My Slim 2AA Battery Node

[masfak97]

@m26872 Thank you for your suggestions. I have now tried them (and many more) but still can't it to work. It's really not a big problem since I can program them using an Uno as ISP instead but it's really annoying that I can't get it to work.

I have checked my chips, they are all at mega328P-PU and I have tried many of them with the same result. I have soldered many nodes, thinking that I didn't make the solder connect through the holes but without any luck. I have tried different sockets to make the connections better and I have traced the entire node without finding any broken connections.

To get the sketch loaded I use Nick Gammons board_programmer with an Uno and use the LilyPad boot loader which enables the internal 8 MHz (Using pin 9 as clock instead of an external crystal). After that I program the Uno with ArduinoISP, set the programmer to Arduino as ISP and upload the sketch with "Burn with programmer" command.

I have switched USB-cable, USB outlet on the mac, breadboards, dupont cables, capacitors (different ceramic but all show too little capacitance), Atmegas and FTDI programmers. I have tried all combinations with 3.3 and 5 v without any luck. Programming Arduino Pros with the FTDI works fine.

I have tried the Mincore and Gert Sanders OptiBoot. I have tried to manually reset the chip connecting the reset pin to ground briefly when programming. I have tried lowering the baud rate to 9600. I have tried to load the Uno bootloader together with a 16 MHz crystal and 2 x 22pf capacitors and then the FTDI. I have tried larger electrolytic capacitors.

Last week, when mimicking the slim node on a breadboard, I managed to get the FTDI to work a few times but can't really say exactly what I did. Now I can't get it to work anymore.

All in all I have spent many hours trying to figure this out but without any luck. My nodes look just like the ones I see in your pictures.

Could it be that the internal 8 Mhz is too unstable to work?
Capacitors being too small? I've seen some reporting that they succeeded with larger...
Bad connection somewhere > momentary voltage drop?
Cheap FTDIs?
Mac USB-power maxing out?
Bad atmegas?

Please help me solve this annoying problem.

[m26872]

@masfak97 Wow. You work hard. Of course we must help you. I'm not familiar with your programming method. So that would be my quick wild first guess. I can't read that you've verified the fuse settings? Have tried different startup times e.g?
Do I understand correctly if you're able to send and recieve commands to the Atmega with your FTDI after it is programmed ?

[Mikepara]

Hi. I have a problem with my slim node with the sketch "temperature"
with the slim pcb node and a DS18B20 in domoticz it does well the node presentation but neither the S_TEMP child arrives nor does it get any temperature afterwards of course.
but if I mount the same sketch in an arduino nano and with power to 5v it works perfectly.
please help

[m26872]

@Mikepara Please elaborate and post your code. Tell us also about power supply, fuse settings (clock speed) and your troubleshooting steps. See debug-faq-and-how-ask-for-help.

[Mikepara]

sorry. the sketch is the "temperature" of library and the bootloader configuration is:
arduino ide 1.8.5 and usbasp, record the minicore bootloader on atmega328P, clock 8mhz internal, compiler LTO disabled, variant 328P, BOD disabled.
thanks

[martim]

Hi All,

This Topic is a little old but hopefully still active. I am using the battery Duracell CR123 because it is small and fits in my case. Would this be an ok choice or does someone has other recommendations?

Thanks for feedback.

Marcel

[gohan]

Look also at AAA/AA size LiFePO4 as it will need just one cell instead of 2 as the normal alkaline/nimh ones

[joaoabs]

Hi,

Maybe a silly question, but where did you get the library for the Vcc.h ?

 #include <Vcc.h>
                 ^
compilation terminated.
exit status 1
Error compiling for board ATmega328.

I couldn't find any VCC in the MySensors library set and also doing a search for vcc in the Arduino Library Manager I can't find it either...

[EDIT] : Found it in other thread. Leaving here for reference: https://github.com/Yveaux/arduino_vcc

Thanks

[martim]

@gohan said in My Slim 2AA Battery Node:

LiFePO4

Thanks

[รอเรือ]

I have 29 panels of the latest version of the PCB. It's more than I can use. Please PM me if you are interested in them.

[iteafreely]

As information for everyone, I suggest that if you get sockets for the ATMEGA, that you get
these:
rather than these:

The reason being that the former have a much wider gap in the middle than the later. Because of that, the .1 puff #104 monolithic multilayer 5.08mm pitch capacitors called for in the BOM fit nicely. If you use the later ones, you will need to remove material from the socket to fit them.

[iteafreely]

I just made a new case for a LiFePO4 magnetic sensor implementation of this. Thanks for the excellent work on this handy node design!
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3034907!

[gohan]

With 2 mini solar panels on the sides and an harvesting circuit, you could run it indefinitely 😁

[badmannen]

Good evening!

I had a bit of a break from this forum (approx 3-4 years...) And just got back into it . I managed to put a bootloader into my 328p-pu chip

can anyone just confirm if it is OK to use this bootloader with the version 2.0 board here.

I understand that it should run at 8Mhz to be stable . so I assumed I could use the bootloader that comes with Arduino IDE ?

I flashed this one onto the chip at the moment and will start to solder some of my boards soon. but would like to be sure that it is correct before I go too far =)

##############################################################

atmega328bb.name=ATmega328 on a breadboard (8 MHz internal clock)

atmega328bb.upload.tool=arduino:avrdude
atmega328bb.upload.protocol=arduino
atmega328bb.upload.maximum_size=30720
atmega328bb.upload.speed=57600

atmega328bb.bootloader.low_fuses=0xE2
atmega328bb.bootloader.high_fuses=0xDA
atmega328bb.bootloader.extended_fuses=0x05
#atmega328bb.bootloader.path=arduino:atmega
atmega328bb.bootloader.file=atmega/ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328_pro_8MHz.hex
atmega328bb.bootloader.unlock_bits=0x3F
atmega328bb.bootloader.lock_bits=0x0F
atmega328bb.bootloader.tool=arduino:avrdude

atmega328bb.build.mcu=atmega328p
atmega328bb.build.f_cpu=8000000L
atmega328bb.build.core=arduino:arduino
atmega328bb.build.variant=arduino:standard

[NeverDie]

@badmannen Welcome back. The good news is that there's now a mysensors bootloader, which is even better because it allows over-the-air firmware updates for the atmega328p: https://www.mysensors.org/about/fota

[badmannen]

Daaaaang ... it is a good time to be alive and come back to this I see =) ... thanks a million to you guys that made that one .. that certainly makes changes a whole lot less painful!

[badmannen]

@neverdie Alright , that took me a couple of days of fighting with Arduino/Linux/windows/drivers/bootloaders etc etc etc but I got it all running with my updated gateway+repeater-node + mailbox-node. did not try the update function yet but surely it should work. just need one or two more repeater-nodes since I have way to thick cement walls here for this signal.

[badmannen]

OK I had some fun the last couple of days and actually got something done =D !

Managed to update my gateway and repeater-nodes to latest version and boot-loaded all nodes and future nodes so they are FOTA enabled .

So far I managed to assemble 3 nodes and after a bit of swearing and soldering and de-soldering and re-soldering I got:
1 - DHT11 TEMP / HUM node, on Battery (Slim 2AA) - surprisingly accurate actually

2 - DOOR-SWITCH - on Battery (Slim 2AA) - to be used in my mailbox, got the idea from someone here in the forums, so thank you, I don´t remember who it was since I probably read a million posts by now =D

3 - a 220V Relay switch, with the PA LN radio, and works as repeater ( runs on a NANO )

just wanted to say a huge thanks to the MySensors group and all people here on the forum for helping me get started (Had a little break for a couple of years =)

[NeverDie]

Let us know when you get it to FOTA update.

[badmannen]

@neverdie
Just tried it by mounting an "empty" 328P in the node just with the
fuses set to:
0xE2
0xDA
0xFE

and with the MYSBootloader .

Amazing ! . worked at the first try! (this time around =D )

( tried and failed a couple of times earlier, but I know I burned 0xFD instead of 0xFE so set the BOD to the wrong value, and that does not work )