I have just received 2 of these devices and will be making the mods posted over the next week or so but I am intrigued. Is the iBoard a valid product or are we trying to do something unintended with the mysensor software?

What I mean is this... how can someone manufacture and sell a duino which requires hardware modifications for it's unique selling characteristics to work? if you sell an Ethernet/RF24 (Header) duino shouldnt it work out of the box?

Thanks,

Didn't spot those, mainly because they looked like 5v > 3.3v in the heading.

I'll maybe buy some of those plus find some of the 5V ones i see in the manufacturers spec sheet.

I have a fairly long driveway/plot (called a battleaxe in Aus) which I was thinking of putting sensor/repeaters devices down and switching the main 12v supply on/off when the sensors are triggered.

Along with that I was thinking that I could charge the sensor/repeater batteries when the 12v was on, all in all though it was getting pretty complicated.

Am now thinking that I could leave the 12v on most of the time and then powering both the arduino's and lights from it (lights would have relays to switch them on and off).

That would leave me with a requirement to produce 3.3v from the 12v supply.

Has anyone done this?

Am thinking of either purchasing a prebuilt device like this 12v Led Driver - EBAY or a building one using veroboard. Reality is the vero option would be more expensive...

Or is there a better option? something like leveraging the power regulator on the arduino to do the step down for example?

Or maybe even changing the main 12v supply to a 5v one and also changing the bulbs over to LED.

Cheers

Atomic

Still digging away here, and confused by what I see as a conflict regarding the physical layout of the ethernet shield and the documentation when used with the Mega.

The physical layout (http://shieldlist.org/arduino/ethernet-v5 for example) clearly shows the range of connectivity, when combined with a mega (http://www.onemansanthology.com/images/arduino/Arduino-Mega-2560-with-ethernet-shield-1024.JPG). It's clear that the high end IO pins are not connected.

The documentation however states that when combined with a Mega that the ethernet shield uses different IO pins for communication (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoEthernetShield

"Arduino communicates with both the W5100 and SD card using the SPI bus (through the ICSP header). This is on digital pins 10, 11, 12, and 13 on the Uno and pins 50, 51, and 52 on the Mega. On both boards, pin 10 is used to select the W5100 and pin 4 for the SD card"

How does the shield/mega combo achieve this? or is it simply a documentation flaw? and is it potentially the reason for the hanging I'm experiencing due to misconfiguration.?

I'll play around tonight with the mega stated io pins to see if it works.

Interested in how you will package this? will the recorded temp be affected by the duino if it's enclosed?

@jocke4u said:

@stofakiller said:

I found module from DX that i want to try, i dont want to mess with 220v cables So i waiting for this one to come
http://www.dx.com/p/yqj010504-single-phase-ac-current-sensor-module-w-active-output-deep-blue-5a-294209#.VDOyK2d_t8E

Hmm, how can you get the 230V cable into the transformer without mess with it
You need to get a split core CT that you can open without touching high voltage lines; something like this (the blue one)
http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/buildingblocks/ct-sensors-interface

You cant... not only that you need a single wire so you cant for example shove a 3 wire 'kettle lead' through it. Stick to the split core approach, same principle and easier to implement.

There's a bunch of extra small clones out there, some orientated towards clothing (such as the lilypad) but with interesting form factors (and shields for batteries etc.).

Has anyone had any luck creating sensors using these devices? I like the idea of the round ones for example as they would allow me to produce a sensor almost like a small sphere (Thinking of the Fibaro sensor form factor...).

Is there anything that would be considered a minimal spec to run a sensor? i.e. certain interrupts, io numbers etc.? which would be tested against these odd machines?

Cheers

Atomic.

@Anticimex said:

I'm on a clone. I have not heard of anybody that have managed to run the W5100 module with RF reliably actually.

Am using a Jaycar EtherTen (http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4216) with RF fine. Its based on the ATmega328P.

Couldnt get a mega working with the ethernet shield, couldnt get the mega working with ethernet module, nor a mini or micro clone.

Am wondering if there's more to it than the context of SPI hogger but will happily take any fix. I'd rather be using the mega as the extra memory will allow me to evolve my gateway somewhat.

Trying to follow the thread behind that bug. Which combo worked for you in the end? It's all very confusing

Have a couple of each (2 mega's 2 shields), tried all four combinations with and without wireless module attached.

They all seem to have the same problem on startup, they never return from the following line in Startup():

 "gw.begin(RF24_PA_LEVEL_GW, RF24_CHANNEL, RF24_DATARATE, writeEthernet);"

I know theres a thread targetting the Mega as being unable to support the power requirements, but i find it odd that I can run a simplistic web server sketch and if I comment out the gw.begin() the ethernet controller script runs much further (albiet useless without the wireless...).

It seems to be a common combination - i.e. Mega with ethernet shield and without the wireless attached it's not drawing any extra power..

Any thoughts? I'm way out of my depth here. I can code but no real idea of the connectivity etc. that's used with Arduino's.

i did spot this page: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoEthernetShield which implies that with a Mega different IO pins are used, however that doesnt make sense to me (because the shield still fits over the same pins as the uno). However more interestingly it talks about the following:

"On the Mega, the hardware SS pin, 53, is not used to select either the W5100 or the SD card, but it must be kept as an output or the SPI interface won't work."

Assuming the pin numbers aren't changed does the comments about the SS pin point to a particular conflict with the gw.startup? I do have an unused SD card slot.

I'm really keen to get this going, the extra memory space on the mega will be invaluable for my development.

Atomic.