MySensors shield and RGBW Controller
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Ok, the same thing just happened again. Before the unit shut down it did restart about 3 times (thats whats in the log from my domoticz). Might this be the brownout shutdown? Voltage with external multimeter is at aboud 2.7-2.8V. So do I have to change my fuse settings? Or perhaps use the mysensor bootloader...
I also realized that I did connect my batteries directly to the VCC pins, not the raw pin. This means that the voltage converter on the board isn't used (right?). Should I change that, or what's happening with the 3.3V converter if it gets input voltages lower than 3V?I also realise that my usb to serial converter might be running at 5V so I might have killed my NRF (and possibly the arduino too) :disappointed:
How do you guys handle this?
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Is it available for other people yet? I am very interested in LED strip drivers connected to mySensor network and your PCB seems to fit the bill nicely.
Good job.
-AM
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Not yet, although the designs are above. I have to work out the errors in my normal pcb yet. Then I can easily switch over to the RGB(W) one.
PS: Good part: both nrf and arduino are still working. Bad part: They shut down again after about a second. So it has to be a power issue. What are the right settings/fuses/things to keep the arduino pro mini (3.3V) running with batteries at 2.8V and lower?
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Thanks for the response. I will be watching your progress closely as I am very interested in this.
-AM
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It's a little sad that it took me so long but I finally managed to find a few minutes to "finalize" and test my sketch.
Here is my working code for an RGBW node that is based on MySensors and works with domoticz (other controllers might send different strings => so you would have to change one part of the sketch).
The sketch smoothly fades between colors and seemed to be stable in my test. What I still want to add is some kind of saved last values for possible restarts or loss of connection.I am gratefull for any feedback.
Next I will finalize my (test) pcb design and order that.
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i would like to test this RGWB also, are the PCB gerber files available ?
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I was finally able to get my PCB designs done. They are currently being produced by dirtypcbs.com
I switched to big(ger) mosfets to be able to drive a longer LED strip and easier to use through hole components instead of SMD. My breadboard test worked great so I am really curious to see this in action.
I also updated my github repo with the Target3001 based design, XGerber export and a eagle file export (although I am not really sure how that works, I never really used eagle myself).
If you simply want to try these unchanged PCBs yourself here is a link where you can buy them: http://dirtypcbs.com/view.php?share=14600&accesskey=e4f6cec8b8aadb845d51076b0f1aaab0
Although I warn you, they are not tested yet!Love to hear your feedback guys!
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I was finally able to get my PCB designs done. They are currently being produced by dirtypcbs.com
I switched to big(ger) mosfets to be able to drive a longer LED strip and easier to use through hole components instead of SMD. My breadboard test worked great so I am really curious to see this in action.
I also updated my github repo with the Target3001 based design, XGerber export and a eagle file export (although I am not really sure how that works, I never really used eagle myself).
If you simply want to try these unchanged PCBs yourself here is a link where you can buy them: http://dirtypcbs.com/view.php?share=14600&accesskey=e4f6cec8b8aadb845d51076b0f1aaab0
Although I warn you, they are not tested yet!Love to hear your feedback guys!
Nice work! Do you have a BOM for the RGBW board?
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I was finally able to get my PCB designs done. They are currently being produced by dirtypcbs.com
I switched to big(ger) mosfets to be able to drive a longer LED strip and easier to use through hole components instead of SMD. My breadboard test worked great so I am really curious to see this in action.
I also updated my github repo with the Target3001 based design, XGerber export and a eagle file export (although I am not really sure how that works, I never really used eagle myself).
If you simply want to try these unchanged PCBs yourself here is a link where you can buy them: http://dirtypcbs.com/view.php?share=14600&accesskey=e4f6cec8b8aadb845d51076b0f1aaab0
Although I warn you, they are not tested yet!Love to hear your feedback guys!
@LastSamurai: I would also be really interested in the BOM!
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I will post a real BOM on my github repo when I find the time for it (hopefully soon). It's not very complicated though:
- Arduino Pro mini
- NRF24L01+
- The rectangle on the bottom right side is a step down converter like e.g. this
- 4 10k stepup resistors and 4 mosfets
- 2 caps, one to smooth the 3.3 voltage line and one for the NRF. I guess it should work without them too most of the time
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@LastSamurai You have an error on your RGBW board! The PWM pins for a Pro Mini are not 3,4,5 and 6! They should be according to this:
PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.
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@LastSamurai You have an error on your RGBW board! The PWM pins for a Pro Mini are not 3,4,5 and 6! They should be according to this:
PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.
@korttoma said:
@LastSamurai You have an error on your RGBW board! The PWM pins for a Pro Mini are not 3,4,5 and 6! They should be according to this:
PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.
Ah yes, thanks for the reminder! I knew this at design time (though I forgot it myselft now). Pins 9-11 are already used by the nrf module, so there aren't enough pins left for 4x PWM. RGB channels are using the pins 3,5,6 in my design and white the "normal" pin 4. This isn't a huge problem because at least in domitcz all that the white channel does is on/off anyways (or mostly). I guess I have to update the texts though.
Do you guys know if there is a way to free up one additional pwm pin so that true 4 way pwm is possible? If thats not possible there is software pwm (although that might be a problem when using the network..?!).
@jeti For my tests I am using IRFZ44N, but that really only depends on how many leds you want to be able to drive.
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@korttoma said:
@LastSamurai You have an error on your RGBW board! The PWM pins for a Pro Mini are not 3,4,5 and 6! They should be according to this:
PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.
Ah yes, thanks for the reminder! I knew this at design time (though I forgot it myselft now). Pins 9-11 are already used by the nrf module, so there aren't enough pins left for 4x PWM. RGB channels are using the pins 3,5,6 in my design and white the "normal" pin 4. This isn't a huge problem because at least in domitcz all that the white channel does is on/off anyways (or mostly). I guess I have to update the texts though.
Do you guys know if there is a way to free up one additional pwm pin so that true 4 way pwm is possible? If thats not possible there is software pwm (although that might be a problem when using the network..?!).
@jeti For my tests I am using IRFZ44N, but that really only depends on how many leds you want to be able to drive.
@LastSamurai To free up an additional pin for PWM, I believe you can change the CE and CS pins in the GW constructor. Use pin 4 for for CE to the radio and reroute the MOSFET to pin 9. And then designate the change in the GW constructor:
MyTransportNRF24 transport(4, 10);
MySensor gw(transport); -
@Dwalt is absolutely right. I have been using this kind of setup for a looong time allready.
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I finally found the time to really test my RGBW boards and I found another error: 2 pins of the mosfets are switched. To test it anyways I just took the mosfets and bend some legs to get them to the right connectors on the pcb. Aside from that I tested it for some days and it works beautifully. Dimming, on/off, color changing and the rgb/white switching works.
I will try to create a second version soon that uses 4 pwm pins (so that white can be dimmed to) and fixes the mosfet's pins. Perhaps i'll switch to a barebone atmega 328p too because the full pro mini is kinda overkill here and I might be able to make smaller pcbs then.After I found out that my problems with programming the pro minis comes from FTDI's newest driver "features" (always prints "NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!" on the serial port) I can now also try my normal sensors boards again with some low power modifications.
What's annoying me at the moment is that my raspberry pi (running my domoticz) controller won't restart at the moment. I'll have to fix that first.
As always any input is welcome and I'll try to post updates and pictures as soon as possible.
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Good news (I guess ;) ). I already redid my raspberry pi controller (where I kinda killed the old sd card :expressionless: ) and also fixed the 2 errors in my pcb.
Sometimes in the next few days I'll try out a smaller pcb with the barebone arduino and test my sensor nodes again. -
hi,
nice work,
I not understand why you said 2 pins of the mosfets are switched, for me it's ok,
I see G to arduino pins, S at center, and D to leds.. I miss something ?
I think I will buy some of them for testingps: maybe you can add your project on openhardware.io
sry for my english
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hi,
nice work,
I not understand why you said 2 pins of the mosfets are switched, for me it's ok,
I see G to arduino pins, S at center, and D to leds.. I miss something ?
I think I will buy some of them for testingps: maybe you can add your project on openhardware.io
sry for my english
@vil1driver Thanks you! I did change them to IRFZ44N's to be able to drive longer strips. I think the new schematics aren't uploaded here yet. I did switch drain and source pins there. Other than that it seems to be working perfectly, so I will create a new (and hopefully final) version soon.
I am also thinking about adding SPI pins. Perhaps I also add pins for a DHT11/22, there is still some free space on there. Does anyone have another idea what would be good to add/change?
As soon as the updated PCB is done I will update my github and I guess also open a project on openhardware.io.
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I just finished building another prototype and it's mostly working fine. I still have some lag/network issues and I am not 100% sure about the perfect software/dimming either but I am working on that.
I will update the code in my git soon and design the new board (I am trying to learn using kicad for that).With the RGBW strip I am using red seems to be a lot darker than the other colors. Has someone seen similar behaviour? Or an idea how to fix that?
