[SOLVED] Problems with Ethernet Gateway (Arduino Ethernet Shield)

[BulldogLowell]

@niccodemi said:

const uint8_t SOFT_SPI_MISO_PIN = 15;
const uint8_t SOFT_SPI_MOSI_PIN = 14;
const uint8_t SOFT_SPI_SCK_PIN = 16;

and these are the correct pinouts for my Arduino Ethernet Shield, correct?

This is moving the SPI communication between the Uno and the shield off to another set of pins, and we are leaving the radio pins on hardware SPI?

Thanks!!!!

[BulldogLowell]

@Dan-S.

Apart from my question above, my only concern is how much power. It occurs to me that the radios attached to my sensor nodes NEVER have this problem, so it make me think that he Ethernet Shield consumes too much power... we got that. Is it the consensus that the power that Uno can provide is not enough to power the Radio and the Ethernet shield?

Thanks for the assistance, it is appreciated. Hope to get there soon!

[Dan S.]

@BulldogLowell Once you sent the pin definitions in RF24_config.h as you indicated you connect the MOSI, MISO and SCK pins of the radio to A0,A1 and A2 on the Ethernet shield/UNO as niccodemi indicated. The other radio pins remain connected as they were originally.

[BulldogLowell]

right, completely understood now. i updated my IDE, made all the edits, changed the pins and loaded up my rig.

fingers crossed.

Thanks for everyone's help!

[BulldogLowell]

@BulldogLowell

OK... Working fine :)

THANKS to everyone who assisted!!!

[BulldogLowell]

@BulldogLowell said:

@BulldogLowell

OK... Working fine :)

THANKS to everyone who assisted!!!

UPDATE: 12 hours and working perfectly!

[korttoma]

Thanks @niccodemi for the detailed how to. Now to only thing unclear to me is if this can be applied on the Ethernet board I have or should I order a new one? I have built a Ethernet GW with a Pro mini and that Ethernet board but I just have not found time to take it in to use and then there was all this about the SPI issue that made me push the task ahead of me.

[niccodemi]

@korttoma , I don't see why it shouldn't work with your board. It doesn't cost you anything to try and report back here how it went.

[niccodemi]

@BulldogLowell , are you using relay actuators with your ethernet gw?

[BulldogLowell]

@niccodemi

I'm not sure I know what you mean... Do you mean are some attached node used as relays?

Gateway still working perfectly...

[niccodemi]

@BulldogLowell yes, node with relay.

[BulldogLowell]

@niccodemi

I had... but converted it back to regular non-repeating node.

I had too much trouble with it, but that was before I had this stable Ethernet gateway.

[Opus40]

Would Just like to say thank you to every one, this fixed my GW problems as well.

[korttoma]

I was finally gona tackle my own Ethernet GW but I got stuck at the "0;0;3;0;9;check wires" issue.

I'we checked the wires a couple of times. Tried 4 different power supplies, rewired so that only the radio gets the 3.3v from the LM2937ET-3.3 regulator (arduino Pro mini 3.3 feed with 5v on the raw pin and Ethernet module also gets 5v since it has a AMS1117 onboard). I do have a 47uF cap close to the radio. Tried regular radio module and the PA-LNA module that I was planing on using.

The "check wires" is related to the radio module only right?

Guess I will have to go back to the breadboard to see if I can get it working.

[p0lar]

Do we need to remove this Soft SPI mod to build sensors now?

[hek]

@p0lar

For normal sensors you should probably run with the hardware SPI. So yes. disable it when gateway has been compiled and flashed.

[korttoma]

I have now tried on a breadboard with the same result "0;0;3;0;9;check wires". Swapped out the Pro Mini to a Nano same result. My conclusion would be that the Ethernet board I have can just not be used.

How I connected:
Ethernet board arduino pin
NSS/SS D10
MO/MO A0
MI/MI A1
SOK/CK A2
V+5 tried with 3.3v 5v and 9v
GND GND

The radio was connected according to this

I'm still gona try the none SOFTSPI setup if I get the same result. edit -> same result here

[Anticimex]

@korttoma That W5100 module has no SPI_EN signal out on the pins, so you have to use soft SPI for it, or it will block the radio module. Or you can HW-patch the module to drive the inverse of the CS pin on the SPI_EN pin on the W5100 ASIC. If you instead does pull out SPI_EN to the Arduino you can use the config in the gateway sketch to handle the SPI_EN for you. I do this for my GW which has a W5100 module with SPI_EN available and it works a treat.

[korttoma]

I tried to use the SOFT_SPI but I always get check wires. So it seems like there is also something else. Only time I managed to get the sketch running was with the none soft_spi setup and I had power disconnected from the Ethernet module during startup and connected it later.

[Anticimex]

@korttoma Sorry to be asking these probably stupid questions but have you checked that

• all wires are properly connected, and in-line with the config in the software
• the RF module is ok (tested multiple ones)
• supply voltage is relatively free of noise (I have seen noice up to 1V in relative amplitude without proper decoupling on my breadboard)

I am pretty sure you will never get the GW running on that module without either SOFT_SPI or a HW patch to it.
To me it sounds like a good start would be to get to the point where you can get it running on SOFT_SPI without the W5100 "present". Just to establish that you can communicate with the RF module.
If you can do it on HW SPI, then it should not be a problem with the RF module itself, more a config error for SOFT_SPI.