@sundberg84 I meant to post a picture, then last night I discovered my issue. I soldered all the components except the pro mini! Once I did that, everything started working. I did discover that mys was reporting "No potential parents replied to find parent request." Once I changed my radio cap from 4.7 to 47 it started sending messages immediately.

Here's my first node (I haven't removed components from the pro mini yet for extended battery life), with bare minimum components in all it's battery-powered newbie glory!

Thanks!

After running a RPi 3 openHAB/MySensors gateway for months with some Nano nodes and zero issues, I decided to branch out and add some nodes using Easy/Newbie PCB.

After wiring everything up, the new battery-powered 3.3v node connected to the gateway immediately and started reporting battery levels. Fantastic!

After a couple hours, data wasn't getting logged in my mqtt broker anymore. I started troubleshooting and looking at logs and found no reason why it would have stopped connecting to the gateway when I had made no changes to the circuit.

I decided to start with a fresh set of components and built a duplicate of the node. It connected right away but then experienced the same symptoms.

This is my node setup:

• Easy/Newbie PCB board as mentioned above (rev 10)
• Arduino pro mini clone
• NRF24L01+
• 3.3v step-up booster
• caps as recommended in the battery setup of newbie pcb and across radio
• Arduino IDE 1.8.9
• MySensors lib 2.3.1
• bare minimum sketch that only reports battery
• Battery powered by 2xAA batteries

This is my gateway setup:

• Raspberry Pi 3 with MySensors 2.3.2-beta built as mqtt gateway
• NRF24L01+ radio
• 4.7uF cap across radio

Here are the things I've tried/checked:

• checked voltages at every point on the PCB: caps, booster, battery, radio, arduino, etc, everything is well within acceptable ranges
• checked soldered connections several times
• replaced radios, caps
• Tried various distances between radios from 6 inches to 6 feet.

All my other Arduino Nano nodes are powered by wall warts and continue to have no problems sending and receiving messages.

Based on the logs (on both the battery powered nodes) it seems that the nodes have no problems transmitting messages, and the gateway is receiving them. If I'm understanding the logs correctly, it seems that the nodes are not always receiving messages from the gateway.

Here is logging from the node:

361084 TSF:MSG:SEND,72-72-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
363094 !TSM:FPAR:FAIL
363096 TSM:FAIL:CNT=7
363098 TSM:FAIL:DIS
363100 TSF:TDI:TSL
423104 TSM:FAIL:RE-INIT
423106 TSM:INIT
423112 TSM:INIT:TSP OK
423116 TSM:INIT:STATID=72
423118 TSF:SID:OK,ID=72
423120 TSM:FPAR
423157 TSF:MSG:SEND,72-72-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
425166 !TSM:FPAR:NO REPLY
425168 TSM:FPAR
425205 TSF:MSG:SEND,72-72-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
427214 !TSM:FPAR:NO REPLY
427216 TSM:FPAR
427253 TSF:MSG:SEND,72-72-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
429262 !TSM:FPAR:NO REPLY
429264 TSM:FPAR
429301 TSF:MSG:SEND,72-72-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
431310 !TSM:FPAR:FAIL
431312 TSM:FAIL:CNT=7
431314 TSM:FAIL:DIS
431316 TSF:TDI:TSL

Here is logging from the gateway:

TSF:MSG:READ,72-72-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
TSF:MSG:BC
TSF:MSG:FPAR REQ,ID=72
TSF:CKU:OK,FCTRL
TSF:MSG:GWL OK
!TSF:MSG:SEND,0-0-72-72,s=255,c=3,t=8,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=NACK:0
TSF:MSG:READ,72-72-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
TSF:MSG:BC
TSF:MSG:FPAR REQ,ID=72
TSF:CKU:OK,FCTRL
TSF:MSG:GWL OK
!TSF:MSG:SEND,0-0-72-72,s=255,c=3,t=8,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=NACK:0
TSF:MSG:READ,72-72-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
TSF:MSG:BC
TSF:MSG:FPAR REQ,ID=72
TSF:CKU:OK,FCTRL
TSF:MSG:GWL OK
!TSF:MSG:SEND,0-0-72-72,s=255,c=3,t=8,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=NACK:0

Finally, here's a picture of one of the nodes (note that I resoldered the radio cap to be as close to the PCB as I could):

A final note, despite everything I have read in documentation, forums, data sheets, and in a moment of desperation, I switched to a 5v bench power supply, just to see.

It works. The node connects to the gateway, I can see in the logs the messages going back and forth. The pro mini is only getting 3.3v due to the booster, but the radio is getting 5v when measuring across the radios ground/vcc pins. I would have expected it to fry the radio almost immediately. EDIT radio stopped working after 5 minutes, but maybe this still provides some insight? Ha! I'm at a loss to explain this and why it's the only scenario in which the node and gateway can communicate consistently.

Any ideas on what could be wrong, here?

@sundberg84 I know that everything I've read says the radio cannot use 5v, but when hooked up to my bench power supply and connecting my multimeter leads to the NRF24L01+, it says it's getting 5v AND it's the only scenario where the node can successfully find the gateway and send/receive data.

I tried swapping out the radio and it was the exact same scenario. I'm getting NACK debugging messages on the gateway when it's trying to accept the node as a child. The only thing I haven't tried is replacing the booster.

For the moment, I wired up a second node with all new components and (after remembering to solder everything) it connected to the gateway right away. It's been running for about 30 minutes, so I'll post back after a time when I know if it will stop working or run until the batteries drain completely.

Side note: thanks for making such an awesome board!

@sundberg84 So as it turns out, it worked great for about a day while I was letting it run to test battery life. Suddenly my gateway was not receiving any messages from my node.

• I checked all the caps, the booster, etc.
• I tried a few different caps for the radio up to 100uF
• The voltage on the radio matched the voltage from the battery.
• I tried switching to the REG jumper and wiring across the voltage regulator, the radio was then getting 3.3v from the booster, but still no communication between the node and gateway
• I also tried using my bench power supply for reg 3.3v.

Strangely, the ONLY thing that worked was when I used the 5v post on my bench power supply (with the BAT jumper, no voltage converter)

I have not yet tried swapping out the radio since it works with 5v, but I'm unsure what to try next. I have 6 other mys nodes communicating with my gateway with no problems and greater distances (all using nanos).

Any suggestions? Apologies if this doesn't sound like an issue with the board, I can post in the troubleshooting forum if you think it's a radio problem.

@sundberg84 I meant to post a picture, then last night I discovered my issue. I soldered all the components except the pro mini! Once I did that, everything started working. I did discover that mys was reporting "No potential parents replied to find parent request." Once I changed my radio cap from 4.7 to 47 it started sending messages immediately.

Here's my first node (I haven't removed components from the pro mini yet for extended battery life), with bare minimum components in all it's battery-powered newbie glory!

Thanks!

Excited to get started with this board, ordered 10 and soldered up the basic components for a 3.3v battery-powered sensor last night. Got everything soldered exactly as in the battery operated picture for rev 10 on the newbie-pcb page with the exception of the D5 resistor.

When I connect the batteries to the PCB, the LED on the pro mini does not turn on, so I'm assuming it's not getting power. When I connect the battery to RAW, the LED on the pro mini turns on. Any ideas on where I should start troubleshooting before I start removing and replacing components?

I know the pro mini is good, I've uploaded a sketch to it using FTDI. I'm pretty sure my soldered connections are ok. I've double checked caps and resistors. I don't think I checked the step-up booster, so I'll try to test that to ensure it's functioning correctly, but any advice would be really appreciated!