Best posts made by GaryStofer

I made a little PCB that connects an Arduino ProMini i.e. see here with a nRF24L module and contains two LEDs one Switch and a voltage divider to measure the battery voltage. The board can be ordered from here OSH PCBs for about $3 for 3 PCBs, in the US at least.

Send me a message if you want the Eagle PCB files.

See schematic below -- follow notes on schematic -- Do not power with 5V serial adapter, radio will not like 5V.

There is a slight silkscreen mistake on the pcb near SV2: Mosi should read Miso.

Pro mini used :

I made a MySensor gateway node that works as a bridge to an existing X10 system. It allows to control the X10 light and appliance modules from the home automation software. The setup consists of a X10 remote which has been modified so that the digital signal from the gateway keys the transmitter. The X10 controller then receives the data package and does it's thing on the AC line to control the switches. Any existing X10 remote or alarm sensor can be used. I had an old key-fob with broken buttons that became the donor transmitter. When hacking the remote one looks for the signal from it's IC that normally keys the transmitter and disconnects that to feed the signal from the MySensor node instead. A scope is handy to find which pin is the right one.

The GIT with the Arduino script for the Gateway/X10 controller can be found at [https://github.com/garyStofer/MyMySensors2.1] . The X10 house code is hard-coded to 'A" and I limited the number of switches arbitrarily to 12, but the avid Arduino enthusiast will quickly see how to modify the code to suit. It is not necessary that the X10 part be implemented on the MySensor gateway, it could just as well be done on a separate node.

If there is any interest I will add some pictures and schematics.

@alex28 Hi Alex, sorry for your frustration.

I think documentation, either incomplete or outdated, is the crux of most open source projects.

I can not speak to the Hardware you used to try to get a network up as I have stuck to the more simple approach of using the simple Arduino ( ATmel328P) nodes for both sensors, repeaters and gateways, while using a RPI as the network controller with something like Domoticz running on it. I started years ago , even before the RFM069 was an option and made PCBs that incorporate the NRF24 and the ATMEL 328P along with the necessary voltage regulators etc. Maybe it was easier to get started then because there where less options and less misleading documentation was available, but I don't recall running into any problems worthwhile of mentioning or having the level of frustrations you have encountered.

I have two sites running with 8 and 12 nodes each. All sensors running on batteries. The range of the NRF24 is limited in that I only get through one or two sheet rock walls inside the house, but using the NRF24 module with the built in PA/LNA on the gateway and one repeater opened up the range considerably. I'm fairly positive that all the NRF modules I have a re clones....

I use the serial gateway on the Atmel328p and connect that directly to the serial port of the Rpi Zero-W, without USB adapters then run Domoticz on the PI to get onto the internet .

If you look on OSH - PCB you will find many good PCBs that you can make MYsensors nodes with using the more simple Arduino platform.

Most of my frustrations stemmed from the Linux configuration for the RPI so that it doesn't clobber the SD card on surprise power failure.

Cheers -- Gary

@Yveaux So I found the problem now.

The disconnect between the sniffer and the network running V2.1 stemmed from the change in the way the NETWORK_BASE_ID is defined.

In the sniffer and V1.51 of the lib it is defined as a single uint64_t but in the V2.1 lib it is defined as a list of 5 individual bytes which are then later used to initialize a 5 byte char array via a macro.

Since earlier I had chosen a different NETWORK_BASE_ID from the default this uint64_t defined ID was now used to initialize the 5 byte array, except of course that only the first location got assigned anything. Luckily all of this happened without a compiler warning or error...

After I changed the NETWORK_BASE_ID in my nodes & gateway to use the 5 individual bytes format in the correct order everybody is all again. Even my V1.51 sensors that have not been recompiled yet seem to be just fine with the network.

Thanks