Which are the *best* NRF24L01+ modules?
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I just finish some tests with your sketch. With ITead Modules, I have 0.05% packet loss at 1mbps and about 15 meters with 1 wall.
aRT is 1700. With NRF from electrodragon, I have same results aRT is a bit higher eg 2000.
But during my tests, I found some issues :- With UNO I have more lost packets without extra capacitor. I think 3.3V output is not enough good. With Arduino Nano, it's ok
- Quite different results when touching my dupont wires ...
- When I let temp1 and temp2 output, there's a bug with synchro. It says it's always different but it's only dure to a shift with comparaison. If i just comment serial.output of temp1 an temp2 diff is always equal to 0
I will make a test with RF24 from TMRh20 (used in MySensors).
About Mysensors, I have a question : is there a configuration to retry packet sending and delay bewteen resend like radio.setRetries(2,15); ?So for me the Itead modules are good and electrodragon too.
@Fabien said:
I just finish some tests with your sketch. With ITead Modules, I have 0.05% packet loss at 1mbps and about 15 meters with 1 wall.
aRT is 1700. With NRF from electrodragon, I have same results aRT is a bit higher eg 2000.
But during my tests, I found some issues :- With UNO I have more lost packets without extra capacitor. I think 3.3V output is not enough good. With Arduino Nano, it's ok
- Quite different results when touching my dupont wires ...
- When I let temp1 and temp2 output, there's a bug with synchro. It says it's always different but it's only dure to a shift with comparaison. If i just comment serial.output of temp1 an temp2 diff is always equal to 0
I will make a test with RF24 from TMRh20 (used in MySensors).
About Mysensors, I have a question : is there a configuration to retry packet sending and delay bewteen resend like radio.setRetries(2,15); ?So for me the Itead modules are good and electrodragon too.
Interesting! Thanks for reporting the results. I'm sure Itead will be happy to hear about it. :smile: BTW, what lettering is printed on the NRF24L01+ chips? Also, from where did you procure the modules (Itead headquarters?) and how long ago?
Prior to this morning, I had been using only an RFToy (which is effectively an 8Mhz 3.3V Arduino Mini Pro), and differences between the number transmitted (temp1) and the number echoed back (temp2) were fairly rare. Because probably no one but me has an RFToy, I setup and tested using an Uno this morning to verify that I was giving the correct wiring instructions (above). I did notice a much greater rate of differences reported by the Uno than the RFToy, but I didn't pay attention to the details. From what you're saying, it sounds like it hasn't finished shifting all the bits from the Rx buffer before comparing temp1 to temp2? Am I understanding you right? If so, you could try adding, say, a 2ms delay before doing the comparison to allow the received data to fully settle before the comparison. It wouldn't affect the roundtrip timing, because it would be happening after the elapsed microseconds had been recorded. Without looking into it, I had thought that my use on the Uno of fairly long dupont jumper cables was injecting noise. On the RFToy, the connections are shorter, and no jumper wires are used.
What size capacitor (how many Farads) have you found works best? What type (e.g. electrolytic, ceramic, film, etc.)?
If you move the code over to TMRh20, would you mind posting it back to this thread? I think more people will be familiar with it than with the Mirf library. I only used Mirf because the RFToy code used it, and for simplicity that was my starting point.
Is this the electrodragon NRF24L01+ module that you tested? http://www.electrodragon.com/product/nrf24l01/
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@hek : Yes but I havn't notable difference with the one from itead ! And you know it is clone.
@NeverDie : The first 2 chip from Itead : 1443IA , not a dot but a square and too small to see if there is a hole inside the +. I think i don't investigate more with others sketch because with my dupont cable error rate can increase a lot when just touching a cable.
I just setup a Iboard with PA+LNA from electrodragon and all my sensebender with clone from electrodragon too, and everything is working fine, up 20 meters without any problems.
For security I will change my NRF with the ones from Itead and will keep my PA+LNA for milight gateway emulation. -
@hek : Yes but I havn't notable difference with the one from itead ! And you know it is clone.
@NeverDie : The first 2 chip from Itead : 1443IA , not a dot but a square and too small to see if there is a hole inside the +. I think i don't investigate more with others sketch because with my dupont cable error rate can increase a lot when just touching a cable.
I just setup a Iboard with PA+LNA from electrodragon and all my sensebender with clone from electrodragon too, and everything is working fine, up 20 meters without any problems.
For security I will change my NRF with the ones from Itead and will keep my PA+LNA for milight gateway emulation.@Fabien said:
@hek : Yes but I havn't notable difference with the one from itead ! And you know it is clone.
Move your test nodes further apart, and keep increasing the distance until you start losing a higher percentage of packets. Most likely, as the separation distance and/or RF impairments increase, at some point one module or the other is going to perform much better than the other--that is unless they're using the same type of NRF chip. At least to date that's been my experience with the very few datapoints I've collected so far.
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@Fabien said:
@hek : Yes but I havn't notable difference with the one from itead ! And you know it is clone.
Move your test nodes further apart, and keep increasing the distance until you start losing a higher percentage of packets. Most likely, as the separation distance and/or RF impairments increase, at some point one module or the other is going to perform much better than the other--that is unless they're using the same type of NRF chip. At least to date that's been my experience with the very few datapoints I've collected so far.
@NeverDie If/when you get contact with nordic rep, it would be great if they can provide a sketch that does the testing. they probably have one...
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@NeverDie If/when you get contact with nordic rep, it would be great if they can provide a sketch that does the testing. they probably have one...
@Moshe-Livne said:
@NeverDie If/when you get contact with nordic rep, it would be great if they can provide a sketch that does the testing. they probably have one...
What kind of testing?
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@Moshe-Livne said:
@NeverDie If/when you get contact with nordic rep, it would be great if they can provide a sketch that does the testing. they probably have one...
What kind of testing?
- Authentic module testing (they might be reluctant to give something like this as it can probably be used to make the copies closer to the original - but worth the try)
- QA testing - packet drop, etc at different speeds
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- Authentic module testing (they might be reluctant to give something like this as it can probably be used to make the copies closer to the original - but worth the try)
- QA testing - packet drop, etc at different speeds
@Moshe-Livne said:
- Authentic module testing (they might be reluctant to give something like this as it can probably be used to make the copies closer to the original - but worth the try)
- QA testing - packet drop, etc at different speeds
OK. I haven't yet been contacted by Nordic, and I don't know how that conversation will unfold. If there' is room for Q&A, then I'll be sure to ask them your questions as well as relay their answers back to you.
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@Moshe-Livne said:
- Authentic module testing (they might be reluctant to give something like this as it can probably be used to make the copies closer to the original - but worth the try)
- QA testing - packet drop, etc at different speeds
OK. I haven't yet been contacted by Nordic, and I don't know how that conversation will unfold. If there' is room for Q&A, then I'll be sure to ask them your questions as well as relay their answers back to you.
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NORDIC has on their Website the option to raise questions (MyPage) which are handled by their Tech Support Team. Normally they reply fast.
@GIEL said:
NORDIC has on their Website the option to raise questions (MyPage) which are handled by their Tech Support Team. Normally they reply fast.
Thanks! I tried it just now, so hopefully I will get a response soon.
Today I ordered some RFM69's. Unit cost is higher, but shipping cost is so much lower that the total cost is actually lower. If they test out better, then I may just go that route instead. In fact, if they test out better. then is there any reason to prefer the NRF24L01+?
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I received the NRF24L01+'s that are on the red PCB's (above), and when I saw they were using the now notorious 1242AF chips, I had little hope. However, I tested them at 1mbps over the same challenge distance as the others, and so far they're doing very well: I transmitted over 200,000 packets, and there were only 0.03% lost packets. Average round trip time was 2.2ms.
As before, I'm using the RFToys to do the testing. The modules seem more finicky about their orientation than others that I've tested, and moving things just a little can make for much, much worse results.
I bought them from MDFly on ebay.
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I received more blob modules, and they continue to impress. me. I sent 160,000 packets, and there's only .22% packets lost with an average roundtrip time of 2.2ms. Also, the module doesn't seem particularly sensitive as to its orientation. For that reason, I like them more than the red modules.
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I did some current consumption testing on my modules and the results were quite surprising.
What should happen is that the current consumption rises during transmission, then stays high until transmission is finished.
Most modules however show very deep spikes in current consumption during transmission.
This behavior does not seem to be chip related, more module related (the green ones perform best in this respect).
It could be caused by the board layout and/or components used.
My HF knowledge is very limited, so maybe anyone of you have any ideas?http://yveaux.blogspot.nl
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I did some current consumption testing on my modules and the results were quite surprising.
What should happen is that the current consumption rises during transmission, then stays high until transmission is finished.
Most modules however show very deep spikes in current consumption during transmission.
This behavior does not seem to be chip related, more module related (the green ones perform best in this respect).
It could be caused by the board layout and/or components used.
My HF knowledge is very limited, so maybe anyone of you have any ideas?@Yveaux said:
I did some current consumption testing on my modules and the results were quite surprising.
What should happen is that the current consumption rises during transmission, then stays high until transmission is finished.
Most modules however show very deep spikes in current consumption during transmission.
This behavior does not seem to be chip related, more module related (the green ones perform best in this respect).
It could be caused by the board layout and/or components used.
My HF knowledge is very limited, so maybe anyone of you have any ideas?I don't know HF, but....
How many bytes in your "transmission" versus how many bytes in your packet data payload? i.e. I wonder if each of your spikes simply correspond to different packets.
If that's not it, you should compare your measurements to what this guy measured:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvjpmsH2wKI
as it seems he did some careful measurements. -
I received and tested these 10 pin modules from Alice on ebay:
I hooked them up to Arduino Uno's using 10 pin adapters, also from Alice on Ebay.Results are interesting:
1.21% packet loss over 580,000 packets sent. Average round trip was 1.52ms. The lowest roundTrip time recorded was 0.872ms. These times are a lot lower than on any other modules I've tested.As with the red modules, results are sensitive to the antenna orientation .
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I bought some modules from gc_supermarket which had "antenna symbol" on one side and pinout markings, marked "GOOD QUALITY". Reality was all thrown into a single antistat bag, no markings at all and crap transmissions. I confronted them (after ebay feedback timeout had passed), and they replied "We may send you another 10pcs" two weeks ago. Waiting to receive them.
I got a batch from ITEAD, with good packaging (individual box+antistat+foam) and the two I've tested so far are surely the best I've had. I can place sensors in my car on the driveway, signal getting into the house (passing through large parts of the engine, metal sheets, thick house walls, inner walls, ...).
