to send the same packet multiple times, with the hope that at least one of them will get through. Well, I suppose that strategy works "good enough" in some sense for that application, but I'd say that all those extra packets being sent is a waste of energy for a battery powered sensor application that's transmitting, say, once every 5 minutes. On the other hand, if it doesn't really matter if you lose packets from time to time (e.g. a wireless TH sensor), maybe you don't need to send multiple redundant packets in the hopes that one gets through. That said, IIRC, Oregon Scientific TH sensors send their packets in triplicate. Well, that's my off-the-cuff take on it. Feel free to disagree if I'm missing something important.
Anyhow, I think that's why one tends to see ASK being used at 433Mhz: it's a relatively clean channel, so the noise/interference isn't as big a factor as it would be at 915Mhz or certainly 2.4Ghz.
At the end of the day, I think ASK was popular because, historically, it was easy and cheaper to make. Think 1940's, 1950's, and maybe 1960's, before integrated circuits. Now that FSK, its main competitor, is widespread and cheap anyway, I just don't see much benefit in reverting to old school ASK unless maybe you're manufacturing millions of something and want to save every penny possible. Because of the possible noise issue, you're also limited to slower bit rates with ASK than the alternatives, which, in turn, also lead to longer transmit times.
P.S. Build time at JLCPCB is now running 2-3 days. Out of the 10 boards I submitted on Sunday (China time), 9 are still awaiting "data preparation." Only 1 of the 10 is currently in production. I think they're manpower limited right now, maybe because of China's zero-tolerance covid policy.
@NeverDie Yes, you are correct: the HT12D datasheet indicates that multiple signals must be recieved before the enable pin is activated. I think the 'multiple' is a count of three and there is probably a preamble in advance of the main message of high/low settings. The transmitter, again I think, just keeps sending the message until the SR501 drops power (2 seconds on the minimum settings). I get alot of double hits because of this. Good to know about the noise and history. Thanks.
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@NeverDie Yes, you are correct: the HT12D datasheet indicates that multiple signals must be recieved before the enable pin is activated. I think the 'multiple' is a count of three and there is probably a preamble in advance of the main message of high/low settings. The transmitter, again I think, just keeps sending the message until the SR501 drops power (2 seconds on the minimum settings). I get alot of double hits because of this. Good to know about the noise and history. Thanks.
@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:
@NeverDie Yes, you are correct: the HT12D datasheet indicates that multiple signals must be recieved before the enable pin is activated. I think the 'multiple' is a count of three and there is probably a preamble in advance of the main message of high/low settings. The transmitter, again I think, just keeps sending the message until the SR501 drops power (2 seconds on the minimum settings). I get alot of double hits because of this. Good to know about the noise and history. Thanks.
Worthy of note is, as you may already know, you can skip the HT12D and HT12E altogether if you're driving it from an Arduino. You can do all the encoding/decoding in software, and all you need on the transmit side is a mosfet to control the on/off of the transmit on the transmitter. I did this once by rolling my own software to do it, but I think it may also be handled in the wire library, IIRC. On the receiver side, I got better results by upgrading to an Arduino Due, because it has 12 bit instead of 10 bit Analog-to-digital converter, and a faster speed to do the processing. However, maybe I could have done it all digital and skipped that. I was just trying to eek the most reception I could out of possibly weak signals.
Fun fact: on a 900Mhz Raspberry Pi (Version 1), you can make a 900Mhz radio transmitter just by putting a wire of appropriate length in one of the GPIO pins and then toggling PWM to it at the 900Mhz clock cycle. Of course, you'll need something more sensitive on the receive side. This would be an ASK scheme, by the way.
Also, fun fact: the speed on the Due is fast enough that light (radio waves) doesn't move all that far per clock cycle, so you can detect when signals arrive directly between transmitter and receiver from an on-pulse, and you can also detect fainter echoes of that same pulse arriving later because they've bounced off a wall or something and took a longer path between the transmitter and receiver. I thought that was kinda cool, because I ordinarily think of the speed of light as being more or less instant in such close quarters. Anyhow, I forgot the name for this kind of temporal transmit "smearing", but it's a very real effect where the transmitter kinda interfers with itself, so to speak, because of the layout of reflecting surfaces in the environment. [Edit: just now looked it up. "Multipath interference" is the term. MIMO thrives on multipath signals, but it's a problem for regular radio to deal with it--though, as you'd expect, there are all kinda of ways to handle it; the easiest being just putting a long enough time interval after an ON pulse for the echoes to die out to background noise levels. ] :-)
P.P.S. All 10 of my JLCPCB boards are now in production, though it is now technically early Tuesday morning in China. Looking at the time stamps, the production process itself appears to run around the clock, not just during daytime business hours, so that's good. Hopefully that means there's no complicating factor left standing in the way of completing the production and shipping it.
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@NeverDie : Very interesting stuff. Even at the lowly 8MHz, the speed of processing pretty much blows away the human concept of time. Fun to hear of the Raspberry and Due. I’ll have to play with those.
HT12D/HT12E: Yes, I learned that the processing could be done on a MCU and I did that on the repeaters I built. I put a Pro-Mini in between a 433 Mhz RX and TX. This repeater sits and listens in the RX mode until it is pinged with a transmission from one of the 433-HT12E detectors. Once a message comes in, the MCU then switches to TX mode and passes the message along, then reverts to listening again. The repeaters and the base station are mains powered as I figured the always ON state would be a battery killer whereas the 433-HT12E’s are very low power and outfitted with batteries.
Rather than using the IIRC library I used RCSwitch – probably because I found that first. RadioHead was another option. The biggest challenge for me was learning which protocol to use for the 433 radios. The command mySwitch.setProtocol(11); did the trick.
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@NeverDie : Very interesting stuff. Even at the lowly 8MHz, the speed of processing pretty much blows away the human concept of time. Fun to hear of the Raspberry and Due. I’ll have to play with those.
HT12D/HT12E: Yes, I learned that the processing could be done on a MCU and I did that on the repeaters I built. I put a Pro-Mini in between a 433 Mhz RX and TX. This repeater sits and listens in the RX mode until it is pinged with a transmission from one of the 433-HT12E detectors. Once a message comes in, the MCU then switches to TX mode and passes the message along, then reverts to listening again. The repeaters and the base station are mains powered as I figured the always ON state would be a battery killer whereas the 433-HT12E’s are very low power and outfitted with batteries.
Rather than using the IIRC library I used RCSwitch – probably because I found that first. RadioHead was another option. The biggest challenge for me was learning which protocol to use for the 433 radios. The command mySwitch.setProtocol(11); did the trick.
@Larson The Due has an 84Mhz clock speed, making it easier to spot the effect. These days you could save some coin by using an ESP8266 (80Mhz) or even faster ESP-32, not to mention the crazy fast Teensy 4.1 (600Mhz). At 600Mhz, light moves only 20 inches per clock cycle. Pretty cool for cheap parts, isn't it? :-)
