armoredsaint

armoredsaint

UPDATE:
I power cycled the board by physically removing the USB power/data cable and the board came up on the network + MQTT session to the broker was established!!

For what it's worth and for future reference if anyone finds this thread:

It appears the official MySensors Hello World ethernet gateway basic tutorial works great for the Mega/2560 board paired with a 5100 Ethernet shield.

armoredsaint

Hello,

I have a large building (150,000SF+) that I have been planning a large installation quantity (500) of low-cost sensors distributed throughout. Motion, temperature, distance sensors, IR blasters, relay controls, etc. MySensors seems IDEAL for this as a standardized and well tested platform from which to run.

However, the physical construction of the building makes radio a very poor choice, even with repeating capability. Lots of concrete and steel -> We will be running approximately 70 UniFi AP’s to provide enough WiFi radio coverage density, some of them for just one room!

I know MS offers RS-485 wired as an alternative communications media.

However we would be daisy chaining 30-40 Arduino sensor boards, likely consuming several thousand feet of RS-485.

What I would prefer to use would be Arduinos with good Ethernet hats. Use good PoE splitters and have the Sensor boards wired via my business-class PoE switches. I would make a VLAN just for MS -> Sensor boards + controller. My Ethernet switches are also already set up with enterprise class power planning so Sensors/Controller will never loose power if I can run them PoE (small local UPS at each rack buys enough time for rack ‘shore power’, which is from a large automatic transfer switch with 50kW generator already installed).

I well understand that this ‘stretches’ the intended setup for MS. However for our needs it is far and away better to run the network communication layer/topology via PoE/Ethernet.

What does everyone suggest? Stretch MS to do this, or (if one even exists) should I look at another middleware/suite that is better suited?I REALLY like that standardization present in MS, it’s just the radio communication topology is sub optimal in our situation.

Also, if there might be a way for us to add Ethernet-based communication to MySensors core, this could be a way for us to give back.

Thanks to anyone and everyone in advance.

armoredsaint

Ah, I see what you’re saying. Configure each Arduino to be its own gateway.

In that case I’d have them all communicate using MQTT onto various channels on the VLAN and keep my existing MQTT broker VM to handle it.

Does MySensors library already have provisions to allow easy configuration of an Arduino to be a gateway with local sensors? If yes this is the probably easiest way to do it.

armoredsaint

As I am looking to begin testing a deployment of MySensors to a production environment, I have a Bosch wired sensor that I plan to use as the motions for my MySensor network. I have used these in the past extensively with alarm panels and they have good-to-great detection, especially for the money.

Here's a schematic:
http://resource.boschsecurity.us/documents/BlueLine_Gen_2_WP12_Installation_Manual_all_2603182859.pdf

I did some searching of the forum and still have some open ended questions. As these are commercially available wired motion sensors, I thought it may be helpful to have a topic on these (and wired motions from Honeywell, etc) to be able to use well with MySensors.

Several questions:

The Bosch has 2x NC contacts, I imagine so that I could connect the sensor to two different things if I wanted (for example my MySensors board + a nearby security camera). I am nowhere near an EE, so just need confirming that (per the schematic) this wires up basically identically to the HC-SR501 -> +, - and one of the NC's make it a 3 wire connection. Yes?
The Interrupt stuff -> I have a Mega2560 with a W5100 Ethernet shield. D2 and D3 are consumed by the Eth shield. If someone can point to a MySensors sketch or howto showing the most elegant way to assign Interrupt to another pin, that would be great. I can find non-MS tutorials for this, but since I am in the MS framework (which I absolutely LOVE BTW), I wanna make sure I'm doing it the correct "MS" way.

Thank you in advance!!!!

armoredsaint

UPDATE:
I power cycled the board by physically removing the USB power/data cable and the board came up on the network + MQTT session to the broker was established!!

For what it's worth and for future reference if anyone finds this thread:

It appears the official MySensors Hello World ethernet gateway basic tutorial works great for the Mega/2560 board paired with a 5100 Ethernet shield.

armoredsaint

Hello,

I've got an Elegoo Mega2560 r3 board with a Sunfounder 5100 Ethernet shield.
There is NO radio on this board and it won't have one.
I am trying to configure it as a MQTT gateway without transport to be concerned with local sensors only.
This board/shield combo will init and get onto the network just fine using other sample basic (non-MySensors) tutorial sketches I've found, but not when running MySensors.

-> I am trying to get the board to initialize, at this point I haven't complicated the basic MQTT gateway sample sketch with any I/O sensor configs; I am simply watching the Serial Monitor to see if the board inits and gets on the network.

-> I know the Mega has potentially some configuration changes versus an Uno, but all of the threads I've researched and found are 2-3-4 years old and I don't know if things have been updated in the MySensors framework to support a Mega + 5100 Ethernet shield natively. Hopefully so!

Specific Requests:

If anyone could clarify what I need to change in my code to get this board/Eth shield working I would be MOST appreciative!
I downgraded my Boards Manager version to 1.6.11 from 1.6.23 after reading some older threads about the Mega/5100 combo, what should I set this to?

Here's my code.

/*
 * The MySensors Arduino library handles the wireless radio link and protocol
 * between your home built sensors/actuators and HA controller of choice.
 * The sensors forms a self healing radio network with optional repeaters. Each
 * repeater and gateway builds a routing tables in EEPROM which keeps track of the
 * network topology allowing messages to be routed to nodes.
 *
 * Created by Henrik Ekblad <henrik.ekblad@mysensors.org>
 * Copyright (C) 2013-2019 Sensnology AB
 * Full contributor list: https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors/graphs/contributors
 *
 * Documentation: http://www.mysensors.org
 * Support Forum: http://forum.mysensors.org
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
 * version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 *******************************
 *
 * REVISION HISTORY
 * Version 1.0 - Henrik Ekblad
 *
 * DESCRIPTION
 * The W5100 MQTT gateway sends radio network (or locally attached sensors) data to your MQTT broker.
 * The node also listens to MY_MQTT_TOPIC_PREFIX and sends out those messages to the radio network
 *
 * LED purposes:
 * - To use the feature, uncomment WITH_LEDS_BLINKING in MyConfig.h
 * - RX (green) - blink fast on radio message received. In inclusion mode will blink fast only on presentation received
 * - TX (yellow) - blink fast on radio message transmitted. In inclusion mode will blink slowly
 * - ERR (red) - fast blink on error during transmission error or receive crc error
 *
 * See http://www.mysensors.org/build/esp8266_gateway for wiring instructions.
 * nRF24L01+  ESP8266
 * VCC        VCC
 * CE         GPIO4
 * CSN/CS     GPIO15
 * SCK        GPIO14
 * MISO       GPIO12
 * MOSI       GPIO13
 *
 * Not all ESP8266 modules have all pins available on their external interface.
 * This code has been tested on an ESP-12 module.
 * The ESP8266 requires a certain pin configuration to download code, and another one to run code:
 * - Connect REST (reset) via 10K pullup resistor to VCC, and via switch to GND ('reset switch')
 * - Connect GPIO15 via 10K pulldown resistor to GND
 * - Connect CH_PD via 10K resistor to VCC
 * - Connect GPIO2 via 10K resistor to VCC
 * - Connect GPIO0 via 10K resistor to VCC, and via switch to GND ('bootload switch')
 *
  * Inclusion mode button:
 * - Connect GPIO5 via switch to GND ('inclusion switch')
 *
 * Hardware SHA204 signing is currently not supported!
 *
 * Make sure to fill in your ssid and WiFi password below for ssid & pass.
 */


// Enable debug prints to serial monitor, baud rate is 115200 for console
#define MY_DEBUG

// Enables and select radio type (if attached)
//#define MY_RADIO_RF24
//#define MY_RADIO_RFM69
//#define MY_RADIO_RFM95

#define MY_GATEWAY_MQTT_CLIENT

// Set this node's subscribe and publish topic prefix
#define MY_MQTT_PUBLISH_TOPIC_PREFIX "hvac/dampers"
#define MY_MQTT_SUBSCRIBE_TOPIC_PREFIX "hvac/dampers"

// Set MQTT client id
#define MY_MQTT_CLIENT_ID "mysensors-board1"

// Enable gateway ethernet module type
#define MY_GATEWAY_W5100

// W5100 Ethernet module SPI enable (optional if using a shield/module that manages SPI_EN signal)
#define MY_W5100_SPI_EN 4

// Enable Soft SPI for NRF radio (note different radio wiring is required)
// The W5100 ethernet module seems to have a hard time co-operate with
// radio on the same spi bus.
//#if !defined(MY_W5100_SPI_EN) && !defined(ARDUINO_ARCH_SAMD)
#define MY_SOFTSPI
#define MY_SOFT_SPI_SCK_PIN 52 //14 was default, changed to test Mega board
#define MY_SOFT_SPI_MISO_PIN 50 //16 was default, changed to test Mega board
#define MY_SOFT_SPI_MOSI_PIN 51 //15 was default, changed to test Mega board
//#endif

// When W5100 is connected we have to move CE/CSN pins for NRF radio
#ifndef MY_RF24_CE_PIN
#define MY_RF24_CE_PIN 5
#endif
#ifndef MY_RF24_CS_PIN
#define MY_RF24_CS_PIN 6
#endif

// Enable these if your MQTT broker requires username/password
//#define MY_MQTT_USER "username"
//#define MY_MQTT_PASSWORD "password"

// Enable MY_IP_ADDRESS here if you want a static ip address (no DHCP)
#define MY_IP_ADDRESS 10,2,20,24
#define MY_MAC_ADDRESS 0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xED

// If using static ip you can define Gateway and Subnet address as well
#define MY_IP_GATEWAY_ADDRESS 10,2,20,1
#define MY_IP_SUBNET_ADDRESS 255,255,255,0

// MQTT broker ip address or url. Define one or the other.
//#define MY_CONTROLLER_URL_ADDRESS "m20.cloudmqtt.com"
#define MY_CONTROLLER_IP_ADDRESS 10, 2, 10, 34

// The MQTT broker port to to open
#define MY_PORT 1883

/*
// Enable inclusion mode
#define MY_INCLUSION_MODE_FEATURE
// Enable Inclusion mode button on gateway
//#define MY_INCLUSION_BUTTON_FEATURE
// Set inclusion mode duration (in seconds)
#define MY_INCLUSION_MODE_DURATION 60
// Digital pin used for inclusion mode button
//#define MY_INCLUSION_MODE_BUTTON_PIN  3

// Set blinking period
#define MY_DEFAULT_LED_BLINK_PERIOD 300

// Flash leds on rx/tx/err
// Uncomment to override default HW configurations
//#define MY_DEFAULT_ERR_LED_PIN 16  // Error led pin
//#define MY_DEFAULT_RX_LED_PIN  16  // Receive led pin
//#define MY_DEFAULT_TX_LED_PIN  16  // the PCB, on board LED
*/

#include <Ethernet.h>
#include <MySensors.h>
#include <Bounce2.h>

void setup()
{
    // Setup locally attached sensors
}

void presentation()
{
    // Present locally attached sensors here
}

void loop()
{
    // Send locally attached sensors data here
}

Here's what pops in the Serial console:

10:41:18.848 -> 378897 GWT:RMQ:MQTT RECONNECT
10:41:19.428 -> 379460 GWT:TPC:IP=0.0.0.0
10:41:20.421 -> 380463 GWT:RMQ:MQTT RECONNECT
10:41:21.003 -> 381026 GWT:TPC:IP=0.0.0.0
10:41:21.994 -> 382028 GWT:RMQ:MQTT RECONNECT
10:41:22.579 -> 382592 GWT:TPC:IP=0.0.0.0
10:41:23.568 -> 383594 GWT:RMQ:MQTT RECONNECT
10:41:24.146 -> 384157 GWT:TPC:IP=0.0.0.0
10:41:25.137 -> 385160 GWT:RMQ:MQTT RECONNECT

armoredsaint

Genius. Thank you both!!! Stoked that it appears MS is going to work just peachy for this.

armoredsaint

Ah, I see what you’re saying. Configure each Arduino to be its own gateway.

In that case I’d have them all communicate using MQTT onto various channels on the VLAN and keep my existing MQTT broker VM to handle it.

Does MySensors library already have provisions to allow easy configuration of an Arduino to be a gateway with local sensors? If yes this is the probably easiest way to do it.

armoredsaint

@mfalkvidd,

Thank you for the welcome and the reply!

As far as a gateway I planned to use a Raspberry Pi 3+ B, and run it as an Ethernet gateway and/or Serial and/or MQTT. Alternatively, if I need more horsepower for my gateway with this topology I can easily fire up a VM on one of my VMWare servers and give it up to 12x processors / 24G of RAM. Servers are on 10G SFP+ fiber cards to the core switch so I don’t think network bandwidth should be a bottleneck.

I have a Ras inbound to build/test the whole sensor network, but may eventually port the controller to a VM anyways as we’re installing VMotion for high availability and this would benefit.

Finally, I run Homeseer HS3 doing business logic interconnection and management between all of our various systems.

armoredsaint