Today I build a basic node for temperature (DS18B20) and analog input. Most of my nodes feature a DS18B20 connection as it only 'costs' a 4k7 resistor and a connector.
PCB is etched.

@mfalkvidd

and a simple 'trick' to allow higher currents if necessary:

A network cable has 8 leads in it. Any spare pair of leads not used for something else (e.g. data....) can be used to increase the current strength of the 5V and return (GND) line.

Today I finally found some time to put a few modules together.
A cheap solar cell (€1.35 a piece) with recharcheable battery which feeds via a step-up converter (€0.70 /pc) a pro-mini (5VDC). The DS18B20 is read every 5 minutes.
Now I’m Interested how long this sensor will do its job.

@hannibal

The purpose of the capacitor (use an elco for this) is to make sure that the voltage remains smooth (no ripple or sudden drops) by buffering a small amount of energy (capacity). From that point of view: the larger the value, the better.
The next question would be if your source is able to supply the current to keep the capacitor filled. From that point of view a small capacitor would be the better choice, but too small would give you too less buffered capacity....

The practicial approach is to test it; I've done that and I found out that a 4.7 uF was good enough. Up to values of 100 uF (never tested with higher values of elco's) worked as well, but these are larger....

Better is worse than 'good enough'

Have fun!

BR,

Boozz

@Reza
just try it and see what happens

@zboblamont
Although I didn't completely analyse your sketsch I remember from some time ago that I ran into problems once I moved the one-wire- pin from 3 to another pin. No idea why, and never actually took the time to troubleshoot this, but when I brought it back to pin 3 all my problems disappeared with the dallas sensors.

Hope it helps.

BR,

Boozz

@mfalkvidd
I think you’re right. I only had a look at the first image and there the C1 location was not visible as the nrf-module was in front of it.
My bad

Thank you both for the contributions.

@mfalkvidd: Thanks a lot for pointing me towards the technique to turn it on /off. This will become very handy in the future for sure.

BR,

Boozz

@codergirl56
Reading your question, I think your starting point is to have a look at the pingpong example (see below for the direct link) which comes with the mysensors library and try to modify it such that it starts sending the RFID data.

direct link to pingpong example

First you'd need to install the mysensors library of course, see the download page. How to do that is in the "Getting Started" as mentioned by @AWI. Just start reading and you'll be guided to it.

good luck

Boozz

Hi @eiten

What does HAL stand for?

Thanks, Boozz

Today I finally found some time to put a few modules together.
A cheap solar cell (€1.35 a piece) with recharcheable battery which feeds via a step-up converter (€0.70 /pc) a pro-mini (5VDC). The DS18B20 is read every 5 minutes.
Now I’m Interested how long this sensor will do its job.

@Yveaux
May I ask why you use the IR4427S driver instead of two transistors or (N-Channel)mosfets? Is this because of PCB space, or any other (power) reason?

BR,

Boozz

@kimot @monte
It appears to me as what has been described by @monte is almost completely covered by the Tasmota project: https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota

@alexno Is this (high pressure) injection moulded? What's the material?

@zboblamont
Although I didn't completely analyse your sketsch I remember from some time ago that I ran into problems once I moved the one-wire- pin from 3 to another pin. No idea why, and never actually took the time to troubleshoot this, but when I brought it back to pin 3 all my problems disappeared with the dallas sensors.

Hope it helps.

BR,

Boozz

@kimot said in My experiences with MySensors:

And for "MESH" topology.
Arduino "painlessMesh" library for ESPs exists

WIll have a look at that too in the near future. Thanks for hinting me towards this.

Boozz

@kimot said in My experiences with MySensors:

MySensors is goot for nodes a far away in my garden and for nodes with low energy consumption and fast reaction when wake up.
When MySensors node is sleeping and then wake up, it immediately continues in program flow immediately from the place of "sleep" command.
Wemos, when sleeping an wake ups, reboots and must connect to AP, which takes 8s to 2s when we do some tweakings.

Ok, so if I do not misinterpret your words, it's better / easier to use mySensors for the tasks as specified above and use WEMOS / 8266 for other tasks. Some pretty distinct way of where and how to use it.

Thanks a lot for the info provided. I appreciate that. I will give this a try sooner or later for sure.
Up to now my experience with mySensors is positive. Yes, now and then the radio's give me some troubles, but that's part of it. Still a very inexpensive way to collect data and switch on the lights in my garden house, dim some LED's all over the house and get alarmed once the ground-water reaches a level so I have to watch out my basement isn't flooded.

Thanks

Booz

@rodaman: May I remind you of my questions:

@rodaman
...
However, I'm interested in your Wemos setup.
I've got some questions from which I'm sure you can give me the right quidance:
I guess it used some bandwith in your Wifi network? can I use it similar as mySensors topology or even with mySensors libraries?
Can it be used with batteries (sleep modes and so on) for a long time?

thank you in advance for your values answers,

BR, Boozz

Unfortunately no reaction from your side till today. In the meanwhile I've searched the internet for a ESP8266 or ESP32 mesh network as an alternative for the mySensors network. I cannot find a good working open source (read Arduino based) startpoint, so I'm wondering if you could direct me to a good starting point.

Thanks,

Boozz

@rodaman
Although fully agree with @mickecarlsson and @tbowmo (I have been lucky with really cheap nrf24L01+ modules I think) and have a similar experience as @TheoL (MySensors works fine with nr24L01+ modules) I can state that mySensors is very much alive.

However, I'm interested in your Wemos setup.
I've got some questions from which I'm sure you can give me the right quidance:
I guess it used some bandwith in your Wifi network? can I use it similar as mySensors topology or even with mySensors libraries?
Can it be used with batteries (sleep modes and so on) for a long time?

thank you in advance for your values answers,

BR, Boozz