Hello everyone,

First off, I want to say that I am loving creating sensors and working with the mysensors api. I recently ran into an issue and was looking for some advice. I currently have been using 5V arduino pro minis as the brains of my sensors and everything is working great. I have built three sensors and am working on two more. The last two I want to make require the use of batteries rather than a wall wart power supply.
I have looked over the page about powering the sensors using batteries but I guess I dont completely understand how to make it work. Everywhere I read mentions they are using the 3.3 V pro minis and I have the 5V models.
Here is was I have available to use:
5V arduino pro mini
4xAA battery pack - outputs ~ 6.5V with brand new batteries
10 1N4001 Diodes - if I put three in series the voltage drops to around 5.5V

I would like to monitor the battery level if possible but at this point I would just like to be able to power the sensor. I dont understand this part at all. Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone,

I have run into a snag while trying to connect the MQTT Ethernet Gateway to Openhab. I hope this is the right location to post this. If not, let me know. The problem I have run into is in Openhab, the data that I am trying to get from the sensor and show up in Openhab is not showing. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have tried to include as much information as possible.

I have successfully built and compiled the MQTT Ethernet gateway and have connected the radio (nRF24L01+). I am using an Arduino UNO with a Wiznet W5100 Ethernet Shield. Opening the serial monitor shows the following:
Started!
<<10 12 00 06 4D 51 49 73 64 70 03 02 00 3C 00 04 4D 51 54 54

20 02 00 00
0;0;3;0;9;read: 20-20-0 s=1,c=1,t=0,pt=7,l=5:66.2
MyMQTT/20/1/V_TEMP

30 18 00 12 4D 79 4D 51 54 54 2F 32 30 2F 31 2F 56 5F 54 45 4D 50 36 36 2E 32
0;0;3;0;9;read: 20-20-0 s=0,c=1,t=1,pt=7,l=5:48.0
MyMQTT/20/0/V_HUM

30 17 00 11 4D 79 4D 51 54 54 2F 32 30 2F 30 2F 56 5F 48 55 4D 34 38 2E 30
<<C0 00

D0 00
0;0;3;0;9;read: 20-20-0 s=0,c=1,t=1,pt=7,l=5:47.0
...

I also have a humidity/temperature sensor built using an Arduino Pro Mini 5V 16MHz, nRF24L01+ radio and a DHT11 sensor. When I open its serial monitor it shows the following:
sensor started, id 20
send: 20-20-0-0 s=255,c=0,t=17,pt=0,l=5,st=ok:1.4.1
send: 20-20-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=6,pt=1,l=1,st=ok:0
read: 0-0-20 s=255,c=3,t=6,pt=0,l=1:M
send: 20-20-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=11,pt=0,l=8,st=ok:Humidity
send: 20-20-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=12,pt=0,l=3,st=ok:1.0
send: 20-20-0-0 s=0,c=0,t=7,pt=0,l=5,st=ok:1.4.1
send: 20-20-0-0 s=1,c=0,t=6,pt=0,l=5,st=ok:1.4.1
send: 20-20-0-0 s=1,c=1,t=0,pt=7,l=5,st=ok:64.4
T: 64.40
send: 20-20-0-0 s=0,c=1,t=1,pt=7,l=5,st=ok:41.0
H: 41.00
send: 20-20-0-0 s=1,c=1,t=0,pt=7,l=5,st=ok:66.2
T: 66.20
...

From these two outputs, I assume that the sensor is sending its data to the MQTT gateway and the gateway is receiving it but somewhere between the gateway and openhab running on my raspberry pi there is some kind of problem.

Moving on to the OpenHAB configuration - currently running version 1.6.1 on my Raspberry PI
In openhab.cfg in the section entitled MQTT Transport I have defined the following:

URL to the MQTT broker, e.g. tcp://localhost:1883 or ssl://localhost:8883

mqtt:mysensor.url=tcp://192.168.2.150:1883

Optional. Client id (max 23 chars) to use when connecting to the broker.

If not provided a default one is generated.

mqtt:mysensor.clientId=MyMQTT

I have added to the addons folder org.openhab.binding.mqtt-1.6.1.jar

I think this is where the problem may lie... I could be wrong.
In my .items file I have the following mqtt bindings:
Number Temperature_MainFloor_Nursery_Office "Temperature [%.1f °F]" <temperature> (MainFloor_Nursery_Office) {mqtt="<[mysensor:MyMQTT/20/1/V_TEMP:state:default]"}
Number Humidity_MainFloor_Nursery_Office "Humidity [%.1f %%]" <pressure> (MainFloor_Nursery_Office) {mqtt="<[mysensor:MyMQTT/20/0/V_HUM:state:default]"}
String sketch20 "Sketch name for node id 20 is [%s]" (MainFloor_Nursery_Office) {mqtt="<[mysensor:MyMQTT/20/255/V_SKETCH_NAME:state:default]"}

I am using the MySensors library 1.4 and Arduino IDE 1.0.6
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

EDIT: sorry for the large font. I copied/pasted and cant figure out how to change it.

@Hacker007 I tried adding #include DigitalIO.h and sure enough it allowed the code to compile. I still am unsure if it will work due to incorrect radios from "Alice". Thanks for the comment.

@hek I just checked the version of the chips and sure enough they are NOT the '+' variant. What is the difference between the two variants? I did purchase the set of 10pcs from the link in the MySensors store. I guess my next move is to contact the seller "Alice". Thanks for pointing me to the link.

Hi all,

First off, I am new to the world of Arduino and am excited to get involved. I am working on compiling the MQTT Gateway sketch and am running into a few problems. I have gone through and defined the TCP_PORT, IP_ADDRESS, and the MAC. I have also removed the '//' before the #define SOFTSPI in the RF24_config.h file. The setup I currently am using is an Arduino UNO with an W5100 Ethernet Shield on top. The radio was wired up following the instructions on the page about how to build the MQTT gateway. I am using the Arduino IDE software 1.0.6. I have included the necessary files. Also I am using MySensors library 1.4.
Now that I have explained the setup I have, heres the issues i'm running into.

When I verify the code prior to uploading the sketch, I get the following errors.
MySensors/utility/RF24.h:51: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of 'SoftSPI' with no type.
MySensors/utility/RF24.h:51: error: expected ';' before '<'.

Line 51 of RF24.h reads:
SoftSPI<SOFT_SPI_MISO_PIN, SOFT_SPI_MOSI_PIN, SOFT_SPI_SCK_PIN, SPI_MODE> spi;

I have not changed anything in RF24.h. I downloaded the files directly from the download link on mysensors.org.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

First off, Im new to this forum and look forward to participating. I have been planning to make my first arduino sensor network for some time and have been researching constantly. I already have an Arduino uno with its W5100 based ethernet shield. I was looking to buy some arduino pro minis to act as sensor nodes. The question I have is since I plan to use the uno with its ethernet shield as the MQTT gateway does it matter what version of the Arduino pro mini I buy? I know the Uno has a 16MHz clock whereas the 3.3V arduino pro mini has a 8MHz clock. Does this make a difference in the overall communication on the network? Would it be better to get the 5V pro minis with a matching 16MHz clock instead? Thanks.