1. For me, my electronics is not as good as my development skills ;-). But I gave it a try. According to the datasheet the NRF24 will consume about 14 mA max. My cable is 2 m max, so then the resistance is 0,16ohms. So if I understand correctly the voltage drop would be 0,00224 volt. Sounds neglegtable to me? Also; can't I just measure the voltage at the end of the cable once it's connected to the RPI?

2. At the stackoverflow page somebody says: "In an answer on a Microchip forum, Jan Axelson, author of 'Serial Port Complete', claims a maximum cable length of 10' for the SPI bus. Other posts have mentioned the same figure.". So 10" is about 3 metres, so I am within that range. I do understand though that this isn't a preferred thing to do.

Which makes me wonder how other people handle this. I mean; I think ideally you'd want the radio that is connected to the controller in the most 'center' way of the home, right? So do people just hange the Pi and the whole shebang to the ceiling? I'd rather put the controller in the closet where my modem and router are, and then only wire the receiver to outside the closet. Isn't there a better way to do this?

I haven't started on my project yet, so I am glad to read some more information here.

@stormy: could you please add a bit of documentation and/or links to (english) documentation about how to put the bootloader on the atmel? Personally I haven't done this before; my Arduino's already had the right bootloader. I would like to know what the recommended uploader would be (maybe with a link or picture?) and what the recommended procedure would be to upload this.

Thanks for opening my eyes about this @magpern

1. For me, my electronics is not as good as my development skills ;-). But I gave it a try. According to the datasheet the NRF24 will consume about 14 mA max. My cable is 2 m max, so then the resistance is 0,16ohms. So if I understand correctly the voltage drop would be 0,00224 volt. Sounds neglegtable to me? Also; can't I just measure the voltage at the end of the cable once it's connected to the RPI?

2. At the stackoverflow page somebody says: "In an answer on a Microchip forum, Jan Axelson, author of 'Serial Port Complete', claims a maximum cable length of 10' for the SPI bus. Other posts have mentioned the same figure.". So 10" is about 3 metres, so I am within that range. I do understand though that this isn't a preferred thing to do.

Which makes me wonder how other people handle this. I mean; I think ideally you'd want the radio that is connected to the controller in the most 'center' way of the home, right? So do people just hange the Pi and the whole shebang to the ceiling? I'd rather put the controller in the closet where my modem and router are, and then only wire the receiver to outside the closet. Isn't there a better way to do this?

Thank you for your reply. I did rename the files, and then I could view the design. I do understand now why the other drill file wasn't selected. I ordered 10 pieces and am very excited about it.

Another thing I was wondering; could I leave out 1 relay if I only need one? I only have single switches at the moment. Even if I'd install double switches, the second switch would probably be a 'virtual' switch that isn't connected to a relay anyways.

Great project!

Ok, one more question. I thought I read somewhere that the wiring between the RPI and de radio should be as short as possible, but I can't find exactly where I read that anymore.

At another project (zigbee2mqtt) I read that users had better reception when they placed the transceiver further away from the controller, because there was less inteference. So if possible, I would like to use a piece of UTP cable to wire the radio to the raspberry pi. That way I can put the rpi inside a closet, but the radio outside.

So I am not sure if longer wires (say 2, 3 meters) is going to be a problem?

@marceloaqno Sorry to kick this old topic, but I will soon be trying to build my gateway with a Raspberry pi. I was wondering if the capacitor is also required for the gateway, or just for the nodes?

Because at the instruction page on how to wire and build a Raspberry Pi gateway, the capacitor isn't mentioned.

I'll be using a RPI 1 and NRF24L01+

I think I am one step further now. For Seeed Studio, I renamed the files (see below). I am not sure though about the "edge cuts". But when I check the viewer in Seeed Studio, I guess the PCB looks okay, except that I am missing one DRL file. The -NPTH.DRL is not used for the design. Is this normal?

I renamed the files to this:

MySensors_InCan-B.Cu.GBL
MySensors_InCan-B.Mask.GBS
MySensors_InCan-B.SilkS.GBO
MySensors_InCan-Edge.Cuts.GKO
MySensors_InCan-F.Cu.GTL
MySensors_InCan-F.Mask.GTS
MySensors_InCan-F.SilkS.GTO
MySensors_InCan-NPTH.DRL
MySensors_InCan-PTH.DRL

Gerber viewer looks like this:

So where is MySensors_InCan-NPTH.DRL ??

I would really want to try and build this, but I don't have a clue how to get started. I'm not afraid to solder the pieces to the board, but I have never ordered a board before. Where should I go, and what files do I need?

I check pcbaway, but the site is pretty overwhelming for me

Forgive me if this isn't the right place to ask; but as a beginner, where do I start? How can I order this thing, or any other stuff from OpenHardware.io ? I see so many design files, I'm not sure what to do with them. Soldering the thing I can probably manage, but is there a guide available how to order the PCB, and maybe the parts as well?

I am aware of the open source concept, I wasn't trying to push something or somebody ;-). It just surprised me a bit that this issue comes up in a newer version of the library.

I was wondering; how can I easily switch to a lower version of MySensors? Are you using the Arduino IDE to do so? I read some github issues about maintaining libraries with different versions, and it seems to be rather complicated or unsupported even. So what is the recommended way if I want to use version 2.1.1.

Maybe I can already test my communication while I'm waiting for my logic level shifters to arrive.

@mfalkvidd Ok, no problem. So if I understand correctly, a bug appeared in the newer MySensors lib, so this would probably be fixed in the future, because of the issue that was opened on github?

I will switch to the atmega 328 for my current. When I was even more a rookie than I am now, I didn't pay any attention to the chips that was on the pro mini. So now I have a bunch of those atmega168's. Maybe I could still use them as a door sensor. I imagine this shouldn't take too much extra memory.