Hello everybody,

i build a RFID garage opener as mysensors node.

On the inside we have a arduino nano + 2-relay module from china + Adafruit Breakout Board for RFM69HCW (+5V). Everything is prepared to add a potentiometer to get the position of the garage door.

I have an issue with the range. The gateway is on the same level (basement) just two walls away and i get no connection. In the same room everything works. After one wall i start to loose packages. So the mysensor part is not in use. Till now everybody enjoys the main function: Opening the garage with a RFID-tag.

On the outside is the RC522 RFID part. And two LEDs with the transistor to switch the power. it looks so badly because forgot somehow about this part and had no space left.

The housing fits to the existing lock and screw points. I made the design in freecad.

I am still working on the design i already made a bigger and nicer version. But during the winter at cold temperatures gets the plate a bad warp. I am thinking to make a steel plate with just the RFID-part under plastic.

Hello everybody,

i found the reason for the issue... I connected already a BMP280 to the I2C pins of the Feather M0 board. To check one thing after another i did not yet connect the power supply to the BMP280. It works if i solder disconnect the BMP280 from SDA&SCL and also if i connect the 3,3V of the BMP280.

It seems that the not powered BMP280 is confusing the I2C-bus so badly that the EEPROM library can not handle it. In my opinion should this kind of "mistake" in the wiring not lead to a complete black-out.

Is the external EEPROM usage in general for SAMD hardware okay? In my case i use the Feather M0 which has no external EEPROM connected. Somehow i think that it was done for the Sensebender board?

I would suggest to

• add a debug message at the beginning of the hwInit in the mysensor library that everybody can see that the library starts to works
• put the external EEPROM functionality in a #define switch or better use some internal EEPROM function

By the way is something with the clock also wrong.
My Serial is running at 9600 - but the Software says #define MY_BAUD_RATE (115200ul)..

i am not very familiar with github and how to use it. If it is welcome that a mechanical guy tries to implement something like above in the library, contact me for a try

best regards
Jens

Hi,

as an "advanced hobbiest" i can tell why i am not getting really warm with mysensors.. I have a gateway and two nodes. One node (RFID garage opener) is working now but has range issues that i can not reach the gateway in the place i need it. And the other is a temperature sensor to play. So it works, but in real it does not, and to be honest the functionality is just nice to have for the moment
In my case i got stuck in details with my configuration. The one night a month i have to code is not enough to solve it. (and of course i am not a professional)

In the first view does mysensors look very cool. It wants to be an easy to use arduino library. A lot of examples for different gateways and nodes. Seems to be easy, "build = fun", no?

No, it is not that easy.
Mysensors is a framework. It hijacks already base functions of arduino.
As soon as you leave the application which is given in the example something does not work. And than you have to dick deep in the functionality of the mysensor framework and it is not easy to collect all necessary information in the documentation - at least for me.

examples:

• Standard EEPROM functions are hijacked and can not be used as you are used to.
• pin configuration is done in the framework. If your other things connected to the MCU need also a special treatment (RST-pin) you need to find out how
• took me a while to release that there is a completely new version 2.0 of the radio-driver which worked for me instantly and i still no not know why the same code does not work with the standard version.. And you should use the newest development branch, not the released one
• the examples are not consistent to each other and are not even compatible in all cases...

So i think it is difficult to catch the user or it is not clear which kind of user is addressed.

The normal arduino dummy user can use it for the very simple examples. As soon he wants to combine function and the issues come, he will get stucked. And of course you get the same function in the meanwhile out of the box from a lot of cheap commercial products. Maybe you have different systems running but for that money you can buy every two years new things. And most people use a Controller which can handle directly the different systems and the configration there is easier. The Controllers made big improvements in user friendly configuration!

The advanced user is getting rare. And honestly the mysensor framework is so big with all that #define-cases for the different platforms and configurations that it takes a while to go through and find your adaption. This users have already made their own private libraries which will not work directly on the mysesnors framework. They switch to a different system or maybe start extract the things they need from mysensors.

And than i also have the impression that the help in the forum is "superficial". Not because the forum does not want to help.
The problems occur in the system and it is not easily clear why something does not work without taking the time and go thorugh everything.
It is open source and the documentation is suffering. The contributors have limited time and nobody can expect to get a 24/7 full support.
Everything okay, please do not misunderstand me, i really appreciate the work behind mysensors and i can only imagine complicated it is to keep such a system administrated.

But to come back to the beginning it is the question which user should be addressed.
For the dummy user the documentation should be reduced but therefor everything should be consistent and straight. As the Controller software does, the work should focus on not technical functionality for easy configuration and usage.

For the advanced user the documentation should go more in detail in general in one place and the code should focus on a layer structure to make it easier to operate on different systems or exchange modules/versions (maybe without the arduino framework as base or an approach as FreeRTOS).
And i am not sure if it is just me, but i could imagine it would help to make it easier to get part of the active community and bring improved code or new functions back in the mysensors-core.

greeting from Germany
Jens

P.S.: i am sorry that i did not gender everything and always wrote "he" as "the user". Should of course also be a woman or girl or ...

yes, that's the point: who is the user? And than focus on how to satisfy the user

I do not think that it is wrong or less valueable to set up an easy to use software that every dummy-youtuber can describe in a 5minutes clip.

Let me compare again with the development on the controller side.
When i started to search for home automation FHEM was very famous as one example. Such a strong system. It has been the first possibility to handle the different devices. If you have been able to get something work after hours of searching through the forum and editing various config files, it felt so cool, you are a hacker. Not every newbie could do...
Now you find approaches which are so easy to use via a webinterface. You get ready to use packages for different linux distributions and find most devices in auto configuration. That is contamporary and sexy.

In the end even the experts take it. Why not, they can spend the time in hacking on other cool stuff.
And of course in the background are still the cool hacker working on the code or developing extensions but the user just uses it and does not be able to program.
Because so many user use it also more pro's work on it and because the youtuber can get 10 minutes fame even more user use it and so on and so..

Hi,

as an "advanced hobbiest" i can tell why i am not getting really warm with mysensors.. I have a gateway and two nodes. One node (RFID garage opener) is working now but has range issues that i can not reach the gateway in the place i need it. And the other is a temperature sensor to play. So it works, but in real it does not, and to be honest the functionality is just nice to have for the moment
In my case i got stuck in details with my configuration. The one night a month i have to code is not enough to solve it. (and of course i am not a professional)

In the first view does mysensors look very cool. It wants to be an easy to use arduino library. A lot of examples for different gateways and nodes. Seems to be easy, "build = fun", no?

No, it is not that easy.
Mysensors is a framework. It hijacks already base functions of arduino.
As soon as you leave the application which is given in the example something does not work. And than you have to dick deep in the functionality of the mysensor framework and it is not easy to collect all necessary information in the documentation - at least for me.

examples:

• Standard EEPROM functions are hijacked and can not be used as you are used to.
• pin configuration is done in the framework. If your other things connected to the MCU need also a special treatment (RST-pin) you need to find out how
• took me a while to release that there is a completely new version 2.0 of the radio-driver which worked for me instantly and i still no not know why the same code does not work with the standard version.. And you should use the newest development branch, not the released one
• the examples are not consistent to each other and are not even compatible in all cases...

So i think it is difficult to catch the user or it is not clear which kind of user is addressed.

The normal arduino dummy user can use it for the very simple examples. As soon he wants to combine function and the issues come, he will get stucked. And of course you get the same function in the meanwhile out of the box from a lot of cheap commercial products. Maybe you have different systems running but for that money you can buy every two years new things. And most people use a Controller which can handle directly the different systems and the configration there is easier. The Controllers made big improvements in user friendly configuration!

The advanced user is getting rare. And honestly the mysensor framework is so big with all that #define-cases for the different platforms and configurations that it takes a while to go through and find your adaption. This users have already made their own private libraries which will not work directly on the mysesnors framework. They switch to a different system or maybe start extract the things they need from mysensors.

And than i also have the impression that the help in the forum is "superficial". Not because the forum does not want to help.
The problems occur in the system and it is not easily clear why something does not work without taking the time and go thorugh everything.
It is open source and the documentation is suffering. The contributors have limited time and nobody can expect to get a 24/7 full support.
Everything okay, please do not misunderstand me, i really appreciate the work behind mysensors and i can only imagine complicated it is to keep such a system administrated.

But to come back to the beginning it is the question which user should be addressed.
For the dummy user the documentation should be reduced but therefor everything should be consistent and straight. As the Controller software does, the work should focus on not technical functionality for easy configuration and usage.

For the advanced user the documentation should go more in detail in general in one place and the code should focus on a layer structure to make it easier to operate on different systems or exchange modules/versions (maybe without the arduino framework as base or an approach as FreeRTOS).
And i am not sure if it is just me, but i could imagine it would help to make it easier to get part of the active community and bring improved code or new functions back in the mysensors-core.

greeting from Germany
Jens

P.S.: i am sorry that i did not gender everything and always wrote "he" as "the user". Should of course also be a woman or girl or ...

The mysensor-library s building some kind of own operating system It hijacks a lot of things If you want to use them, you need to know how. For example save&read from EEPROM.
Of course it is possible to handle everything.

FreeRTOS would set the system on a standard base.
Mysensor could "use" the functionality of FreeRTOS including different platforms and focus on the software for radio communication, security, etc..

But FreeRTOS is also not very easy to understand and there are some tricky things to consider. In the end is it also complicated to understand everything as soon you need to go in detail. i am pretty sure that you would have had this or other questions if mysensors would set up on FreeRTOS.

In the end a normal mysensor node just wants to send some collected data over the air and is not doing a lot of other things in parallel.
So I dont know if it would make it more easy or more complicated.

Maybe it is worse a thought if somebody starts to think about mysensor 3.0?

Hello everybody,

i build a RFID garage opener as mysensors node.

On the inside we have a arduino nano + 2-relay module from china + Adafruit Breakout Board for RFM69HCW (+5V). Everything is prepared to add a potentiometer to get the position of the garage door.

I have an issue with the range. The gateway is on the same level (basement) just two walls away and i get no connection. In the same room everything works. After one wall i start to loose packages. So the mysensor part is not in use. Till now everybody enjoys the main function: Opening the garage with a RFID-tag.

On the outside is the RC522 RFID part. And two LEDs with the transistor to switch the power. it looks so badly because forgot somehow about this part and had no space left.

The housing fits to the existing lock and screw points. I made the design in freecad.

I am still working on the design i already made a bigger and nicer version. But during the winter at cold temperatures gets the plate a bad warp. I am thinking to make a steel plate with just the RFID-part under plastic.

I was wondering about the lengths for the antennas mentioned on this page.

For 868Mhz is mentioned a length of 82.2 mm on this page. The length most often mentioned over the internet - as first result of the 1/4 wave calculation - is 86,5mm.
Searching a little deeper through the internet, i found that the antenna should be "a little shorter". Then they end up with around -1cm shorter or something around or more.
One page mentioned the physically effect that the wave is moving in chopper around 5% slower as the theoratical speed. If i substract 5% of 86,5mm i end up with the here mentioned 82,2mm.

I was very suprised about the different "approaches" for such a basic thing as antenna length every single . As most of the application over the internet seem to work somehow with all that different lengths, it seems to be just a fine-tuning thing.
Anyway, i think it would be nice to mention this details here because most people will wonder about the 82,2mm in the first view...

best regards
Jens

I finished the gateway some time ago. here are some pictures

Hello everybody,

i found the reason for the issue... I connected already a BMP280 to the I2C pins of the Feather M0 board. To check one thing after another i did not yet connect the power supply to the BMP280. It works if i solder disconnect the BMP280 from SDA&SCL and also if i connect the 3,3V of the BMP280.

It seems that the not powered BMP280 is confusing the I2C-bus so badly that the EEPROM library can not handle it. In my opinion should this kind of "mistake" in the wiring not lead to a complete black-out.

Is the external EEPROM usage in general for SAMD hardware okay? In my case i use the Feather M0 which has no external EEPROM connected. Somehow i think that it was done for the Sensebender board?

I would suggest to

• add a debug message at the beginning of the hwInit in the mysensor library that everybody can see that the library starts to works
• put the external EEPROM functionality in a #define switch or better use some internal EEPROM function

By the way is something with the clock also wrong.
My Serial is running at 9600 - but the Software says #define MY_BAUD_RATE (115200ul)..

i am not very familiar with github and how to use it. If it is welcome that a mechanical guy tries to implement something like above in the library, contact me for a try

best regards
Jens

Hello everybody,

i set up my gateway so far and everything worked fine.
Now i soldered all parts nicely on a board and put it in the final housing. But the gateway make gave no message on the Serial.

I followed the code and put after each line an output to the Serial to find the position where it stucks. Finally i found it:
```

MY_DEBUGDEVICE.println(F("AFTER Wait for synchronization of registers between the clock domains")); 
const uint8_t eepInit = eep.begin(MY_EXT_EEPROM_TWI_CLOCK, &Wire);
MY_DEBUGDEVICE.println(F("AFTER eep.begin(MY_EXT_EEPROM_TWI_CLOCK, &Wire);"));

The second message does not arrive on my computer. I would assume that the function eep.begin runs infinite..??

Interesting for me is that also the reset-button on the adafruit-board does not bring back the controller. After the reset no message is displayed?
I need to upload the sketch to the board again to re-start the software?

I saw that the watchdog is set before. I thought that the watchdog should also make some kind of reset if the software gets stucked during the eeprom init.

I found in the troubleshooting a section that "on rare occasions you might need to clear this memory back to the factory default."
But the sketch is hanging up at the same position.

i do not know what to try next... Is it possible that the EEPROM section on the controller got damaged?
Could somebody please give me a hint?..

Maybe it would also be a nice idea in general to give some debug-message during the init of the hardware to at least show that the library started to doo something?```

Thank you very much!
best regards
Jens

Dear all,

i baught a while ago the Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69 as it seemed to be an easy solution to build up a gateway. On the same online shop could i only get a W5500 ethernet module, so i wanted to give it a try.
And when you start the Adafruit stuff i also ordered the break-out board for the RFM69 to use with the nano..

It took me 2 days to get mysensors running on that devices - at the moment only as serial gateway. I was shocked that i need to make changes in the mysensor libraries..

I found all information here in the forum but some have been outdated etc.. So i want to share my experience and help other people. I hope i remember everything and i do not forget something.
Maybe somebody could update the mysensors homepage or even update the library.

First the gateway with the Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69. Of course you need to install all libraries as described on the Adafruit homepage.

The serialdevicee is running at baudrate of 9600 - i still dont know why..
But the declaration in MyHwSAMD.h is wrong. For the Feather M0 you need to change. That was easy.

#ifndef MY_SERIALDEVICE
//#define MY_SERIALDEVICE SerialUSB
#define MY_SERIALDEVICE Serial
#endif

In the arduion sketch need the pins to be defined

#define MY_RADIO_RFM69
#define MY_IS_RFM69HW
#define MY_RFM69_FREQUENCY RFM69_868MHZ

//make timeouts longer - i am not if it necessary
#define MY_TRANSPORT_STATE_TIMEOUT_MS (20*1000ul)
#define   MY_RFM95_TX_TIMEOUT_MS (10000ul)

//Adafruit M0 RFM69
#define MY_RFM69_CS_PIN 8
#define MY_RFM69_IRQ_PIN 3
#define MY_RFM69_IRQ_NUM 3
#define MY_RFM95_RST_PIN 4

Second the sensor-module with an Arduino nano replica and the Adafruit RFM69 break out board.
The serial port is running at baudrate of 115200

Also in this case i needed to define the pins manually depending on the hardware connection. In my case

#define MY_RFM69_CS_PIN 4
#define MY_RFM69_IRQ_PIN 2
#define MY_RFM69_IRQ_NUM 0
#define MY_RFM69_RST_PIN 3

A little more tricky is the fact that the Adafruit module only works if you handle the RST pin manually MyTransportHAL.cpp

bool transportHALInit(void)
{
  
  pinMode(MY_RFM69_RST_PIN, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(MY_RFM69_RST_PIN, HIGH);
  delay(100);
  digitalWrite(MY_RFM69_RST_PIN, LOW);
  delay(100);
  
  TRANSPORT_HAL_DEBUG(PSTR("THA:INIT\n"));

So as far as i remember this was everything to do that a message could be send from the node to the gateway. Next step will be to set up the W5500 for the gateway and integrate everything in openhab. And of course i want to use the bootloaader - but i fear i find some time in some weeks.. I keep you updated