Which are the *best* NRF24L01+ modules?

[alexsh1]

@parachutesj I'll be honest with you - so far I had more luck with the SMD version which works 20m+ across a few walls than with a regular transceivers. Sometimes one needs to invite a shaman to make sure that nrf24l01+ works.

I have 250kb rate on all nodes + caps. All works fine. With some regular nrf24l01+ I had issues with some batches and claimed money back successfully after ditching the whole batch. Luckily, this bad batch has not been working at all rather than working intermittently.

Just a suggestion - did you change any settings on your gateway nrf24l01+? I'm using the amplified version by the way feeding it through AMS1117 LDO

[parachutesj]

@alexsh1 said:
I switched to ampliefied nrf24 with antenna from the link in the shop but this seemed to make it even worse. It was powered externally and tried to shield it with no real luck. I ordered some shielded ones from ICstation which are still in customs process and hope to get them by the weekend. I also ordered a bunch of others and I will try which are the best for my operations.
Just today I hade the closest node getting stuck. I wasn't able to send any from controller to the node. After triggering a signal from the node (it is a rollershutter) it came back to live and was able to send via controller again. Quite annoying...
Maybe I need to try some different caps and voltage regulators, actually got "good" ones from my local electronics shop.

[NeverDie]

Do the amplified modules simply always function at full amplification, or is there a code change that's needed to adjust the Tx power? Towards the start of this thread I tried some amplified modules from ICStation, but I was hugely disappointed with them. In fact, I don't think I saw any improvement at all, which greatly contradicted the experience that some others appeared to be getting. At least at that time, though, there was no real guidance on how to use them effectively, and so maybe I wasn't driving them right. Maybe there's more information now.

[alexsh1]

@parachutesj What settings do you have on your gateway please?

[alexsh1]

@NeverDie In MyConfig.h there are settings:

#define RF24_PA_LEVEL 	   RF24_PA_MAX
#define RF24_PA_LEVEL_GW   RF24_PA_LOW

The second one is for the amplified version (RF24_PA_MAX can used)

Please check out this:
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/653/nrf24l01-pa

[parachutesj]

@alexsh1 I have this

#define RF24_PA_LEVEL_GW RF24_PA_MAX

on the GW
Maybe I need to try RF24_PA_HIGH if it changes anything. However still waiting for the "good" radios to arrive

[alexsh1]

@parachutesj First things first:

1. Good transceiver
2. decent 3.3V feed
3. settings MAX or HIGH etc

[rollercontainer]

All of my ~20 NRF24's from 5 different dealers are consuming 15mA when the node is in sleep mode. Is this really a radio problem, or a software problem?

By pulling out the radio, current drops below 1mA.

• 2.0.0beta binarySwitchSleep sketch
• My-Slim-2AA-Battery-Node
• bootloader from My-Slim-2AA-Battery-Node OpenHardware source
• BOD disabled by fuses, 1MHz internal
• current messuered with Fluke multimeter

[GertSanders]

@rollercontainer
Have you tried to measure the power consumption whithout radio, and just putting the atmega328 in deep sleep (sleep(0)) ?
Normally you should then see something less then 10 micro amperes.
If the node still consumes around 1mA in this situation, then I would advise to look at the soldering and the other components.
With BOD disabled, an atmega328p in deep sleep consumes around 1 micro Ampere,.
Did you use the atmea328P version or the standard atmega328 (without the P) ?

[rollercontainer]

@GertSanders I wrote "below 1mA" because I couln't recal the exact value, just for pointing to the relation between radio consumption and idle without radio.

I've got 328P from Reichelt.de and messured again withoput mysensors.h and with SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN. The multimeter reads 0,09mA at 60.00mA range set. Looks valid to me.

[GertSanders]

@rollercontainer
If you are using the internal pull up resistors on the switch input pins, then indeed you will get something like 30-60mA.
That is why we use external pull up resistors for switches when we want to go for lowest possible power consumption.

The internal pul up resistors have a value around 30K-45K (there is some variation). The pull up resistors I use are 1MOhm, this cuts the current consumption by two factors.

[NeverDie]

@rollercontainer : you cannot get a proper measurement using only just a multimeter. Fluke or no Fluke, it just isn't going to happen. Lookup "burden voltage." Enough said, as this has been covered in-depth all over the place.

[rollercontainer]

You both missed the point. My problem isnt the idle consumption yet. My problem is, that all the radios consume too much. Is there a way to get it down, or do I have to dump them all?

[mfalkvidd]

@rollercontainer are you using the Arduino SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN ? If so, the radio will still be active because the Arduino library isn't aware of the radio. Use the MySensors gw.sleep instead.

[rollercontainer]

Holidays are over, back to work ^^
To clarify it again:
First I tried with complete 2AA slim node, several radios, sensor and the default binarySwitchSleep 2.0.0beta sketch. (15mA)
For the second run: NO radio, sensor or MySensors.h were used. Therefore I wrote a minimal sketch with SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN to ensure that the AVR is going to sleep mode. (< 0,1 mA)
This leads me to the conclusion, that every of my ~20 radios is faulty. Are there any ways to prove this?

[NeverDie]

@rollercontainer
Sure. Buy a "known good" radio for comparison.

[Samuel235]

Are the radios in the store here known as good and working now? I know we had issues with a bad seller previously, has this been sorted now?

[AWI]

@NeverDie are you sure the node enters deep sleep? The current you measure is typical for a non sleeping radio. Main problems I have with the bad radio's is that these stay awake until they "found a parent". Where do you live? If you drop me a message I can send a tested one.

[NeverDie]

@AWI said:

@NeverDie are you sure the node enters deep sleep?

I don't recall. It's been a while since I ran the tests. Presently I'm using RFM69's, which draw about 100na when sleeping, but at some point this summer I hope to revisit using NRF24L01's. I've already received the SMD modules that Gert Sanders is using, and I'll be giving them a try on the boards he designed, so the odds are favorable that I'll be getting the same or similar results. I received the boards from the fab, so after I receive the remaining parts I'll do the assembly.

Earlier in this thread it was advised to order direct from Itead, on the grounds that they were manufacturing them. So, going directly to a reputable source might increase your confidence of getting what's advertised. Frankly, these things are cheap enough that I'd suggest going to several different such sources and then vet what you get using an oscilloscope. I did that earlier in this thread, and you can compare your results with the screenshots I posted to ID your chip. Of course, that by itself doesn't guarantee that the antenna was properly matched, which is why I think comparing the ranges of different modules from different sources is probably still a good idea. Even if the components are right, the dielectric of the PCB could throw off the match, and you won't know that just by looking at it.

[Samuel235]

Unfortunately i don't have an oscilloscope at the moment. So i have to just test them in the circuit as intended to be used.