💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway

[gohan]

I have to ask a stupid question : did you use a logic converter between rpi and rfm69 radio?

[ftw64]

@gohan There are no stupid questions, right :-)? But perhaps a stupid answer: no, I did not use any logic convertors. The RFM69 is 3.3V and as far as I know, so are the GPIO pins on the RPI. But I might be mistaken, of course... Should I use logic convertors?

At the moment I have no idea where it fails. Perhaps I need to give it a rest for a couple of days to think it over...

I followed the steps as given on the web site (git branch development). Connected the RFM radio (7 wires: Vcc, GND, MOSI, MISO, SCK, NSS, DI00). Only modified MyConfig.h with regard to the NETWORKID (100 --> 101; my 'production' MySensors runs at 100) and enabling "MY_DEBUG_VERBOSE_RFM69". I configured with:

% ./configure --my-debug=enable --my-config-file=/usr/local/etc/mysensors.dat --my-gateway=ethernet --my-transport=rfm69 --my-rfm69-frequency=868 --my-is-rfm69hw
% make -j 4
% sudo bin/mysgw -d

[mfalkvidd]

The gpio pins on raspberry pi are 3.3V. https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/3209/what-are-the-min-max-voltage-current-values-the-gpio-pins-can-handle

[mfalkvidd]

@ftw64 that configure command looks like an ethernet gateway. Could you post the configure command for your "RPI as a node" as well?

[marceloaqno]

I forgot to mention in the guide:
To communicate with the RPi using the RFM69 radio, all of your nodes need to use the new RFM69 driver available in the development branch.
To make the change, add the following line to the node sketch:

#define MY_RFM69_NEW_DRIVER

[gohan]

@marceloaqno you forgot just a little little insignificant detail 😂

[marceloaqno]

@gohan @ftw64 sorry for all the trouble

[gohan]

It's OK, don't worry. We need to update the guide with the new instructions 😀

[marceloaqno]

@gohan Done!

[ftw64]

@marceloaqno Thanks! That indeed does the trick! And no worries, it is my own decision to play with beta(!) code (and it was a fun weekend troubleshooting it - I learned a lot about the structure of the MySensors code)!

Only 'bad' thing is that 2.2.0 is not compatible with my existing nodes :-).

I appreciate all the work that has been put into MySensors.

[Fat Fly]

This is really stupid. :D RFM69 radio need powered separately ?

[gohan]

They shouldn't, but it's always a matter trying 😀

[Oliver Acevedo]

This post is deleted!

[Richard van der Plas]

How will this work with HASS running on the same pi ?

[gohan]

It's the same as it was running on separate hw, you will only set ip address of the gateway in hass

[Richard van der Plas]

so i can attach the NRF24L01+ to the pi running HA, make it a Ethernet Gateway and point to his own ip adress ?, will this be a long job with converting from a USB connected GW (Arduino with local sensors ? )

[gohan]

That's pretty much it. I don't know what is your current setup and what sensors you have, but is should not be a long job. Anyway you can install the ethernet gateway and when you are done you take care of the sensors

[Richard van der Plas]

excellent, will the cpu utilisation be much higher that with a usb connected gw ?

[gohan]

No, it uses very few cpu

[manul]

@Richard van der Plas: I strongly recommend to use MQTT instead of Ethernet gateway, as it is a standard way for 2 processes to communicate, and platform-agnostic.
HASS comes with an embed MQTT broker taht works out of the box.
Plus:

• you can easily mock either your sensors network or your controller
• it does support secure communication
• you can add other clients to observe the event, e.g. to log what is coming from/what is sent to the gateway