Posts made by 4Crawler

@ramoncarranza said:

@4Crawler
Hi, do you have any experience with this:

https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/5265/window-blinds

Thanks

No, have never looked into that. There are Z-Wave curtain modules available for under $20, like from Monoprice.

@ramoncarranza said:

@4Crawler Thank you very much, your video is VERY helpful for Vera users, as I did not realize that the Arduino with the FTDI board was a must, and I had already purchased a different type, so I went ahead and got the right one, sucks because I was exited to build my gateway, now I have to wait a a week or longer since most of this stuff comes from China, but you saved me a ton of headaches had I not watched your video. Question I have though, can I still use the Arduino Nano with the CH340G board for my sensors since I already have a dozen of them?
Thanks again
Thanks

Yes, the CH340 Nanos work fine for sensors or for Ethernet gateways, just not serial gateways:
Building an IoT Humidity Sensor – 07:15
— R Brown (4Crawler)

@ramoncarranza said:

@Burtonian
Hi, I am new to arduino but not to Vera, have been using Veralite for a few years, I to wuould like to know how to add the gate to Vera, I find it very confusing, it would be ideal if a video was created r step by step instructions, I will be more than happy to donate via paypal, Thanks so much

I made a video earlier this year about adding a serial gateway on a VeraLite:
https://youtu.be/rtsa-pN_R9M?list=PLpY2FP1a9tiurSiQTwhalz4KBxg_7db65
This was with the 1.5 library, I need to re-make that video with the new 2.0 version. PeteB also has a nice video on the subject, I think I have the link in my video description.

I added what I call a "self-powered" USB hub on my VeraLite. This 4-port hub is powered off the Vera's 12VDC power plug so there are no extra power bricks or cords to deal with. Video below:

• https://youtu.be/K_hlMJ0q1Ok

This in itself saves a few watts of power that would have been used by the separate wall wart for the hub (about 20KWH/year savings!). Ultimate goal for my Vera is to place it on my solar battery bank running off 12VDC power.

With the powered hub, the serial gateway has been running for a few weeks now w/o issue, also built a humidity/temperature sensor for testing the gateway and all is working well. Posted a couple of videos on YouTube about the build:
Building a Working MySensors Serial Gateway – 09:56
— R Brown (4Crawler)

@hek Yes, the plain vanilla radio, non-amplified. Have not swapped radios but it seems to be more stable now that the powered hub is being used.

Have the 3 LEDs with resistors (390ohm) connected to pins 4,5,6 and common to 5V. Have tested with the blink sketch (modified) and that works fine, can blink all 3 LEDs on the same Nano I'm running the gateway on. Have uncommented line 59 and also tried the inverted mode but still see no LED activity.

@hek Yes, had been running off the Vera USB only w/ a 2-port passive hub. Added a powered hub and it started updating again and has run for about 10 minutes now. Will see if it stays up for the rest of the day.

UPDATE1: I guess I didn't wait long enough, I got about half a dozen updates then the last update time froze again.

UPDATE2: OK, I think I must have messed up the sensor, I got it running again and updates have been going for 10 minutes now.

Still getting no status LED activity on the gateway. I have the 3 LEDs on pins 4, 5, 6 and 5V and the WITH_LEDS_BLINKING flag set. I saw a comment on the source code:

// This feature enables LEDs blinking on message receive, transmit
// or if some error occured. This was commonly used only in gateways,
// but now can be used in any sensor node. Also the LEDs can now be
// disabled in the gateway.

Is this disable something that's in the device in Vera or someplace else?

nRF24L01 radios, same brand on both nanos. Used a 47uF cap on the gateway and a 4.7uF cap on the sensor. I have the radio powered off the 3V3 pin on the nano. I think the comms are fine as the gateway seems to be receiving data updates from the sensor if I have the gateway plugged into my PC, it'll report temperature and humidity updates every minute for as long as it's connected to the PC serial monitor.

I have a VeraLite on the latest UI7 release with the 1.5 MySensors library. Built a Serial Gateway with Arduino Nano (FTDI) and have that seeming connected and operating. I then built a Humidity sensor and can include that. I get about 3 updates at the normal 1 minute interval then nothing. So for example this morning, I got updates at 9:38, 9:39 and 9:40 then all I see is: Last Update:09:40 AM for the rest of the day.

If I reset either the gateway or sensor nothing changes. If I click Reload Engine on the VeraLite, I'll get the next 3 updates then nothing.

I don't think it's a radio/comm issue as I've left the sensor and gateway running on my PC with the IDE Serial Monitor showing the gateway output and it's reading data from the sensor every minute for as long as I leave it running.

I've also tried adding the 3 status LEDs to the gateway and have enabled the WITH_LEDS_BLINKING flag, but I get no LED activity. I know the LEDs work as I tested them with a modified Blink sketch.