I've started documenting the MySensors sensors that I have in my house for my own record keeping and sharing.

So far this includes:

• Ethernet Gateway
• Garage Door opener
• Hacked Daikin Heatpumps
• Tropical Fish tank
• TV Back light
• Hacked Passive InfraRed (PIR) sensor
• Power usage sensor
• Water meter sensor
• Cabinet RGB Light

The Controller is OpenHAB and I'll be posting all this info as well. Details: https://techconz.com/smart-home/

I'm happy to answer questions and provide more information. My documentation is a work in progress, but I'm trying to get through it pretty quickly.

Thanks go to MySensors and all the good folk on the forums for helping along the way with making our house rather cool!

Over the weekend I hacked the previously battery powered Minecraft lights in the Minecraft bedroom (doesn't everyone have one?). Now there's no more replacing batteries and OpenHAB controls include On, Off, Brightness and Flame Flicker.

This is the reason I was asking about establishing power distribution in the attic. I've decided to distribute 12v and drop to 5 or 3.3 only as needed.

More info and video: https://techconz.com/smart-home/minecraft-lights/

@mfalkvidd thanks again for your thoughts.

I wasn't having much luck reducing things, so came across another cunning plan. Initial info here https://bigdanzblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/installing-the-optiboot-loader-on-an-arudino-nano-to-fix-the-watch-dog-timer-wdt-issue

Turn Nano into Uno to free-up more memory (load optiboot bootloader)

1. Use Uno as programmer – see here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/installing-an-arduino-bootloader
2. Upload Examples/AudrinoISP sketch to Uno
3. Select type of Board Nano needs to be e.g. Adruino/Genuino Uno
4. Select Tools/Burn Bootloader – this loads Uno bootloader into Nano. Behind the scenes, this bootloader is C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr\bootloaders\optiboot\optiboot_atmega328.hex (at least for my IDE setup)

Nano now has 32,256 bytes free instead of 30,720. Plenty enough to store the 31,070 my MQTT/SoftSPI/SigningSoft gateway needs. And after re-running SecurityPersonalizer (because bootloading cleared EEPROM), Signing is now working:

Signing backend: ATSHA204Soft
SHA256: EBB61F82572BBB42676ADA13705C918B05588F926D3E15F58800000000000000
Transmittng nonce
send: 46-46-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=17,pt=6,l=25,sg=0,st=ok:EBB61F82572BBB42676ADA13705C918B05588F926D3E15F588
Signature in message: 0194DB798EFE5B3543EEA0381D7817591E6E5A279A28FC13
Message to process: 002E0E00020131
Current nonce: EBB61F82572BBB42676ADA13705C918B05588F926D3E15F588AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
HMAC: A794DB798EFE5B3543EEA0381D7817591E6E5A279A28FC13A7716480D1820181
Signature OK
read: 0-0-46 s=1,c=0,t=2,pt=0,l=1,sg=0:1

Fantastic!

Opto isolated from existing Rinnai controls and feedback.

All documented at https://techconz.com/smart-home/rinnai-gas-heater-ftr557/

Still to establish some OpenHAB rules for it, but will likely be Mon-Fri @ 7am when < 11 degrees outside, turn on.

Maybe this could help?
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/4077/gatewayw5100mqttclient-my_signing_soft-development-branch-atmega328-nano-sketch-too-large

Opto isolated from existing Rinnai controls and feedback.

All documented at https://techconz.com/smart-home/rinnai-gas-heater-ftr557/

Still to establish some OpenHAB rules for it, but will likely be Mon-Fri @ 7am when < 11 degrees outside, turn on.

Over the weekend I hacked the previously battery powered Minecraft lights in the Minecraft bedroom (doesn't everyone have one?). Now there's no more replacing batteries and OpenHAB controls include On, Off, Brightness and Flame Flicker.

This is the reason I was asking about establishing power distribution in the attic. I've decided to distribute 12v and drop to 5 or 3.3 only as needed.

More info and video: https://techconz.com/smart-home/minecraft-lights/

@wallyllama Nice answer - thanks very much.

I'm going to go with a central power distribution point and send out 12v to any nodes that need powering. Each node will have a buck and drop whatever voltage they receive by that point, down to 5v. This way I avoid any voltage drop issues that could occur.

It also gives me a single & scalable power source location and nodes close to their activity & still fulfilling their mesh roles and responsibilities!

I like the @petewill setup, but will probably establish it using something like these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-1pcs-9-road-output-switching-power-supply-wiring-board-current-shunt-board-wit-fuse/693330771.html

I was also thinking of going one step further with something like: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/9CH-DC-12V-15A-Switching-Power-Supply-With-Box-180W-Monitor-Camera-12V-Power-Transformer/32602759262.html but I'm not sure just how much to trust these? At least with just the first distribution board, I can power it with some old wall-worts initially (appreciate less power capacity). If anyone has anything good to say about the aliexpress switching power supplies, I may still consider.

Cheers

Thanks guys for the info. In addition to distributing the power to the remote nodes, what do people think about centralizing the nodes and only spreading out the wires to the sensors/actuators? Again, voltage drop could be an issue, but I'm more thinking about the 'concept' of centralizing components of the mesh network vs distributing. It sounds contradictory and I fully appreciate different approaches to different needs etc. I guess I'm perhaps after theoretical feedback?

I currently have several sensors throughout the house collecting information and controlling various things. All the sensors to date have been independently powered where they are located.

I’m now thinking of dropping some relays in walls and perhaps some low power lighting and am contemplating the following approaches to distribution:

• Nodes continue to be independently powered where they are located. Pro is isolation, con is more 240v to 5v convertors and needing to put these somewhere (in wall etc).
• I run a single 5v or perhaps a 12v wire around the attic and power the distributed nodes from this. Pro is less 240v convertors & safe distributed power levels, con is potential voltage and current supply issues as node numbers increase. Perhaps I distribute 48v to compensate?
• Nodes are centralised somewhere and only the feed to the relays etc are distributed. Pros are easier to scale power requirements (add more transformers in one place) & easier to re-flash arduinos if necessary (I’m not using OTA). Cons is fiddly build to make it look and function nice and more wires being distributed everywhere in the attic. And does centralising nodes complement or contradict the MySensor mesh network approach??

Appreciate people’s thoughts and their own experiences. And if anyone has seen some nice gear that would help with any of the builds, I would be interested. Otherwise it’s cellotape for the wires and pieces of wood to make a box

@gohan
If you're talking about my build, thanks for the feedback and I've just made it clearer on the page now. 5V & Gnd for the node are from the Daikin units IR Sensor. Careful though, short this and you'll be tracking down a fuse to fix on the header units main board.

Hi
Feel free to check out my recent Daikin Overhaul. Though please note the voltage danger and liability statements :). I'm happy to help out if I can.
Cheers

Well I've just got mine working again. I'm putting it down to the birds not just crossing, but circulating for the last couple of weeks!

After the work last night, I moved my Gateway into the same room as my node on the breadboard in order to swap radios and it instantly became more responsive (much less NACKs & much less randomness on signed communication). I continued swapping radios etc to at least demonstrate consistency/working radios, but the location improvement alone was a Big Clue!

I have a NRF24L with the external aerial on the gateway, so was always expecting it to continue performing well regardless of what was around it. In my case though it was sitting above a metal 19" network patch panel & right next to a running laptop. Inside the patch panel as well as numerous runs of Cat6, is a 24port switch and a 8 port POE switch. Fair enough, plenty of interference potential, but I don't recall changing any of that recently (for it to just drop out).

Anyway, whether it's a combination of things, wriggling some wires, resetting some radios in their sockets etc or just now positioning the Gateway further from all the metal, we're back in business.

I agree, nothing wrong with the software, but perhaps somewhat sensitive on the environmental factors.

Thanks guys and good luck with the remainder of yours @sineverba

@sineverba said in Software signing suddenly stop working:

MY_SIGNING_REQUEST_SIG

Interestingly I'm working through a very similar issue myself just now. The garage door opener just stopped working a few days ago.

I've pulled the Pro Mini out and onto a breadboard and have been doing the following this evening:

• Updated it to 2.1.1 from 2.0.0 beta (no improvements)
• Re applied the Security Personalizer / soft HMAC Key with the 2.1.1 core (no difference, nor was I expecting that)
• Added #define MY_DEBUG_VERBOSE_SIGNING
• Added #define MY_SIGNING_SOFT_RANDOMSEED_PIN A0 (I never had this line, but it made no difference)
• Added a capacitor across the NRF24 (no difference)
• Added additional debug statements to MyTransport.cpp but haven't discovered anything yet.
• Disabled MY_SIGNING_SOFT (immediately fixes it, but I don't want that)

My experience is that the messages either never get received (no trace output) or the output ends at "Transmitted nonce". Randomly, it will work.

It used to work just fine and I'm reluctant to drop the signing. So I'm definitely interested in how you get along and I'll update too if I get my end sorted.

Cheers