Intermittent issue
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Hey guys
First a bit of background, I've been getting into my sensors slowly over the past few months, i dont have great deal of time to code and build sensors. Up until now I've been successfully running a serial gateway on an uno connected to a server running domoticz plus two remote temperature nodes. These have been running perfectly.
I've recently been working on a new project to build a dimmer based on the rotary dimmer sketch. The dimmer unit performs perfectly locally, i.e controller via the rotary knob. However control via domoticz has been a little sketchy.
One way communication from the dimmer node to Domoticz seems to work well, i.e. when i turn the rotary knob on the dimmer, domoticz displays the dimmer level and on/off state accordingly. However controlling the dimmer from Domoticz is very sketchy, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt and i get an error from domoticz saying it couldnt send the command.I've performed some debugging by accessing the serial console on the gateway and the dimmer node and noticed that i was getting st=fails on both devices. Both nodes have been decoupled and seem to have stable power supplies.
The following is a screengrab of the serial consoles, the gateway on the left, dimmer on the right. This shows me turning the rotary knob. As you can see, sometimes it works, and sometimes i get st=fail.
Any ideas people?!
Regards
Josh
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st:fail and domoticz "could not send command" is the same thing: ack is not recieved back.
it means the receiving node or gateway has problems sending ack back to the sending node.Its probably a hardware issue (power and/or range). Try adding a capacitor (http://www.mysensors.org/build/connect_radio#connecting-a-decoupling-capacitor) to the receiving radio, change powersource, move receiver/sender closer to eachother or build a repeater. If you think its a software issue you can try to clear the eeprom (http://www.mysensors.org/build/debug#clearing-eeprom) and reupload your sketch.
What kind of radio do you use on the gateway? PA/LNA version?
Temp nodes are very low power and not much noise but when you start working with dimmer lever its a new dimension... -
hi @sundberg84 thanks for the reply
Firstly, all myNRF24L01+ have a capacitor installed. The gateway is just a standard NRF24L01+ no pa/lna version, I guess i could put a pa/lna radio on it? The distance is already pretty close (within about a 5m radius). I guess i need to check the quality of my NRF24L01+'s in case they are nasty clones? Another factor is that my WiFi access-point is directly next to my mysensors gateway (its all in my server cupboard). I imagine this could be causing interference?
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@joshdinsdale About the wifi, i have the wifi-router and gateway 30cm from eachother without problems.
I would try another power supply and see what happens. -
@sundberg84 I have tried a number of power suppliers which dont seem to make a noticeable difference. I have just ordered a pa/lna nrf to use on my gateway, so when it arrives i will see if that makes a difference. Has anyone got any tips for testing performance of nrf modules to help determine if they are fakes/clones and if that might be affecting performance? I buy them from ebay, but try and use UK only sellers but i guess thats no guarantee that they are good modules!
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Some reading regarding + and not + Nrf modules.
http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/1153/we-are-mostly-using-fake-nrf24l01-s-but-worse-fakes-are-emerging/4
http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/1664/which-are-the-best-nrf24l01-modules/2
