💬 MySWeMosGWShield - WeMos Mini MySensors Gateway Shield

[emc2]

It should indeed "beep" between all the pins.

NRF modules are also very fragile, once incorrectly plugged they are usually definitively toasted. So even if you desoldered and then resoldered them correctly it is unlikely they will work correctly.

Yes you need the capacitor radio side, it's the only required component, everything else is optional. It don't have to be 4.7µF, anything between 4.7 and 47µF will do, as stated in the assembly instructions.

[Cliff Karlsson]

I have got some strange issue when using RFM69HW. I modified the sketch by chosing RFM instead of NRF, and also uncommented the line "MY_IS_RMF69HW"
Everything looks like it is working when using the serial console, the wemos gets an ip and I can add it to domoticz. But after a couple of minutes it stops working. Same if I power it from mobile charger directly, works a while then dies. I have tried with different Wemos and it is the same. Can a faulty radio cause this or could it be something other?

[emc2]

Not sure. I do not have any RFM sensors, I tested the gateway for a little more than a week with a mock sensor and it was working. Maybe some logs could help?

You can also hook up the RFM shield to a regular arduino nano to do a serial gateway, this way you can check if it's radio dependent or not.

[Cliff Karlsson]

Sometimes my own stupidity still amazes me. The pins of all my wemos where soldered at the oposite side as the ones in your examples. all the radios then got powered using 5v instead of 3.3v, not very suprising that the nrf radios got hot as h*ll and that nothing worked as it should.

Suprisingly the RFM69 seams to have survived. I guess the smd nrf24 all are toast.

Everything works perfekt now when I connected it correctly :)

[emc2]

Glad to see you have it working!

Let me know if something was unclear in the instructions or if it can be improved to prevent people to solder them flipped.

[Mynasru]

Is it possible to free D2 on the WEMOS, it is used on most WEMOS shields for I2C.

[emc2]

@Mynasru unfortunately the only other suitable pin would be D1, SCL.
Wemos do not have enough pins to do gateway + I2C, you will need to switch to a nodeMCU or similar.

Also keep in mind that D2 is a MySensor default for ESP8266, I tried to have it moved when support was added https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors/issues/408#issuecomment-191403862 but without success, meaning you will need to reassign CE in your code.

[Mynasru]

@emc2 Hmm that's a pity. I could not find why specifically it was assigned to that pin other than that it is a MySensor default, so I thought maybe it can be changed (manually).

I wanted to use the WEMOS system for my nodes, not as the gateway. But if it is not possible to free up D1 & D2, there is no benefit in using them. This board is the best I could find, I would order them if D2 is freed for D4. Could you make it possible to use one of both (with a jumper of some sort) so it is compatible with either WEMOS shields, or the MySensor defaults?

[Fabien]

Very bad result with this PCB and Ebyte NRF24 PA+LNA module.
If the shield is distant from the Wemos D1 (not upside) it works fine. There is interference between ESP and NRF I think.

[emc2]

@fabien Never heard of the "Ebyte NRF24 PA+LNA module", do you have a link for it somewhere?

So far I've been using a few of these with the "regular no name" PA+LNA from Aliexpress and did not have any problems. What are the symptoms you are observing?

[Nca78]

I'm using EByte module with external antenna, and I have good results
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/New-E01-ML01SP4-Ebyte-20dBm-1800m-2-4g-rf-module-smd-nRF24L01-PA-rf-wireless-receiver/2077046_32687064881.html

Chip or integrated antenna with pa+lna are not efficient, I had poor radio performance with them...

[emc2]

Looks like a neat module indeed.
Never tried these, but yes I guess if the external antenna and the wifi antenna are too close it may leat to some interferences.

Would also need to check that the 3.3V is powerful enough to properly feed the esp and this chip at the same time, I guess it may depends on the antenna plugged to it too.

[Nca78]

@emc2 said in 💬 MySWeMosGWShield - WeMos Mini MySensors Gateway Shield:

Would also need to check that the 3.3V is powerful enough to properly feed the esp and this chip at the same time, I guess it may depends on the antenna plugged to it too.

Yes it could be a problem too, I put the additional voltage regulator on my gateway, it costs nothing and takes 2mns to solder, so I see no reason not to put it.

I guess @Fabien is talking about the ML01SP2 module, but with PCB antenna and no shielding there's no way it can have good performance next to a wifi module...
Best EByte module is ML01DP5 but it's not SMD.

[Fabien]

@nca78 you are right. I'm using ML01SP2 and range is not good (with PCB or IPEX antenna). I'm adding volatge regulator without success. If I put the PCB on a proto board result are far better. So it's probably interference between ESP8266 and NRF24.
I'm waiting for ML01DP5 but do you know if someone already made a pcb for this one and ESP8266 board (Weemos or other) ?

[berkseo]

What are the parameters of this radio, I could not get it to work. Suspicions that he had no speed 250.