Radio problems

[marceltrapman]

Over and over I have read that daisy chaining the radio or giving it power from the Arduino is a source of problems.
I found that out the hard way with a board where I put the radio at the end of a chain.
My next iteration of my board will give it power direct from the source which will hopefully solve the short-range-issue...

[Mrlynx]

Arduino nano makes its 3,3V from the ft232RL chip. According to its specs it can give 50 ma maximum current.
http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/DataSheets/ICs/DS_FT232R.pdf
NRF24L01+PA+LNA can use up to 115 ma in tx. http://www.electrokit.com/tradlos-nrf24l01-2-4g-modul-med-pa-och-lna.49982.
I think that to use a NRF24L01+PA+LNA on a nano requires a separate LDO 5->3,3V regulator.

[jocke4u]

Thank you for all your answers.
I think I have a couple of "AMS1117 5V-3.3V Step Down Module" (or similar) that I can connect to a USB charger. Need to verify though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261172232237 says "output: 3.3 V, 800 mA"

Some hacks to do :)

[jocke4u]

Hi again,
First I would like to thank you all for the support/ideas etc and I really want to get sensors stable and reliable. Sure this EnergyMeterPulseSensor is not the most critical one and sure the sketch can be improved not to loose KWH readings/accumulations (Watts is a snapshot) when send fails. But with more critical sensors where something else is triggered.
Anyway, since I have problem with the EnergyMeterPulseSensor sending data (not counting pulses) I need to get that working and set the "foundation" for future sensors. Sure I have some other test sensors...

Yesterday I took the following actions.
EnergyMeterPulseSensor

• Reverted back to NRF24L01+ due to lower power consumtion
• Still using 47 uF capacitor to radio power
• Reverted back to the standard code with gw.begin(incomingMessage); (not using RF24_PA_LOW)

Gateway

• Still using NRF24L01+PA+LNA
• Still using 47 uF capacitor to radio power
• Added AMS1117 5V-3.3V Step Down Module connected to a separate USB charger feeding the radio
• Reverted back to the standard code with gw.begin(); not using RF24_PA_LOW

But unfortunately no success.

So I wonder what you have as hardware reference architecture;

• Do you have a verified and reliable solution?
• What components do you use?
• What working distance do you have between gateway-sensors ?

Regards
Joacim

[RJ_Make]

@jocke4u
Have you tried MySensors 1.3b yet?

[jocke4u]

@ServiceXp
I have had 1.3b before but without capacitor etc.
Maybe time to go back to 1.3b3, to see if that works better.

[RJ_Make]

@jocke4u
At least In my environment, I had zero communication problems with v1.3. Can't say that about 1.4.

[Yveaux]

@ServiceXp said:

Can't say that about 1.4.

Do you mean you're having problems with 1.4 then or did you just not have any experience with it yet?

[jocke4u]

DAMN :( :(
I think dataMine played a prank on me and the statistic is probably not correct (not logging everything). Will hook in my MQTT monitor to extract statistics in a way I control it.
Currently I am running 1.3b3 and will run a test sensor for a while to see how it's works and then eventually go for 1.4 again.
Thanks for your support and I have learnt more about power and capacitors :)

[RJ_Make]

@Yveaux
I think both.. The radio problems I had drove me crazy, and then there's still the temps not converting to F using the existing 1.4b library. Which is not a big problem thanks to @hek help.

I literately had zero issues with the 1.3b library.

[Yveaux]

@ServiceXp I'm not aware of any major issues with 1.4 at the moment and @hek is about to tag it. If you are really having (radio) issues related to 1.4 we should fix them asap.

[RJ_Make]

@Yveaux

At this point I think I found the solution, but have not built up another test bed to make sure the solution worked. The temp conversion problem is persistent,

http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/309/1-4b-radio-transmission-problem-not-present-in-1-3b

[Yveaux]

@ServiceXp you said in this post:

That was it!!!!! I tried 22uF, was still doggie, so I thought why not move up to 47uF wink and what do you know, that seems to be the winning value. I have some more testing, but looking pretty good so far.

This sounds to me that the issue is solved...
I can imagine that 1.4 requires a bigger cap while 1.3 doesn't. 1.4 uses auto acknowledge which can send burst packets. This could put a bigger load on your power supply.