So, I've been looking into Eagle and making PCBs for various step-up regulators. This is the progress I've made so far. A panelized 5x5cm board with a couple of different designs for three different ICs (Linear LTC3525, Texas Instruments TPS61097, Texas Instruments TPS61221).

The panelizing / tabs and mouse bites were done using the Gerber Panelizer from This Is Not Rocket Science: http://blog.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/projects/pcb-design-tools/
The tool isn't public yet though. So if you want to test the alpha/beta you have to contact them through twitter ask for a copy. Props to Stijn Kuipers for taking the time to explain things to me. Bottom line: Gerbers are trickier than one might suspect at first glance.

The TPS61097 is perhaps not the best IC around but I have a few samples so I thought I'd make use of them. Can't find that chip cheaply on AliExpress either and other sites (was it Lowpowerlabs?) have long since abandoned the TPS61097 due to some issue or another. So, off to smaller footprints. The TPS61221 which was talked about for the official MySensors battery board (TPS61222 was it?) is SC-70-6 unfortunately but CAN be found for about $1 a piece on AliExpress. A pretty good deal. But for now I have some samples I got from TI. Finally, the LTC3525, favored by a lot of hardware tinkerers, is a tad more expensive, around $2.3 on AliExpress. They all require the same number of external components and can work with the pretty much the same values (2x10uF or 1x10uF/1x1uF, 1x10uH) afaik.

Sent the gerbers to DirtyPCBs yesterday, have been updating the order about six times by now Hopefully it will get processed before the Chinese New Year.

Since I have the PCBs that Meanpenguin designed I figured I'd make the first booster PCBs fit the AMS1117 pins so it will hang over the main PCB in an unobtrusive manner.

And yes, among other iffy things, the footprint for the inductor varies (a lot). I went with a couple of different footprints that I though would be hand solderable for a typical 3x3mm inductor (i..e with some of the pad exposed). In reality the inductor I ordered for testing has a horseshoe-like footprint similar to the PCB on the bottom left. The capacitor footprint also purposely differ (0603 and 0805), but the capacitors I have ordered are all 0603 so it is hopefully all good. This is my first real run with Eagle (and the Gerber Panelizer) so it has been a real learning experience for me. I hope that I will be able to reflow PCBs in the future and not have to worry about whether or not the tip of the soldering iron has anywhere to go.

Btw. Other components ordered:

• 10x Linear LTC3525DESC6-3.3
• 100x Capacitor KEMET C0603C105K9PACTU CAP CER 1UF 6.3V 10% X5R 0603
• 200x Capacitor TDK C1608X5R1A106K X5R 10uF 10V 10% 0603
• 50x Do3314-103mlc Inductor 3x3mm 10uH

We'll see if AliExpress delivers as promised. The components have all been dispatched at any rate. Prices were pretty good overall, particularly given that I save shipping and taxes compared to Mouser or whatever. First time I order "serious" brand components from Ali though. Fingers crossed!

I'm hoping that in the future we'll have ready booster PCBs on the official MySensors PCB site for all major ICs obviously. Personally I find the lack of proper low quiescent current regulators to be perhaps the most annoying problem right now.

So, in conclusion I assembled the boost modules. I don't have an oscilloscope or any fancy variable load so I can't do much testing. But both the TPS61221 and LTC3525 seem to be working as intended, they power the NRF24 (not sensor in this particular picture below) without any hiccups at any rate.

I tried some ceramic power resistors to put some load on the regulators and got something like ~60-80mA out of one fairly run down AA cell if I'm not mistaken. Basically according to spec.

All I have to do now is design a compact sensor node where 1xAA actually makes sense. Kind of like LowPowerLabs' Moteino. Feels like it's time to take this to the next level. The only thing bugging me is the need to reflow instead of hand solder, and the massive task of sourcing components from AliExpress so I can avoid Mouse/Digikey. Perhaps I should give it a rest for now and see how the official MySensors modules turn out before I decide.

@Yveaux I'm embarrassed to admit I did buy a RTL-SDR last year on account of the problems I had with 433MHz sensors on the RFLink gateway and wanting to decode wireless m-bus. But I never really learned how to interpret the data from SDR#. I booted it back up just now and am flailing around in the interface

Well, we looked into this for our local Makerspace. Especially if you're in the US, the Shapeoko or the Xcarve can be somewhat price effective, particularly when they have their sales campaigns and include the dewalt router and free shipping or whatever. But I still think the Xcarve is a bit flimsy and mostly propped up by a successful campaign in social media where they gave away machines to well known youtubers.

In the end we opted for building a rack and pinion RawCNC instead.
http://cncmaskiner.org/
http://rawcnc.com/
Unfortunately the guy behind the project keeps changing his mind constantly about how to sell machines, kits, parts and plans so I don't know how practical it is to start a build right now. It all hinges on finding the parts like the aluminum extrusions.

In the end we didn't want a timing belt machine. And we wanted a vfd / spindle solution from the start not having to go through a dewalt / makita router first. These spindles are quiet and you get standard ER collets. But they are also really heavy and might not work on a standard Shapeoko without reinforcements. We opted for a 2.2kW air cooled model.

Here is someone who has custom built an unusually small RawCNC:
https://openbuilds.com/builds/rawcnc-1-5-desktop-edition.5771/

I just wanted to post some pictures of the boards I got two weeks ago. 12 boards all in all from DirtyPCBs. Sure took its time. Processing time was under a week I think, but shipping was characteristically slow. The silk screen turned out a bit wonky since I exported too many layers (duh!) and it is a bit fuzzy in other places but other than that the boards seem fine. Since it was my first ever order of PCBs I took the liberty to add a big silk screen on the back and round the corners, just to test them out. Clearly not an issue for this fab at least.

The boards are 1.2mm btw. Their standard thickness. But a bit thinner than the "usual" PCB. I like it though. Unless there is a reason to go with thicker boards?

Also pretty happy with Domoticz. Also installed Dashticz on one of my two installations (the other being at the local Makerspace). For me, at least historically, I needed something that could run well on a Raspberry. Domoticz is up and running in seconds obviously even on limited hardware. For me at least Domoticz is pretty flexible, with Blockly, LUA, Python and dzVents. I think there is also some sort of add-on for PHP. The interface and the handling of devices is a bit messy but still.

Haven't tried HA but I would certainly consider it.

Supported connection method in boldface (i.e. SERIAL, ETHERNET, MQTT, GPIO). Programming language in [brackets].

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Free / Open source:

1. Ago Control [C++/PYTHON] (SERIAL)
2. Calaos [C++] (SERIAL/ETHERNET)
3. DomotiGa [GAMBAS] (SERIAL/ETHERNET/MQTT)
4. Domoticz [C++] (SERIAL/ETHERNET/MQTT) #RECOMMENDED#
5. EasyIoT [C# = REQUIRES MONO] (GPIO)
6. FHEM [PERL] (SERIAL/ETHERNET)
7. Freedomotic [JAVA] (SERIAL/MQTT)
8. Heimcontrol.js [NODE.JS]
9. Home Assistant [PYTHON] (SERIAL/ETHERNET)
10. Home Genie [C# = REQUIRES MONO] (MQTT)
11. HouseMon [GO] (MQTT)
12. ioBroker [NODE.JS] (MQTT)
13. Jeedom [NODE.JS] (SERIAL/ETHERNET)
14. MajorDoMo [PHP] (MQTT)
15. MisterHouse [PERL] (SERIAL/ETHERNET)
16. MyController.org [JAVA] (SERIAL/ETHERNET/MQTT)
17. OpenRemote [JAVA]
18. PiDome [JAVA] (SERIAL/MQTT/GPIO) #RECOMMENDED#
19. Pimatic [NODE.JS] (SERIAL/GPIO) [link]
20. Pytomation [PYTHON]
21. The Thing System [NODE.JS] (MQTT)
22. homA [NODE.JS]
23. home.pi [NODE.JS] (MQTT)
24. openHAB [JAVA] (MQTT)
25. openLuup [LUA] (ETHERNET)

..........................................................................................................................

Commercial Software

1. Homeseer [?] (SERIAL)

..........................................................................................................................

Currently not on the Raspberry. Might work with Windows10 and RPi2 in the future?

1. HoMiDoM [?] (SERIAL)
2. zVirtualScenes
3. Opensourceautomation

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Misc

1. pymysensors - Python code for interacting with the network
2. pymys - Another python solution

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Personally, I'm still looking around for the perfect home automation software. And I have a fairly steep list of requirements, among them being a meaty and stylish Android app and notifications using Pushover (and Pushbullet for images?). It also has to be real AUTOMATION in the sense that you can build long and complicated scenes that can respond to changing condition in and around the house, preferably in some nice graphical interface where you just drag and drop the building blocks (Blockly). Not to mention taking advantage of the state of the art charting libraries that are available these days. I'd also like for it to interact with the Raspberry Pi camera module in an intelligent way, so it probably needs to be able to be able to allow extensive scripting, like being able to run raspivid, raspimjpeg and/or raspistill when motion sensors trigger or whatnot.

Finding the right controller software can be confusing and you seldom see the whole picture right away. Some automation software solutions are easy to install and boot up quickly but may slow down under the load of many sensors and rules. Some others may be a real hassle to install in terms of dependencies and slow to boot but may hold up better in the face of more complex home automation. Some are user-friendly but offer little control while others offer extensive control over interface and function but might drive you mad while you figure them out. It is safe to say that there is no obvious choice as of now and that the market is still far from mature. One should also note that the Raspberry Pi 1 is NOT a very fast platform and will not be ideal for many of the JAVA implementations above, unless the developers have had such platforms in mind when modelling their software (PiDome being the notable exception). Personally I am not very keen on software that will take minutes to boot up and effectively bog down the Pi in the meantime.

As for a faster hardware platform to replace the aging RPi I'm still looking around. The Pi has a support community that none of these other, newer platforms can claim after all. It would have to be a significantly faster system at basically the same price point for another ARM platform to make any sense. It's lucky that the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced at last then. Its IoT support for Windows 10 should provide more possibilities if it runs OK and most of the software above should continue to run on regular Raspbian or whatnot with little or no changes. Whether we ever get any multi-threaded support though for a real performance boost is another issue. Still waiting for the final verdict on the ODROID platforms, particularly the C1, but in my mind, the price including the eMMC module quickly approaches that of some cheaper x86 NUCs or one of those other Atom-powered boxes that keep turning up and are relatively quickly bridging the price gap.

@Mrlynx, @korttoma Yeah I guess that would work, and I might just do that if I have an electrician over for some other business. Having an outlet there might make things easier for future appliances that might want to reside there.

But it so happens I have an outlet just some 3 meters away from the cabinet. Safe from the elements. I thought I might make this a central power access point for the whole front of the house, using some sort of 12V outdoor adapter that in turn runs cables to any number of sensors. Shouldn't really matter how many volts are lost in transfer, and then I could finish off with either connecting the RAW pin OR using one of those neat buck converters that can be found cheaply on Ebay. I have a couple of them already and used them to power a sensor node and at least with a decoupling capacitor on the radio they don't seem to be too bad.

Which exact RFM69 is the footprint for? Cause it says "RFM69HCW" in some places, and "RFM69HW" in others. The footprint looks a lot like HW (https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/563/20328459340_62fa380554_b.jpg).

@jendrush said:

@bjornhallberg At this moment i have gateway on Arduino Uno, and nRF24L01+ LNA+PA is working ok. But when i tried nRF24L01+ LNA+PA with nano it didn't work.

Sending didn't work you mean? Or didn't receiving work either? I've only tested receiving for a few minutes using the debug setting, with the nRF24L01+ LNA+PA and Nano connected to my RPi. Seemed to work ok but it'd be nice to know for sure before investing more time with this particular setup. Also, I don't think I could fit an Uno into my camera housing. I'd have to get a 5V->3.3V converter (one that doesn't ruin radio reception) and take the power directly from the PoE splitter (which currently outputs 5V directly to the RPi TP1/TP2 pins).

Just for fun, here is the setup I have right now, don't laugh

Anyhow, the Uno allows for 50mA on 3.3V, while the Nano can do 40mA if I'm reading the specs right? Still way off from any 115mA.

@Yveaux I'm embarrassed to admit I did buy a RTL-SDR last year on account of the problems I had with 433MHz sensors on the RFLink gateway and wanting to decode wireless m-bus. But I never really learned how to interpret the data from SDR#. I booted it back up just now and am flailing around in the interface

@evb Thanks I'll try that.

I was thinking about setting up a second gateway also (I have another sensebender gateway I'm not using) and running a different frequency for the network. The new driver allows you to set basically any frequency that the module supports right down to the Hz?

And the 868MHz modules are able to go as high as 915MHz (even if it isn't optimal) and vice versa? I do recall something from Lowpowerlabs from years ago that said the 915MHz ones could at least be run at 868MHz? Felix and other users on their forum even confirm it. So that would rule out the possibility that I have radio modules of the wrong frequency,

I am starting to question some of these radio modules I bought off of AliExpress 3-4 years ago. I know for a fact that I have RFM69W modules that are 915, don't remember why I even have those. The signal scanner used a good and known *W 868 module. All the *CW modules are marked as 868. But I am nevertheless starting to wonder if there could be some foul play here. Either knockoffs, or real duds. It would explain a lot of the problems I've had with HopeRF modules over the years, with them often being outperformed by knockoff nrf24s.

No neither the temp sensors nor the mailbox sensor are working on 2.3.0 with the new rfm69 driver at any serious range at least. The hardware is this (https://github.com/EasySensors/ButtonSizeNode) and this (https://github.com/EasySensors/SwitchNode). Have tried different types of antenna.

The hardware difference would be that the scanner is running on AA batteries with no regulator and the sensors above use 3V button cells and some sort of regulator I think. Plus they use RFM69CW while the scanner uses RFM69W.

Like I say above, I've really only disabled debug to save some memory because I read in some other thread that it in fact helped. I have not tried setting TX power manually on either the gateway nor the sensors.

Still 5bdm on the gateway doesn't sound too bad though. What was the gateway TX dbm on 2.2.0 and old regular driver?

So I've been a little bit inactive for the last couple of years. I recently updated my nodes and gateway to 2.3.2 to see if it would fix some of the range issues I've been having and because it seemed convenient to be able to see RSSI and TX power. I also built the signal scanner (https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/7822/portable-rfm69-signal-scanner/6) so I'd be able to walk around and see if communications were working in certain spots.

Gateway (rfm69hw) initialization:

#define MY_IS_RFM69HW
#define MY_RFM69_FREQUENCY RFM69_868MHZ
#define MY_RFM69_NEW_DRIVER

Example node (rfm69cw) initialization:

#define MY_NODE_ID 0xAC
#define MY_PARENT_NODE_IS_STATIC
#define MY_PARENT_NODE_ID 0
#define MY_RADIO_RFM69
#define MY_RFM69_FREQUENCY   RFM69_868MHZ
#define MY_RFM69_NEW_DRIVER

I have a couple of nodes in my garage that are just damn near impossible to get to work. It's odd because I have deployed nrf24 modules there in the past and while transmission has been spotty, 868MHz should be superior in this regard, at least not perform worse. The nodes are all the same, but are using three different antennas. I originally had #define MY_TRANSPORT_UPLINK_CHECK_DISABLED and #define MY_DEBUG with those nodes but commented it out this afternoon on two of them. Still only one is coming through and that is the one with the commercial thick coil antenna that you can find on ebay. I recall reading somewhere on the forum that people had good results with those (https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/7845/rfm69-antennas-comparison).

Another node that I have out in the mailbox and that had been performing flawlessly on 2.2.0 I think it was and the old driver is now completely out of reach. I did the same commenting out as above but it still wont work.

I guess my first question is regarding ATC and how it works on 2.3.2. In particular in this case where nodes are either initialized within range of the gateway and brought outside or initialized out of range and installed. I understood the system as starting at the lowest dbm and working itself up until it reached an acceptable RSSI? How does it proceed if it cant reach the gateway?

Also I was wondering about disabling ATC and setting another modem config? Would it be a better troubleshooting strategy?

#define MY_RFM69_ATC_MODE_DISABLED
#define MY_RFM69_MAX_POWER_LEVEL_DBM (13) // 13dbm/20mw max on rfm69cw?
#define MY_RFM69_MODEM_CONFIGURATION RFM69_FSK_BR9_6_FD19_2

Anything else I can tweak in the settings?

I should add that the "signal scanner" (with a rfm69w) works really well with the code in the link. Transmit % is about ~0% next to the gateway. About 50-60% in the garage. And 70-80% at the mailbox. Perhaps a little bit lower once it has settled in those spots. Nothing special about the hardware either. Built it exactly like described.

As previously noted, Sensebender Gateway sketch from 2.3.2 with MySensors SAMD Boards 1.0.6 does not compile with Arduino SAMD Boards 1.8.9. Rolling back to Arduino SAMD Boards 1.8.8 or earlier version works.

@Denke Any updates to this project? Did you deploy the sensors? Any issues or has it been smooth sailing for the last couple of years?

Is there a suggested replacement for the TSL250? While it can still be found, it seems to be discontinued for the most part.

I've had no luck with the LM393 solution for my new power meter. Just can't tune it to pick up the led impulses. What sort of diode solution is everyone else using? I'm aware of the possibility of IR communication (https://wiki.hal9k.dk/projects/kamstrup) but it seems a little over the top.

While looking into the water meter I realized that we are getting a "smart" meter replacement soon. I'll see if I can speed up the replacement schedule. Anyhow, the replacement is a Kamstrup Multical 21 (https://www.kamstrup.com/en-en/water-solutions/water-meters/multical-21) which has several options for reading:

• Requesting the data via optical interface?
• Enabling the pulse function via optical interface, and then reading the IR pulse at 1imp/10lit.
• Reading the wireless mbus signal? (e.g. https://github.com/weetmuts/wmbusmeters)

@flopp Did you ever manage to stabilize the readings? Am I understanding you correctly that the readings were fine but the transmission got the reading scrambled?

Did you try to find a magnetic field with the meter instead? I have a similar meter and I'm wondering how best to approach the problem. I've seen people hook up Raspberries and cameras to do OCR basically but that seems like way too complex for an easy problem.

@koresh Package went under the "Postnord" radar! Woohoo, perfect! I will start replacing the old capacitors and finally be able to deploy the sensors. Very nice of you to include some product samples as well. Really excited about these sensors!