Alternative to RFXcom (433 MHz) ?

[mikee]

Hi, Dutch guys, does somebody have experience with this?
http://www.nodo-shop.nl/nl/home/118-rflink-bouwpakket.html
Cant read it, and German description is not completely.
Thx

[mvdarend]

Here is a full description in English:
http://www.nemcon.nl/blog2/

[Stuntteam]

Hi Mikee,

The project is hosted on sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/rflink/ (open source)
It works very well and costs next to nothing to get started with.

Just grab an Arduino Mega2560 and a RX/TX set.
Various receivers/transmitters/transceivers have been tested. Like "Aurel", "Super Heterodyne""RXB6" and "SYN480R"
Or get the PCB from the link you posted.. that one also has a NRF for 2.4 ghz communication.. support for that is under development.. If you have any questions we are here for you to assist (forgot to mention.. its our project;)).

[mikee]

Halo @Stuntteam ,
I red all from nemcon site, and couldn't wait to start with it. I do have a Mega at home and I do have plenty of RX/TX lying around. Unfortunately its cheap Chinese stuff and I spent few hours trying to receive some working signal Today I ordered exactly same RX as mentioned in nodo e shop. I'm really excited, you did great job.
Question: I was looking on PCB in eshop, and I was wondering about the NRF (you just explained it ), and i saw just receiver - no transmitter. I'm I right, or is it there?
Thanks for your work guys!!!

[Stuntteam]

For the 2.4 GHz part, the nRF is a transceiver meaning it does both TX and RX.

For the 433 mhz part, the PCB referenced in the first post has an "Aurel RTX-MID" which is a transceiver and thus both TX and RX so you can receive RF signals from 433mhz devices and also send commands via RF to 433mhz switches, doorbells etc.
The software provides state switching signals to control the transceiver mode if one is used.

Of course you do not need to use a transceiver, seperate TX and RX modules works just as well.
You can use almost any a separate receiver and transmitter module like mentioned before..
For sending you can use a cheap Chinese transmitter (like the FS1000A XY-FST from the XY-M5-5V set) which can be nice as many people have these lying around..
The receiver from such a set is in most cases pretty poor because it receives a lot of noise.
(Btw, these Chinese sets seem to perform a little bit better at higher voltages.)