Problems getting a RFM69HW gateway to work in domoticz

[Cliff Karlsson]

Ok, any ideas of what my problem can be?

I have tried using 3.3v mini pros+ RFM69H+W.
I used serial monitor on both gateway and node and all seems to start up and send/recieve data.
I have used MYScontroller and Gateway starts up and recieves data.
I have flashed RFM gateway/node sketches from lowpowerlab and everything seems to transfer/recieve correctly.

I have tried both stable and beta of domoticz and even formatted/reinstalled my rpi controller.
I am using a powered usb-hub to connect to the gateways to the rpi.
I have connected the mini pro gateway to the controller using both 3.3v ftdi clone and a genuine arduino ftdi 3.3v
I have tried several versions of Arduino IDE from 1.6.6 to nightly.
I have tried mysensors stable 1.5.1, beta 1.6 and beta 2.0
I have both NRF01 gateway and Rf-link gateway connected and both works perfectly.

But as soon as I connect a nano/mini pro with RFM radio it never works. A few times I get "gateway ready" and "gateway version 1.6-beta etc."
Often when I get gateway ready and version to show up correctly, as soon as I start up a sensor with RFM radio I get 5-6 "gateway ready" and "gateway version 1.6-beta etc." repeats in the log.

But most of the time I get only "gateway ready" and no verison id in the log. And under hardware I only get a "?" in the gateway version info.

What can I do to troubleshoot my setup?

[hek]

@Cliff-Karlsson said:

I used serial monitor on both gateway and node and all seems to start up and send/recieve data.

So, data from your sensors is received by gateway?

[Cliff Karlsson]

Yes If I use mysensors controller sketch on a mini pro with RFM69HW and a random sensor sketch on another mini pro + RFM69H I recieve data when the gateway is connected to the computer and I use the serial monitor in the arduino IDE.

I have also tried the same thing with the lowpowerlab sketches and I also recieve data in that way.

[Cliff Karlsson]

Can it be something that domotics does not like that I connect 3.3v mini pro's using FTDI->USB adapters supplying 3.3v instead of 5v?
I forgot to say that often when everything seams to detect correctly, as soon as I power up a sensor I often get some error in domotics complaining of "serial lost" or something like that.

[martinhjelmare]

@Cliff-Karlsson

Can you adjust the baud rate in domoticz for the serial connection?

[hek]

Yeah, lowering baudrate could help.

[Cliff Karlsson]

In the beta it defaults to 115000 or something witch I believe is correct. It is also possible to change to 4800 baud /mini pro/sensbender or something like that. But I have never got anything to show up when changing that setting.

[martinhjelmare]

@Cliff-Karlsson

An arduino at 8 MHz will not be able to communicate reliably at 115200 bps with a computer over serial.

38400 or perhaps 57600 at the highest should work.

[Cliff Karlsson]

i have used RFM69HW adapter on all the recent tries witch should be ok, right?
I have also used 868Mhz antennas that I have got from ebay. Could faulty antennas cause something like that?

[hek]

You'll also have to lower the baudrate in MyConfig.h before compiling/uploading the gateway. No need to touch the sensor node.

[Cliff Karlsson]

This post is deleted!

[Cliff Karlsson]

Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!, thank you!!!!!! It finally works. 38400 was the other selectable baudrate specified in domoticz and it started working rightaway after selecting the right settings.

[martinhjelmare]

@Cliff-Karlsson

:thumbsup:

[John Tol]

Hi Cliff, could you be so kind to share the full sketch with us? I'm also having trouble getting this RFM69HW to work.