i tested that if the relay is powered directly and not through the aduino and for all my usb chargers, the switch is 100% responding. dont know really why but it seems better.

@OldSurferDude

Thank you for your comments.
Indeed i'm using the relay module so in principle i avoid problems and it should be fine.

Well, it can only be a problem of powering given that for one of my USB power devices everything works fine most of the time. The wiring diagram is completely defined by what i specified: exactly what you have here
https://www.mysensors.org/build/relay
except i use the 5V pin of a nano arduino to the Vcc of the relay...and that the nano is powered through it's usb connector.

I intend to do some tests with a breadboard to see if it works better when the relay is powered directly instead of through the arduino ... as i'v seen such advice somewhere else on the web...
somewhere else people were talking about reducing the power of the RF24 (MY_RF24_PA_LEVEL ) in Myconfig.h ...(?)

Hello , i have a relay actuator connected to an arduino nano (powered by it's 5V pin) .
When the nano is itself powered through it's usb mini connector by a small USB cable plugged into

• a computer USB port...the relay does not work.

• A 3 ports 5V 3A USB power adapter ...the relay does not work.
  (tested with 2 such adapters). for instance:

https://www.amazon.fr/Chargeur-Universel-Adaptateur-Appareils-Portable/dp/B07DHFK73L/ref=sr_1_5?adgrpid=1360096819685179&hvadid=85006309617600&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=126943&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-85006576704758%3Aloc-66&hydadcr=16624_1866009&keywords=usb+chargeur+3+ports&qid=1642868249&sr=8-5

• A 1 port 5V 3A USB power adapter of another brand ... the relay works (clicking the switch in domoticz , triggers the relay) most of the time but not all the time.

So i'm wondering what is the correct way to power the arduino&relay so that it works all the time? why it does not always work even powered by standard 5v 3a usb power adapters ?

Controller side, i tested it with domoticz on raspberry with mysensors usb gateway.
thanks in advance.

I have a similar question : "Mysensors vs Bluetooth BLE".
More specifically, what was the point to develop the mysensor protocol when BLE is available with very low cost modules (which is not the case for zigbee in general much more expansive) ?

Is it that BLE is constrained to remain on 2.4 GHz when mysensors protocol can run on many frequencies kind of transmitters ?
Is it that mysensors can be even cheeper ?
As far as i have understood a similiratity is that both are not IP based nor mesh protocols.
....
BLE is a much more complex protocol up to the application layer however the success of mysensors in the DiY community seems to imply that much of the extra offered capabilities by BLE (security?, complete endpoint identification to the network?, network management capabilities? ) are of little value for most domotics applications ...(?)

Or may be it's just that BLE is not designed to allow the BLE nodes to declare themselves to controllers such as domoticZ , ...

@gohan the last pulse count seems to be requested from the gateway ... does the gateway automatically reflects all user variables defined in the controller so that other nodes can access them by requesting from the gateway?

interesting possibility , thanks

I did not find any info about how i could use reception of the heartbit signal in domoticz to build a AWAKE/SLEEPING variable...and smartsleep is also not supported by DZ.
SO i'm trying the other way which is to have a sensor that would indicate to the controller when the node is awake so that the controller could use such device variable in a script and react to this in order to send various switches commands which were kept in the state of a dummy switch just waiting for the node to wake up.

To have such a DiY awake/sleep sensor detector i was thinking that i could use one pin of the node reflecting the state of the node (for instance HIGH when the node is awake and LOW when the node is sleeping: i can do that in nodemanager with nodeManager.setAutoPowerPins(true) for the pin i want ) and use this as an interrupt toward another pin of the node defined as the input pin of a sensor switch (as in a motion detector) ... : so waking up of the node would interrupt itself and the controller would be notified

i managed to make this work (in node manager) but sometimes it is unstable and i also realized by chance that such sensor switch could trigger when the nodes wake up even if it is left open (not connected to any other pin).
But unsurprisingly i also encountered some apparantly instable behaviours (glitches) from time to time... so i'm wondering what much more simple solution did i miss..
any comment or suggestion welcome!

i also just realized that there is a special AREF pin intended for what i was thinking about ... but it's not available on the mini pro.

My measurements using Vcc as Ref have been indeed very fluctuating, however what i get was highly sufficient to monitor the battery feeding a 3.3v step up regulator to the arduino and help anticipate failure

wow! fantastic! ... the github link readme warns that it's not yet fully ready but the interface is already impressive!
I still have the same question i had for nodemanager though : for measuring another battery than the one that feeds Vcc obviously another pin is needed, however why not propose as well the option of measuring such pin voltage but with Vcc as the reference rather than the internal 1.1V which most of the time makes necessary a voltage divider ? Actually i did the modification in nodemanager.cpp to use DEFAULT (~3.3V) rather than INTERNAL (1.1V) reference for a 3.3 pro mini and i can get the expected battery level without any voltage divider.

Another unrelated question i have is : could there be any way to adapt the idea of the readVcc method (which is to measure the internal 1.1V against the Vcc reference to get Vcc) but using any voltage applied to a pin as the reference to again measure the internal 1.1 against it ? This would allow the masurement of any voltage greater than 1.1 without voltage divider while the usual method would be applied for measuring any voltage lower than 1.1 ... what did i miss that makes this impossible ?

After testing some functionalities of nodemanager, i was wondering if already somebody was working on making a GUI for nodemanager which would allow to build one's sketch completely from a graphical interface (at least the most common and basic functionalities) : i thing the great work that resulted in Nodemanager has so well structured the various functions needed that it has already paved the way for creating such a graphical interface.

@mfalkvidd You are right but may be should there be for each sensor or actuator first the most basic sketch but also at the end of the page a complete version with all functionalities and granted to work by the mysensors team.

Of course for the complicated sketch version a big warning in red letters that this is not recommended for newbies would help...

Hi,
i'm currently testing the functionalities of node manager as for battery monitoring.
As i understand it your
void setBatteryInternalVcc(bool value) in case bool =true is only to measure the Vcc the arduino is powered through.
To measure another voltage , for instance the input voltage Vbatt of a step up regulator that feeds the arduino, Vbatt then being the actual battery voltage, we have no option except using bool = false and use a voltage divider to measure Vbatt on a chosen arduino pin with 1.1V as the reference.
... or what did i miss because your default value for voltperbits which is ~ 3.3 /1024 seems to imply that the reference is 3.3V in which case a voltage divider is not needed...

what is your actual reference when measuring voltages? is it actually not defined and needing to be defined by using void setReference(int value) ? ... a bit misleading because in your documentation this void is not refered to in your battery management section

what would you say is the main benefit of the A6 module with respect to a sim800L

@gohan
That's what i'm trying to understand ... also MQTT gateway needs ethernet, and there is no such thing available for a gps tracker which can only communicate through gsm, and once the data are received through the gsm network , one would just like to be able to collect them and translate to a location on a map or to get them in a controller where it can be used with other sensor data to trigger scripts ... for all this i was wondering why the simplest solution would not be the better : (mfalkvidd seems to agree) just a sketch to collect gps data and send them as sms and nothing else ... However part of the mysensors protocol devoted to presentation of child objects and so on would make sense if the final receiver, for instance domoticZ could recognize it even though it was received through SMS ...(i don't have the impression that this is possible so far? i don't even know wether domoticZ can recognize and handle sensors and actuators through SMS. yet that would be cool all the more since we have this smsgateway sketch which could evolve to become a genuine SMSgateway or even WAN gateway if it could talk to a controller through the exchange of SMS or Lora messages and to other sensors with the wireless short distance mysensors protocol )

LoraWan will be the next step. Actually i dont have a specific project, i'm just exploring as much as i can all IoT possibilities as a teacher in networks and telecoms... Many thanks for all the valuable info i got from mysensors forum

@mfalkvidd

What i don't get is why you propose this : would there be any benefit of such an ethernet gateway (if the specific mysensors protocol is actually useless) over a mere arduino with sketch for GPS_GSM tracker module ?

If i merge part of the mysensors GPS sketch which uses softwareserial on A0 and A5 (but A5 can actually be left unconnected)
and part of the SMS sketch taken from mysensors SMSgateway sketch , using softwareserial on pin 2 and 3 , i learn from here https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=398856.0 that two software serial can't listen at the same time
so they advice the alternatives

BEST: GSM on pins 8 & 9 (AltSoftSerial), GPS in pins 0 & 1 (Serial). Disconnect pin 0 to upload.

2nd BEST: GSM on pins 0 & 1 (disconnect pin 0 to upload), GPS on pins 8 & 9 (AltSoftSerial).

3rd BEST: GSM on pins 8 & 9, GPS on any two pins with NeoSWSerial.

However the GPS mysensor sketch is (surprisingly) using analog pins for the software serial ... is the limitation on two ss unable to listen at the same time circumvented this way ?

Re: GPS and GSM

Just to be sure, when you say that you would just use an ethernet or MQTT gateway for a GPS tracker, the ethernet module is actually not needed right ? Indeed a GPS tracker is in general not near any ethernet network ...
So we are talking about just the gateway arduino (with ethernet gateway sketch supplemented by GPS and GSM sketches) connected to GPS and GSM modules, and of course a battery ...
which Lorawan module do you have ?

@fhenryco Actually the internal resistor of the solenoid is 27 Ohm while the resistance between C and E of the transistor in the passing state is 35 Ohm ... so it remains less than Vcc/2 for my solenoid which needs 12V ... so i need to tune my boost module at the max ==> more than 30V ... that does not seem ideal, may be i shoud choose another transistor with less internal resistor, but i have little experience with transistors : studied them a long time ago , so if someone can suggest something smart, ready to buy it ...

It works very well with the transistor and schematic posted above. I think the valve is a latching valve because it only discharges the battery when there is a transition. The only remaining problem is that the 5V arduino alone is too much power consuming. So i'm wondering if the transistor could as well work with a 3.3V arduino, that is when the signal level on the transistor Base is 3.3V rather than 5 V ... then i also could remove the arduino led but i'll need to keep the arduino regulator because my 3.7V cell voltage is too much greater than 3.3V