Wireless nRF24L01+ sniffer for MySensors

[ch3b7]

Very good job man! i have a question! can i use a vb.net program to send commands from the gateway (conected via usb) to sensors. if y use de command SERIAL.WRITE (in vb.net) dont work!

[Yveaux]

@ch3b7 better create a new topic for this, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible

[marceltrapman]

@Yveaux Do you have any idea why I get this error when compiling:

NRF24_sniff.ino: In function 'void loop()':
NRF24_sniff.ino:287:20: error: 'class CircularBuffer<_NRF24_packet_t>' has no member named 'clear'

I am using Arduino 1.5.7 (but 1.0.5 generates the same error).
As mentioned in your post I created a separate 'Arduino Sniffer' folder with its own libraries in there.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

[Yveaux]

@marceltrapman I recently added the clear method to the circular buffer implementation. Maybe I forgot to commit to the sniffer repository... I'm mobile right now, so maybe you can check the circular buffer component in the root of my GitHub account. If this does have the clear method you should copy that over the one from the sniffer repo.
I'll check things tonight....

[Yveaux]

@Yveaux damn, forget it... The latest version is only on my development pc then... I'll update the repo tonight.

[marceltrapman]

@Yveaux said:

@Yveaux damn, forget it... The latest version is only on my development pc then... I'll update the repo tonight.

I had already 'sniffed' the libraries and could not find it but I always think it is me doing something wrong :)

No problem, the rest is installed.
Uploading the sketch was the last thing to do!

[Yveaux]

@marceltrapman Good to hear you got that far!
I knew I missed something... Now it should be fixed.
Please try again!

[marceltrapman]

@Yveaux said:

@marceltrapman Good to hear you got that far!
I knew I missed something... Now it should be fixed.
Please try again!

Thank you, I will check out your updated sketch and load it into my Arduino.
Not sure that I will have the time to test it tonight though (but I must admit that I am a bit restless :) ).

[marceltrapman]

Compiling and uploading went well. Now the rest :)

[Yveaux]

@marceltrapman Apparently you're the first to build the 'thing', so thanks for pioneering!

[marceltrapman]

@Yveaux Not a problem, I like being a pioneer and I greatly appreciate the efforts you put into this :)

I thought I had everything in order this afternoon.
Installed Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2012 SP 4 but forgot to test...

Right now, whatever I use 'Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2012 SP 4' or (for testing purposes) 'Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013' both x64 I still see the error message 'The program can't start because MSVCR110.dll is missing...'.
A restart should not be necessary but even a restart did not help.

Uninstalling all packages and reinstalling did not help either.

Any idea?

[marceltrapman]

For those following this topic I have not solved it but it could be related to this:
Upgrade to 8.1 and stuff stops working (not what most people would call an "up"-grade).

[marceltrapman]

OK, for those of you on Windows 8.1 this will probably not work 'out of the box'.

For me, a Mac user, the following solution makes complete sense :-P

You have to install or repair Microsoft Essentials and the dll will be available.
Don't ask me why but it works!

[marceltrapman]

Everything works now.

Did not see any packets coming in though but I remember having an issue with a couple of Uno's and I am not sure if this was one of them.

Anyway, I will do some more testing tomorrow.
Very exited :)

[Yveaux]

@marceltrapman Great you got it working man!
In the meantime, please have a look at the last part I wrote, detailing the use of Wireshark and the sniffer: http://yveaux.blogspot.nl/2014/07/nrf24l01-sniffer-part-3.html

For tonight I'm totally done with this sniffer -- Aaaarghhh! ;-)

Btw. Could you also post stuff you had to do to get it working (just a wrapup) to my blog, to keep stuff together? Thanks!

[marceltrapman]

@Yveaux When I am sure that everything really works (including my Uno/Radio) I will sure write a wrap-up to you blog!

[Yveaux]

@marceltrapman said:

both x64

The console application is 32bits. I don't know if the 32 bits versions are included in the 64 bits installers...

[marceltrapman]

@Yveaux said:

The console application is 32bits. I don't know if the 32 bits versions are included in the 64 bits installers...

That was not the issue...

Below is the wrap-up that I also posted on your blog:

There are 3 things that I bumped into though that I would like to share with you and those that decide to use the sniffer.

1. Immediately after starting** 'Nrf24Sniff.exe -P6'** (the rest is default in my case) I got this error message 'The program can't start because MSVCR110.dll is missing...'. It basically complains that 'Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2012 SP 4' is not installed but that is not true. After doing a bit of searching I found that I needed to** install or repair 'Microsoft Essentials'**.
   Once this was done the program works as expected (don't ask me why, this must be pure MS genius).

2. Once Wireshark was started like described I noticed that the Nrf24Sniff console window displayed a *'Wait for sniffer to restart' *message. The author mentions that this will only take a few seconds but in my case I actually needed to reset the Arduino for it to go away. No exception.

3. After creating the correct setup in Wireshark I expected data to show up but it did not. I wondered why and ran a complete test to see that the Ardiuno was ok, radio sufficiently powered etc. but that was all ok. I then re-read the article and found that the author says 'when monitoring MySensors 1.4beta traffic (at non-default 1Mb/s)'. I completely missed this and that caused the issue.The MySensors 1.4beta is set to 250b/s by default. Once I started the sniffer like 'Nrf24Sniff.exe -P6 -r2' everything works as expected.

Now I have to find some time to read the third article so that I understand what happens on my screen :)

Anyway, good stuff and a big thank you goes to @Yveaux ...

[epierre]

@Yveaux can you do me a favour ? colord blind people cannot read red on black... they represent 10% of the population...

Also, does your software runs under nano ;-)

[marceltrapman]

@epierre said:

Also, does your software runs under nano ;-)

I can't think of a reason why it would not work.
Just try (once you can read the blog :) ).