💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors

[dbemowsk]

A capacitor is considered a short to an AC signal and it works on certain frequencies depending on the setup. So if you get any AC ripple on your output of your regulator, the capacitor is used to smooth that out. Electrolytics are also use to give a quick extra burst of power when needed. That is why they are used for things like the incoming power for the radio. The radio transmits every so often and if you were to look at the power coming in to the radio on a scope with no capacitor on it, you would probably see dips in the power when it transmits. The dips in power could cause it to fall outside the operating range of the radio for a split second giving you transmission loss. The electrolytic is there to supply that extra jolt to stabilize the power on the transmit cycles.

And @maghac, you are correct, parallel capacitance adds and series capacitance divides, which is the opposite of resistors where series resistance adds and parallel resistance divides.

[Nca78]

@nitroburn said in 💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors:

@Nca78: Yeah, PCBways base price is $5 for 10 100x100 as well but they don't seem to charge for vcut (doesn't change quote) and allow 0mm spacing so no need to cut. I used EMS to ship and was here in 3 days without taxes or fees unlike DHL has every single time I use them. $15 just to collect $0.10 in tax.

So yesterday I tried to submit my PCBs to PCBWay, they accept similar design if you don't check panelizing options, but my interest is to lower prices by combining different PCBs on the same board. I don't need them to cut anything, but they just refused and changed to panelized version. In the end it was 137$ compared to less than 70 with Seeed.
So PCBWay is great to have many similar boards (but who really needs 50-60 items of the same board ?) but if you want to save costs by combining multiple boards it's not an option.

[Samuel235]

@Nca78 - This is exactly why i was shocked when someone got away with it. They get personally checked every time and soon as they pick something up where they can see two separate boards there then they refuse it unless you paid the extra for the panelising.

[gohan]

Draw some fake routes across the boards, maybe they will not notice it 😀

[nitroburn]

@Nca78

@Nca78 said in 💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors:

So yesterday I tried to submit my PCBs to PCBWay, they accept similar design if you don't check panelizing options, but my interest is to lower prices by combining different PCBs on the same board. I don't need them to cut anything, but they just refused and changed to panelized version. In the end it was 137$ compared to less than 70 with Seeed.
So PCBWay is great to have many similar boards (but who really needs 50-60 items of the same board ?) but if you want to save costs by combining multiple boards it's not an option.

I combined different PCBs and right on the form for submitting them for a quote it explains you just select how many different designs you want per board, so if you fit 3 different designs but with 8 total boards from the 100x100, you just enter 3 designs and submit all 3 gerbers individually zipped inside a main zip file. In my case, I selected 2 designs and submitted both as single not panalized. You can always just copypaste them together in eagle or something and avoid them saying anything about it.

Only extra thing I did was submit the board size as the 2 designs added together then in the requirements specified there were 2 designs one being X * Y and the other X * Y. I don't know if they would have accepted me requesting they then put the designs onto one board more then once, but I assume that is what they would do for the panalization. It definitely doesn't have to be the same design on 1 board. Order 10 pcs, fit 4 designs or 2 designs 2 time and end up with 40 total PCBs. But I do notice if you have 2 designs done 8 times total and you want the boards pre-separated then you would say 8. But yeah, that does raise the price. Weird because I swear it wasn't doing it like that before.

I guess I just got lucky and had a nice person review my files and they combined and separated them for me for free. In the future I'm just going to throw a panel together myself and submit as 1 design and maybe not even bother to have them score the boards, I'll do it myself and then it's definitely 1 design. They must have felt bad I was ordering 30x23 boards wasting the rest of the 100x100 so they threw them together. Its a 10 second copy and paste so I'll just do it myself next time and not bother with them charging more. Could also be they counted it as 1 design because the sizes were nearly identical.

[maghac]

A completely unrelated question: what is that header called that @jens-persson used on the MySX connector (see the pic that I reposted above)? I soldered the longer, jumper-style, headers instead so I can connect dupont wires.

Are there any benefits to using this other type of header? (And what does the corresponding male connector look like)?

[Nca78]

@maghac said in 💬 Easy/Newbie PCB for MySensors:

A completely unrelated question: what is that header called that @jens-persson used on the MySX connector (see the pic that I reposted above)? I soldered the longer, jumper-style, headers instead so I can connect dupont wires.

Are there any benefits to using this other type of header? (And what does the corresponding male connector look like)?

It's just header with round pins. No interest in using them IMHO, better stick to the standard square shaped headers as they are the more common. You cannot use standard square shaped headers with those so it's a bit limiting.

[2rDK]

Please note, that when using the link to ITEAD, the order is not actually completed. The order is received by ITEAD, you get an order confirmation and everything, but the order is actually not processing before you upload the gerber files.

This may be a beginners mistake, as it is the first time i'm using this service. I had the understanding that when you pressed the shopping cart above, and chose a service the gerber-part of the transaction would be handled automatic.

I dont know if this is a misunderstanding on my side, I may have misunderstood the instructions on this site. It also may be an error on ITEAD's side as they didn't process the order correctly.
What is your experience with this ?
My problem is solved now, as I wrote and asked ITEAD for status. They made me aware of the issue and I emailed them the gerbers.

This is in no way a critique of the project. I really appreciate the hours of work put into it.

[hek]

@R2DK, sounds strange.

Should just be a one-click operation to order... and you shouldn't have to do any gerber uploads.
Could you PM me who you were in contact with over at ITEAD?

[sundberg84]

We have sold pcbs from itead before and this is the first time I hear this. As @hek said it should be a 1 click operation but something maybe went wrong just this time?

[mickecarlsson]

This happened to me too, I ordered from the link, and thought I was Ok with the order. Yesterday I did find out that my order was waiting for the gerber files, so I downloaded, zipped and uploaded the to itead. I also mailed them about it. Got a reply that they should check the gerber files.

[sundberg84]

@mickecarlsson - I think @hek are looking into this... if I look at my Sales stat there are mostly ordered/aborted from Itead without known reason so they have not been comfirmed. The lastest revision from EasyPCB is over 7 months old and works great with PCBway... so if the gerber files are bad I hope I would have been notised before.

[hek]

I have mailed the person responsible for the integration. Hope to get some answers tomorrow.

[mickecarlsson]

Allright, now it looks like I am getting them :+1:
PCBs have been finished and are ready to be sent out.

[markjgabb]

same hear...i ordered from itead...i had to upload the gerbers myself....

[dakipro]

I have some issues with battery powered version with this board, maybe someone can point out what I did wrong. I have several of these boards working great (rev 8 says on them, the radio cap is however properly connected). I recently noticed that battery powered sensors do not work if battery is under 2.7v (on one pro mini it goes under 2.3v) even thought I have 3.3v booster. I have one dht22 sensor, measuring resistors and cap, bat jumper, basically my board looks exactly like example on the openharware, this one https://www.openhardware.io//uploads/568ed84b60aa3f8965fbf095/image/Rev8 Bat.jpg
Also did the battery hack, removed led and removed onboard regulator.
I have rechecked several times, changed several radios and several arduinos, but they just wont work reliably on lover battery power then 2.8v . Is that the limit?
I cannot debug using serial adapter, as when I connect it, then pro works fine as it gets 3.3v from the pc.
But here is some debug measurements I did on 2.5v batteries: vcc - gnd pins on pro mini show 3.3v. Pins out of booster do show 3.3v. So do pins on the dht22.
Pins on the radio show 2.5v, so do D2-gnd show 2.5v (or -2.5v i forgot). Why does pin2 have 2.5v, I have desoldered it so it is not connected to anything, I guess that is some feedback voltage from the radio (as dht22 gets 3.3v) Can this pin (or voltage measurement a0) somehow disturb the pro mini?
Do you have some suggestions on how I can debug what is going on?
The led on arduino goes red for 3-4s, then goes off for 2s then again red for 3s, then off...
I have two identical boards, and only thing that is determining the lov limit is pro mini modules. Some of them go to 2.7v (on both boards) and on of them goes down to 2.3v on both boards. I do not understand why when they do get 3.3v on the vcc from the booster?

What is the lowest voltage the batteries can go (with the 3.3v booster)?

[sundberg84]

@dakipro - hi!

but they just wont work reliably on lover battery power then 2.8v . Is that the limit?

No, the limit should be (if you have a genuine radio) 1,9v. Im not sure what kind of voltages a clone will manage, but my nodes goes below 2.8v!

I cannot debug using serial adapter, as when I connect it, then pro works fine as it gets 3.3v from the pc.

This should not be a problem - you can power the node from the "normal" way and just connect RX/TX and GND from the ftdi to the arduino ftdi header. I have done this several times.

D2-gnd show 2.5v

The IRQ line from the radio is 2.5v since thats what the radio gets. Im not exactly sure what this does, but in SPI which is what the radio are using, its either HIGH or LOW so 2.5v sounds right since the radio has that voltage. This should not disturb the arduino! This is changed in REV9 so you can disconnect D2 from the radio if wanted. You should not use D2 for any sensor below Rev9.

The led on arduino goes red for 3-4s, then goes off for 2s then again red for 3s, then off...

Sounds like the radio is transmitting... if this goes on and on it can mean the radio isnt getting connected/ack or establish a way to the gateway.

Do you have some suggestions on how I can debug what is going on?

You need to check the debut output (see above)!
Could you describe the issue? Are the node lost from the controller?

What is the lowest voltage the batteries can go (with the 3.3v booster)?

1.9v is the minimum to the radio.
0,8v is the minimum for the booster.

[dakipro]

Thank you for your answer, the tip about debugging helped a lot.
I now checked on one board and it looks that some pro minis are having problems when battery voltage goes bellow certain level (f.eks. 2.7v).
Testing results:
"good pro mini" works up to 2.0v , on 1.9v it shows fallowing errors

send: 4-4-0-0 s=1,c=0,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,st=fail:
find parent
send: 4-4-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,st=bc:
send: 4-4-0-0 s=2,c=0,t=6,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,st=fail:
temp: nan
nan
send: 4-4-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=0,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,st=fail:62
send: 4-4-0-0 s=2,c=1,t=0,pt=7,l=5,sg=0,st=fail:0.00
send: 4-4-0-0 s=1,c=1,t=1,pt=7,l=5,sg=0,st=fail:0.0

"bad pro mini" works fine above 2.7, on 2.6 it logs

84973 MCO:SLP:MS=15000,SMS=1,I1=255,M1=255,I2=255,M2=255
85047 !MCO:SLP:TNR
85874 TSM:FAIL:RE-INIT
85897 TSM:INIT
85919 TSM:INIT:TSP OK
85942 TSM:INIT:STATID=3
85968 TSF:SID:OK,ID=3
85991 TSM:FPAR
86042 TSF:MSG:SEND,3-3-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
88117 !TSM:FPAR:NO REPLY
88141 TSM:FPAR
88193 TSF:MSG:SEND,3-3-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
90269 !TSM:FPAR:NO REPLY
90294 TSM:FPAR
90345 TSF:MSG:SEND,3-3-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
92422 !TSM:FPAR:NO REPLY
92446 TSM:FPAR
92497 TSF:MSG:SEND,3-3-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
94574 !TSM:FPAR:FAIL
94595 TSM:FAIL:CNT=4
94617 TSM:FAIL:PDT
95066 MCO:SLP:MS=4999
95088 !TSF:SND:TNR
95610 MCO:SLP:TPD

What I see on the log parser is that the "No potential parents replied to find parent request" pops out as the biggest issue, suggesting that radio communication is not doing well.

I am testing using the small bench power supply (the Chinese ones with the oled screen) so the current should not be the problem. Why would pro mini be the problem, when it is getting 3.3v directly from same stepup?
The radio and all other components are exactly the same in all the tests i just swap the minis, I think radio would have failed with both minis if it is the radio... or perhaps the signal to the radio is not good/stable enough? No idea to be honest :)

If that matters: they are all getting 2.7v (or what I set) on pin 2 even though I have physically cut the connection to the radio irq (with the knife, on the board, they are not touching anything else on the board).

p.s. now that I write this, i realize that another difference is the sketch on them, "the good one" is "vanilla" mysensors 1.5 code and all the bad ones are latest mysensors using the node-manager library. I do not know enough about chip programming, but as a web developer I would think that the code should not determine minimum voltage needed on board? (or there are some routines in some strange combination doing some magic... hm...)

[dakipro]

Well I just tested with latest example from mysensors library, and we can exclude my latest p.s., nothing to do with using the node-manager (as expected).
Only difference is the pro minis (but again, they should all get 3.3v via popup)?
and on the "good" node I have mysensors 1.5 while on the others I use 2.1.

[sundberg84]

@dakipro - It looks like when the voltage drops, you are having issues with your radio (No reply and ST=Fail).
This should not be a problem, since this is powered directly from the batteries and you say there are 2.8v left.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that as the voltage drops, the booster needs to work harder and introduces more noice into the board. As the noice increase, the radio gets in trouble.
The other I can imagine is that you have a bad clone which cant handle lower voltages.

Both problems are a bit tricky to diagnose. First I would try some different radios, if possible from different batches. Second I would look more close to the booster. They vary greatly in quality and some are just really bad. Sometimes a cheramic capacitor might help (from output to gnd on the booster). You could also just disconnect the booster and see if it works (the pro mini shoudl be able to handle down to 2.8v).