What did you build today (Pictures) ?
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Today I (finally) finished a full working version of that old Livolo 3 buttons switch. I removed the RGB led on the central button as it's not visible, but the basic switch functionality with buttons/relays and blue/red status leds runs fine.
It's running with MYSBootloader, it's really convenient to update without having to switch of the fuse and unmount everything.
A (quick) video, touch sensibility is perfect now, I'm really happy with it !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6yEdSyoMYw
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@scalz That looks very neat and tempting indeed! A pair of Overnight Sensation has long been in the plans for my next (and first) speaker build. Where did you get the components?
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@zboblamont
well actually it's setup as a standalone stereo speaker. I asked my brother (it's a gift for him) if he would prefer separated speakers (better for stereo). But he prefers like this, standalone with no wires, and his room won't be wide so it should be ok.
Yes, i know for the jigs in plywood, but i have a 3d printer, caliper; drawing, print and voilà
I like using cad software for checking assemblies in 3d etc, very handy, and it's more precise than my brain :).@fredswed yeah, it sounds very nice. when you hear it, then you know you made the good choice. Better than buying any of these 60 to >200$ smart speakers. I compared them with some others hifi speakers (jbl..) for fun, and still very impressive. Some of my friends are jealous. They want one, or more. Same for my others bro. They sound pretty loud imho, and would like to try a pair like that for fun
I ordered most of the parts at loudspeakerfreaks or audiohobby. if you live in USA, then it's better to give a try to parts express I think.I finished the vinyling yesterday (my bro didn't want I roundish the corner). I now just need to add a rpi inside and connectors etc on back, not bad
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@scalz - im using volumio (finished image for RPI) and happy with this. Just a tip...
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@sundberg84 said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
@scalz - im using volumio (finished image for RPI) and happy with this. Just a tip...
same here with a few additional plugins
Agreed, volumio is sexy sw.your speaker looks nice
I read and learnt a lot how to make diy speakers. It was very interesting learning curve, lot of parameters I didn't know before (and one of the most important rule is : tune your enclosure regarding speaker drivers specs, not the oppposite (there are software for calculating everything) Now I understand better the curves etc and where commercial stuff cheats. pretty cool
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@scalz - this was my first project and I agree with you (because I didnt calculate much before). If you are looking for the best sound its incredible important... for me and this build I wanted a small enclosure in the kitchen but the sound is pretty impressive for such a small thing so Im happy even though I know it could have sounded better.
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@scalz Whatever, so long as your brother enjoys what he asked for, job done.
Do I interpret your comment on "roundish the corner" as rounding over the front baffle edges? Sonically it can make a difference for imaging, but with drives this close I doubt it would be noticeable anyway, and would be a pain to vinyl let alone veneer....Almost 50 years I've been building speakers as a hobby....
I'll finish them one day
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Maybe you speaker geniuses can figure out the optimal enclosure for this tiny buzzer? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2731HZ-3x4-5x1-9mm-Super-small-miniature-AAC-electromagnetic-DET402-G-1-SMD-Passive-buzzer-3/32839766133.html?spm=2114.search0204.3.177.AclxtY&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0&aff_platform=aaf&cpt=1515527880409&sk=e2Vzr3v&aff_trace_key=7078a47c52334a31ac1f2c6cfa07a508-1515527880409-05187-e2Vzr3v&terminal_id=892660b32ab149c8a0ca840218581bea
I find that if I cup my hand over it, it (somewhat counter-intuitively) gets a lot louder, so I guess the same principles are involved?
It would be neat to have a very tiny buzzer like this available for use in projects, but I guess the enclosure design needs to be considered as well so as to get more volume out of it.
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@neverdie said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
Maybe you speaker geniuses can figure out the optimal enclosure for this tiny buzzer?
I'll play my "I am not a speaker designer, but..." card! Here is some basic info.
Jokes aside, a piece of PVC tubing might work. You need something to make the buzzer move the air more efficiently. I'd put a 1/4 wavelength long PVC piping over the buzzer as
a first try. (Any odd multiple of 1/4 wavelength should provide some resonance.)In a more elaborate design, you could try a simple horn. Aim for a size where both the length of the horn and its circumference at the end is ca 1 wavelength.
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@neverdie Would this work ?
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All I know is that there's no point to using a super small buzzer if it requires something big to make it work loud enough.
Maybe this is why the buzzer that I'm currently using instead has such a comparatively large form factor.... i.e. maybe there's just no getting around it.
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@neverdie That was kind of the point to that horn picture, the driver at the sharp end is tiny relatively, but this was the early days of speakers..
You can't have a small 1kHz transducer on minimum power and expect a lot really...
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@NeverDie , @zboblamont Best laugh I have ever had at a MySensors post : )
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Today I'm trying out Thingsboard, which sort of is a controller, but on steroids.
So far, it seems quite capable, but I have a lot of learning to do. My first step was to integrate it with Sigfox, which seems to work.
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@mfalkvidd that looks like more an IoT device management, doesn't it?
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@gohan could be. What's the difference?
When I think of it, I guess a controller has little need for multi-tenancy.
Btw, some pretty cool dashboard examples can be viewed at https://github.com/thingsboard/thingsboard/blob/master/README.md
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@mfalkvidd the difference is that the controller is for your home, the IoT device managment is like for a service provider (look at cayenne mydevices for example) that has different customers and resellers, so it needs to be multi tenant and some other features not needed for home use
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@gohan that sounds reasonable. I actually found Thingsboard after spending 4-5 whole evenings fighting with Cayenne's stupid and badly documented REST API.
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Today I soldered a tiny MYSX board to recycle my EasyPCBs in door sensors as compact as possible. I can also use the "vertical" CR2032 holders I had no use for and make some space in my drawers.
It can use a normal or a NO/NC reed switch (for SMD allergies
) or a SMD ultra low power hall sensor and it has a footprint for a reserve capacitor to support the CR2032.
I guess this board will be of interest for @sundberg84
PS: sorry for the ugly soldering, my old 936 clone soldering station is in "zombie" mode and it's all I have until the new soldering iron arrives.
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Not related to MySensors but I also assembled a first version of a battery powered led light, it's small and cheap and I will assemble a bunch to put around my home when there are some power cuts in evening/night. I'm using 3020 leds and they emit a lot of light for their small size, even with low current so I expect to get around 2 hours of battery life with the cheap aliexpress 16340 batteries, and way more than needed with the 18650 cells salvaged from my old laptop battery.
My first board with a li-ion charger and it is working well, now I'm waiting for the battery protection ics (cheap DW01 from AliExpress) to arrive as my batteries are not protected.
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@nca78 Which 3020's did you get?
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@neverdie said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
@nca78 Which 3020's did you get?
Cheap ones from AliExpress, not disappointed especially for the low price. I'll see in the long run how they behave.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100pcs-Light-LED-3020-Warm-White-SMD-Diode/32325994533.html
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@nca78 I have some similar looking panels that I had salvaged from some old document cameras. I was planning on building some MySensorized walkway lights in my hall Might be something good to make in the event of a power outage.
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Some more testings on my Logger... I want it to work great before moving on so alot of testing is needed. Why not do it on node #1 (note the old rev om EasyPCB).
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Completely unrelated but a impossible project for me it seems...
Im building a wifi "babywatch" in a USB stick.
It sends sounds to a app/software which is build to run in the background. This to be able to game or watch video with headphones and still know if you have a angry child.
So pretty much Mic -> Amp -> ADC -> Esp8266 -> Wifi -> Software/App.
This seems impossible to do with all the interference. Everything works now (Rev1) but im now on Rev 6+ or something and I cant get rid of the noice in the Audio.
Seperate power supply + ground for analog and digital side but It seems like the Esp8266 inserts to much noice.
Well, it was a great idea but hard to accomplish.
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@sundberg84
I really like that case. Do you have a link where you purchased it?
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@sundberg84 analog and esp8266 also beat me. Tried to play some music from an ESP8266 but result was barely usable. I switched to dac+amp connected via i2s which works fine.
Maybe you could try with a digital i2s microphone...
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@yveaux - thanks!!! A new hope
I will.
@nagelc - I use this: https://www.mouser.se/productdetail/789-p3a-220805s but note, there are 4 different variants. WIth and without opening for USB connector and other stuff. I can send you the footprint for the PCB if you wants.
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@sundberg84 Thanks. Looks like that company has several interesting enclosure shapes. Someday I might get a project complete enough that I will want to put it in an enclosure : )
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The nice thing about owning a 3D printer is that I don't have to buy enclosures any more. I just have to buy rolls of plastic. The sky is the limit when you have a 3D printer. I do like that enclosure though.
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@dbemowsk said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
The nice thing about owning a 3D printer is that I don't have to buy enclosures any more. I just have to buy rolls of plastic. The sky is the limit when you have a 3D printer. I do like that enclosure though.
Can't agree more, made a quick box for the lights with "crystal" PLA. You need a lot of imagination to believe it's crystal, but it's nice for a light enclosure as it acts as diffuser.
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@nca78 Nice. That would probably look cool in any translucent colored plastic. I have worked with clear, like this, red and green. Haven't used them for lighted enclosures though.
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Hey @mfalkvidd were you able to get mysensors nodes to send data to thingsboard? If so, I'm interested to know how you did that. Wondering if thingsboard can be configured as a controller for mysensors. Thanks!
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@mcqueen I have not tried, and I have no plans to try. Sorry.
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@mfalkvidd no problem, thanks
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So today I created a simple python script to bridge serial gateway with mqtt bus on my RPI:
https://github.com/mczerski/MySensorsSerial2MQTTThis is because I already use spi for nrf24 module mounted on a custom pcb so there is no room for another spi device.
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I'm building a wine rack for my wife in a celler room (currently 14 dgr with 4 dgr outside). I mowed my beer cooler temp node (rfm radio) to measure how much the temp changed over the day. I wrote a script in Lua/Domoticz that each time it changes 1dgr it should notify me. Apparently is a stable temp the most important to store wine.
All ideas how I can automate the shit out of this wine-room are appreciated.
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LCD display with temp/hum (both on the floor and celling) (Red needs apparently cooler than white wine... Or the opposite).
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I'm thinking about to try a passive cooler. A burried hose/pipe in a loop with a 12v fan/pump and temp. My idea is that if I rotate the 14dgr air in a say 20m pipe under ground it should cool the air some . This needs to be automated to keep the temp stable.
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light. Some sort of led strips.
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@sundberg84 Yeah, this brings back memories, particularly of quite a few hangovers.
I used 3 and four wide fireclay pipes for bottle storage, they were used for ducts back in the day before plastics took over, cable went optic fibre. I noticed recently here they are back in stock in stores as....yep...wine storage racks.... but wacko pricing relatively...
The beauty of the fireclay was it's slow temperature and humidity change, and this formed the bulk of the thermal mass in the cellar I made below the floor.
I used a 150mm glazed ceramic drainage pipe dug in under the garden as a loop (rope caulked joints - anybody remember them), from memory down about 1.5m, both avoiding frosts and baking sun, don't think the temperature varied over a degree all year round, the ground acting as a massive heatsink which maintained a constant temperature all year round.
Only when the hatch was opened did the temperature jump, a small fan kicked in when the hatch was closed and ran for 30 minutes, a second contact switched on the lights and shut them off, long before LEDs were so prevalent, old reliable (until you were depending on them) incandescent bulbs.
That was it really.
Biggest problem I found was humidity in the early days, probably the fresh construction...
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My wine rack is at the store.
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Why not just collect the temperatures over time, in f.ex. influxdb, and then use grafana to analyze data? (Instead of pushing messages to your phone whenever the temperature changes..)
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@tbowmo well I have Domoticz to collect data. Maybe your alternative is much better but I can't change from Domoticz without redo everything. The push is just to get a heads-up how often or changes but I can go into Domoticz and follow 15 min updates as well on a daily, weekly and monthly graph .
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@tbowmo as the temperature doesn't change that quickly, the 5 minutes Domoticz interval it is OK. As soon as you see a daily variance within your requirements, you are good
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Was I right to assume that the push of temperature changes to the phone every degree was simply for the initial testing to see quickly how often it would change?
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I finally got a BT832 (NRF52832 from Fanstel) to talk to my NRF24 gateway. I got the NFR5s a while ago. Made a quick breakout board (quick to design, but slow delivery). In the mean time, I configured a STM32 "Blue Pill" as a Blackmagic Probe to program it. I had to get the latest Sandeep Mistry NRF5 files from github in order for it to support the blackmagic probe, but . . . it worked : ) So far I have just run the MockMySensors and it shows up on Domoticz.
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@sundberg84
With a little bit of nodered injected in the stream, you could have domoticz running without ever noticing that influx etc is getting the data as well
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6.3 days or 152hours just inst good enough - this is what my logger managed to do with 2xAA debugging a temp/hum node sending every 15min. Its below 50% to target (14 days) but this included the leds was on all the time... how much can a 2x leds do
?? Next experiemtn...
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@sundberg84
@tbowmo
Domoticz can also push the data to influx DB. See Settings>More Options>Data Push
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So for a few days now I have been working on my idea for a homebrew CNC machine made from mostly salvaged parts. This weekend I made some good progress getting the Y axis drive assembly mostly done. I have not tested anything yet, but I hope to in the next few days. Anyways, here is what I have...
The stepper motor is one salvaged from an old dot matrix printer. The gear on it was press fit on the shaft with no real way to get it off, so I opted to make a geared drive assembly. I realize that this will slow the Y axis down, but it should also give it a bit more precision. Below is the stepper motor.
For mounting it, I designed this adapter plate which carries a steel roller bearing for the screw shaft.
This is an early mounting plate design before I added the upper and lower mounting tabs. This shows the gear with the shaft attached. The gear was made using an OpenSCAD gear library.
Yesterday I designed the bracket that attaches to and drives the Y axis platter/build plate (Sorry, forgot to take a decent pic of that part).
Today I was able to finish the front and rear frame braces and got parts rough fitted together. the 2 rails with the small white linear bearings are some rods that were salvaged from a couple old scanners. These were used as the rail for the scanner head. I have pics of the full assembly as well as the motor assembly mounted on the rear brace.
I can't say how well the design will work, if at all, but it has been a fun journey so far trying.
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@dbemowsk
Well it looks as if your 3D-printer works fine
What I would be slightly worried about is if with the given size of the rods the stiffness of the structure would be enough.
Hope to see more from this project in the near future.
Good luck!
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@boozz I will be curious to see if I can get enough precision to do PCBs. I have yet to buy a GRBL board to control it. For now I am going to use the UNO that I have for testing just to do test runs of the servos until I get one. This is the one I have been looking at:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Arduino-CNC-Shield-Kit-UNO-Board-4x-DRV8825-Drivers-Package-Deal-FREE-USA-SHIP/292174947187?hash=item4406fbe373:g:A0sAAOSwJThZpeKr
I will also have to figure out the gear ratios of the motor assemblies once I am done because I am sure I will need them to calibrate the GRBL setup. I know on this part of it I have about a 4.8:1 ratio from the motor to the large gear, but I'll have to figure out steps per cm or steps per mm or something. If anyone knows a good way of figuring this out I am all ears.Thanks for the upvotes.
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@dbemowsk It will save you the hassle of upgrading if you buy a control board with GRBL1.1f already built in.
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@dbemowsk said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
If anyone knows a good way of figuring this out I am all ears.
It would expect making a large movement using a defined number of steps, and measuring the actual distance moved with a caliper will give you a rather accurate steps/mm.
However, I hope this ratio is constant over the whole range, given the 3d printed gears and expected backlash...
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@yveaux as far as the backlash, i had already thought of that. I have 2 coupler nuts with a spring in between to handle the little bit of backlash that there is. I only had a thin spring though. I want to find a stronger one.
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@sundberg84
Redundancy, maybe you should get a second temp/humidity measurement device, just in case your current beer cooler temp node breaks down...
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@bjacobse or get redundant beer coolers
Important to always have cool beer.
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@mfalkvidd
True but usually wines have a higher price and a more valuable - not starting a discussing/flame war what is best to drink...
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@mfalkvidd Can't have too much redundancy there...
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Made this 12 button keypad. Requires only one analog pin to read which button is pressed, and any button press can also wake an arduino from sleep:
Consumes no power when no button is pressed.
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Here's a thread which covers it in more detail: https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/8936/6-8-buttons-battery-remote-node/36
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@neverdie what happens when you press two or more buttons ??
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@rozpruwacz Well, with the sketch I wrote (see link), you'd get the value of the first button pressed, and that's it. You'd have to release all the buttons before selecting a new button.
In terms of the hardware itself, there's an order of precedence to the buttons, so at all times you'd only be able to read the value of a single button, even if more than one button were pressed. In a multi-button press scenario, the buttons of lower precedence are ignored.
It's a good question though. If you needed to read more than one button simultaneously (such as, for example, move an RC car forward and turn right at the same time), this wouldn't do it. Seems like such a circuit would be possible though, maybe even one based on simple voltage dividing like this one. Somehow you'd need to sum unique resistances for each button pushed instead of just choose a single resistance. I can imagine doing that for a few buttons on an arduino, but maybe not as many as 12.
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@neverdie I'm asking because I Was trying to do something like this. If there was a resistor values set that would make all 2**n (where n is the number of buttons) choices spaced enough in voltage domain it would work, but I couldn't find such a set ...
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@rozpruwacz said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
@neverdie I'm asking because I Was trying to do something like this. If there was a resistor values set that would make all 2**n (where n is the number of buttons) choices spaced enough in voltage domain it would work, but I couldn't find such a set ...
That's why it might work if you needed it for only a few buttons. With only 1024 units of voltage, seems like you'd quickly run out of resolution if you tried to do more.
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I built my first MysX daughter board which I will connect to my EasyPCB to drive a led strip.
This will power everything from 12v so 2 things. Power main board and dim LED strip.
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Do anyone knows it the back of a TO-220 always is connected to GND and if this should be connected to the board GND as well? Currently I have a exposed copper as a heatsink but this copper is not connected to GND.
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Depends on the manufacturer / device type.. So look in the datasheet of the one that you want to use.
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@tbowmo
Thank you - I want to be able to use them all/different (ie. 5v, 3.3v, different manufacturer) so I wont connect it and just use it as a heatsink.
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@tbowmo I agree, it would be per device specs. In many cases I see that connected to the middle pin (whatever that may be), but not always.
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Made this two-button nRF52832 remote control:
It only draws power when one of the buttons is pressed.
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nice
what about range of the nRF52832 ? is it better than nfr24l01+ with pcb antenna ? I had problems with nrf24 and now I'm trying with rfm69. From first tests I can tell that it has much better range - but it is slightly larger and requires an antenna ...
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@rozpruwacz said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
is it better than nfr24l01+ with pcb antenna ?
yes
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Assembled and tested final version of LoRa Leak Detector:
Thanks to an external watchdog (TPL5010), it consumes very little current while sleeping. Also, the external watchdog will reboot the pro mini should it ever become unresponsive, so, in addition, it should be highly reliable.
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@neverdie said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
TPL5010
That's a really nice IC, I was looking for something like that but it seems I didn't search with the right keywords.
Thank you for sharing the discovery !
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Made a simple LoRa node using my CNC:
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Upgraded it to include two AA batteries and a DS18B20 temp sensor. Future versions will tap the I2C pins on the pro mini, so those will have better TH sensors.
Range is noticeably better than when I was running the LoRa from just a breadboard.I'm tempted to use a double sided PCB and give the LoRa a more proper and really big ground plane to see if that boosts range even more (at the same power level).
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@neverdie You can also consider replicating the 1/4 wave against ground in the opposite direction perhaps?
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@zboblamont said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
@neverdie You can also consider replicating the 1/4 wave against ground in the opposite direction perhaps?
I don't understand what you mean. Can you explain a bit more what that would be?
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@neverdie Sure.
A quarter wave on an ideal Ground Plane mimics a half wave, the GP is sort of like a mirror in radio terms for the 1/4 above it....
Ergo two identical 1/4 waves, one attached to RF feed the other attached to ground, does the same thing, although in fact slightly better...
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@zboblamont So, what you are advocating is a dipole antenna? i.e. something notionally similar to this:
https://www.openhardware.io/view/277/ESP8266-RFM69HW-gateway-with-dipole-antenna
At least, that is what it sounds like to me.
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@neverdie Not advocating a dipole as such, only pointing to an alternative to your suggested ground plane at 90 degrees to the base of the antenna. Electrically, the second half of the dipole IS the ground plane, and vice versa.
With such physically small boards, it is virtually impossible to achieve the ideal ground plane unless the wavelength is very small, I suggested a duplicate helical tied to GND in the opposite direction to your antenna essentially accomplishes the same thing.
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Interestingly, I just now checked, and it appears my LoRa leak detectors have even better range still. Maybe it's because GND completely encircles the PCB along all four edges. This may cause me to rethink the design of the gateway node, which up to now has been much smaller than the leak detectors....
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Today some maintenance on my GW.
Added a ground wire for debug and also corrected a buildmisstske and grounded the case.
And relocated (let's hope for the best) it to my new HA DIY board...
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And there was the first failing sensor.... But was it because I changed the location on the gw? Nope... I had a temp/hum right beside the gw which I pushed so it fell on the floor...
Radio cap de-attashed and sensor died.
Easy fix and now back in operation.
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@sundberg84 Sorry for the stupid question, but what holds your WEB/MAIL black box in place?
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@sundberg84 said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
And there was the first failing sensor.... But was it because I changed the location on the gw? Nope... I had a temp/hum right beside the gw which I pushed so it fell on the floor...
You meant "the first FALLING sensor"
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@neverdie said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
@sundberg84 Sorry for the stupid question, but what holds your WEB/MAIL black box in place?
Screws.
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@sundberg84 +1 for the mySensors sticker!
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My son and I finally finished his first MySensors project- a remote control for his room. He wasn't too interested but you have to start somewhere right...?
Question for you all... what are you doing (if anything) to vent the fumes from soldering? I haven't really been worried about it in the past but it makes me nervous with my son doing it with me.
Anyway, here are the pictures.
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@petewill What up with the red, yellow, and blue wires on the pro mini?
Also, did you print the case with a volcano?
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@petewill That's awesome. Did you work with him too on the design of the box? Great job.
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@petewill I put a regular 120mm pc fan to blow the fumes sideways. Not perfect, but I think it is good enough for the short time I spend soldering.
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@petewill is it battery powered? Can you share the code?
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@petewill , @gohan I use the same as @mfalkvidd and its pretty much a PC fan with the wires to a 9v battery.... been thinking for a long time to make a more permanent sollution with a tubes from outside....
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Today's test was to see if the regular reed switches can be closed by the magnetic field created by a 1A current.I got an opportunity to try out my recently USB power meter and adjustable load.
Since I am not sure how the reed switch is mounted inside the sensor, I tried different orientations but nothing triggered the sensor. I also tried 2A but that wasn't enough either.
I need a non-invasive way to know if (how much) current is flowing in a DC cable. I was hoping the reed switch would be an easy way. My next hope is something like a SCT-013, unless someone has suggestions for other sensors. Requirements: 6-48V DC. 0.5-10A. I only need to know if the circuit is consuming >0.5A, no need for an exact measurement.
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@mfalkvidd Hall sensor?
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@gohan SCT-013 is a hall-based sensor I think. I was looking for more specific that just the type of sensor.
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@mfalkvidd said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
SCT-013 is a hall-based sensor I think.
No, it's only a current transformer, and you possibly need (at least) a burden resistor to measure the current. Ofcourse we already have a thread on it
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@yveaux yes I've read that thread and I would choose one of the sct-013 variants that already contains a burden resistor.
