💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors

sundberg84

@Valle - yes you can just put a wire between left and right pin - but it wont work for a long time (the pro mini will die when battery goes below 3v i think).

@nunver - I have never used this board as gateway. What does your controller say, does it apply an ID for the request?

Valle

@sundberg84

I'm using mfalkvidds Plant monitoring
mfalkvidd said:

An update on battery life: The sensor in my bonsai tree has been reporting every 11,5 minutes since 2015-11-07, so over the last ~four months it has done 24,504 measurements. The battery level has gone from 3.187V to 3.142V, which means a drop of 0.01125V per month. Assuming I let it go down to 2.34V (limit for 8MHz according to the datasheet) and that the voltage drop is linear, I should get (3.187-2.34)/0.01125 = 75 months = ~6 years. There are several error sources in this calculation, but it looks like battery life will be quite good, even though the sensor reports much more often than necessary.

So I will try without Booster. But for other sensors I will use booster.

sundberg84

@Valle said:

So I will try without Booster. But for other sensors I will use booster.

Sounds good - let us know how it works out for you. 2,34V is for a genuine Arduino so you know - I dont think a clone manages that... also the last energy (from 1,9 to 2,34v) is not used even though the radio could handle it if you used a booster.

Boots33

Thanks @sundberg84 for this little board. I have just completed a sensor to monitor the state of our 12v house solar power supply.

It uses an ACS712 Hall Effect Current Sensor Module to keep track of amps in and out of the battery. A voltage sensor to check battery levels and two DS18b20 temp sensors to monitor battery temp and ambient area temp. It reports back to our Domoticz server.

nunver

@sundberg84 yes it gives an ID of 1, but somehow sensor keeps asking four more times. At the end of the cycle, no ID is set. So no sensor shown.

sundberg84

@nunver said:

@sundberg84 yes it gives an ID of 1, but somehow sensor keeps asking four more times. At the end of the cycle, no ID is set. So no sensor shown.

What does the log node say - find parent?
This sounds like either software issue or most probably radio range/power issue,

Affe

Hello, I'm just finished with 3 cards and test . I read on mysensor.org I'll connect NRF24L01+ Radio whit decoupling capacitor of 47µF and on your card whit 4,7µF

What is the difference?

mfalkvidd

@Affe in practice, there is usually no difference. 4.7uF is enough, but 47uF doesn't hurt.

Nca78

Hello,

I just ordered from DirtyPCB.
Thank you very much for this board which will obviously save me a lot of time with the radio connection.
I'm planning to use the boards for :

as door+temp/humidity sensors for my children's bedrooms, not for the "security"/"safety" aspect but to manage AC more efficiently
as window sensors for all windows in my appartment coupled with a rain sensor on the balcony, so I can ring an alarm/flash something/sens sms if it starts to rain and one of the windows is left opened. I'm in a tropical country and windows are opened most of the time, with the sudden and strong rains and winds we have sometime it can really be ugly :)

Power will most probably come from button cells and I will cut the right part of the PCB to fit in small and very cheap plastic boxes I find in shops here. I'm just waiting to see if the test sensor I have put on my entry door survives long enough with a CR2032.

Rasenheizung

Could you give me the size when the pcb is fully soldered as battery sensor?

sundberg84

@Nca78 - sounds great, let me know how it works out for you! Good luck!

@Rasenheizung - 50x50cm fully soldered. The dept is about 35mm (Batteryholder + PCB + Components)

sundberg84

So - I have a question for the community about boosters. I had a 3.3v Arduino running with my PCB. The radio is connected directly to the battery and the rest through a booster. I experienced alot of st:fails.

I tested adding a 0.1uF cap on the booster from OUT to GND and the st:fails became st:ok, even though the radio does not get its power from this booster.

Im sure the boosters are in different qualities and renders alot of noice - but could it effect the radio - through the arduino?
If this continues Im going to add the possibility to add this cap on my PCB. (Or maybe its possible to use 0.1uF cap by the voltage divider...)

Any feedback ?

alexsh1

@sundberg84 typically, I try to add the lc-filter to the booster as some of them are very noisy. This is very simple - 3.3µH Axial lead inducter and a large 220µF capacitor (I use the SMD version). This helps to smooth any ripple effect.

Samuel235

Any sort of manipulation, including regulators and boosters, added to any module i would always attempt to filter and smooth the input AND the output of the devices. The noise from the boosters would technically be reaching your radio from those traces. I'm not sure if a diode would stop it from feeding back to the radio, but either way if it did i would still prefer to smooth and filter the power instead of stopping it coming backwards.

scalz

@sundberg84
it could be multiple things..
But as alexsh1 said you can try to fix it with filtering.

You can usea capa + an inductor or a ferrite bead too (a bit different), or a small resistor too can work like a snubber in fact. Generally 0-2ohms<100ohms, but the smaller the better depending of the capa too because it could generate drop out voltage. So for ferrite, it's the same, it's better to use a low ferrite res.
But then, with filtering come some compromise regarding the booster efficiency and the load etc... Use formula and calc or the scope or iterate to choose the better compromise. But that should fix it mostly.

There are two main strategy:

you filter each power input of concerned ics,
or you filter at powersupply (booster) output because lack of footprint on pcb.

Note :

it's better for filtering to use small multilayer ceramic capa. low esr, low esl when you can, but again there can be some compromise in this.
shielded inductor on the booster module is better
if high esr and esl capacitor used at booster input, then you can have noise back into the batterie, and then propagate elsewhere. If it's your case, and can't fix it at power supply input, try to filter at your radio vcc input with another res for instance and a capa
there is also the ground loop, having a strong gnd, is better. this is one point why it's useful to use gnd pour plane on your pcb.
etc...

I hope this will help you a bit ;)

Nca78

Boards received from DirtyPCB, they look gorgeous in white, too bad I have to put those ugly blue nrf and promini boards on top of it :P
I received exactly 10, they are looking good except the silkscreen 1/2mm too much on the left for some of the boards

Nca78

@sundberg84 sorry to bother you but maybe you have an idea.
I soldered components as in the picture below (looking so much cleaner than with all the cables...), I am using a 3.3V pro mini.
Before soldering I tested the pro mini and the nrf24 together, connected with cables, and simulated the reed switch with some wires: everything was fine and I was receiving the open/close messages in domoticz.
I soldered the components as below but I only got some "radio init failed" when connected to my PC, power coming to the GND/VCC on top of the arduino.
As I put the jumper on "reg" to bypass the regulator, my understanding is that in this case the raw/power/vcc are all connected together, am I wrong ?

Another subject, I suffered to cut the right part of the PCB with a cutter, would it be possible to add some slots along the black line to reduce a bit the length we have to cut ?

alt text

Samuel235

@Nca78, do you have power on the radio, do you have power present everywhere it should be? Arduino included. If this is all present i would then go into diode mode with a multimeter to make sure all of your pins on the radio are connected to those of the ATMega328 on the arduino.

This would be just a basic starting point at troubleshooting this.

sundberg84

@Nca78 - Hi, nice to see your white boards ! :)
I see your image, and you have choosen a REG jumper (regulated power supply). How do you power it? Through RAW?
You have missed the voltage regulator with caps for the radio, so at this point it does not get any power at all?

If you are using a 3.3v arudino with RAW you can bypass it with a wire.
If you are using a 5v with RAW or Regulated power (PWR) you need a 5 to 3.3v voltage regulator.

chuckconnors

@sundberg84
@BastienVH said:

@sundberg84 said:

If you use the FTDI connector, make sure its the 3.3v and connect it to Gnd/Pwr on the PCB and not Arduino FDTI connector.
You could just exclude those pins and connect a battery directly and use that as power and the FDTI as programmer/serial debug only

Bat or Reg is nessecary!
See this picture for battery use: https://www.openhardware.io/view/4/EasyNewbie-PCB-for-MySensors
https://www.openhardware.io/uploads/568ed84b60aa3f8965fbf095/image/3.jpg
All components in the image is needed (except battery measurment).
If you dont want to use booster you need to bypass that one with a wire/jumper (or set the jumper on REG instead of BAT but that kills the logic).

The battery doesnt "need" the 0,1uF but see here:https://www.mysensors.org/build/battery
"The tap point could be bypassed with a 0.1 uF capacitor to keep the noise level low, at this otherwise high impedance point. "

Hi. I've been using this board with 5V power from cell chargers and it works great. I'm trying to make my first battery sensor and am a bit confused (again) as to what is necessary. I'm powering using 2 AA batteries. I've cut the right side off the board so I'm obviously not using the measuring portion, but the above bit about the booster leaves me confused. Can someone answer:

I connect via the PWR and GND pads right?
Do I jumper BAT or REG?
Do I need to do anything else to get this to work?

I tried to program using battery in but was using the ground from the ftdi connector. I could not get this to work. I'm thinking that this was a major problem and that I should have used the battery ground. That's the right approach right?

💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors

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