My basement flooding alarm was put in place because this year we have seen extreme rain on a few occasions, which in one case actually flooded the street, and as a result also my basement.

With the electrical cabinet and utility connections in the basement, that could have been very bad, if waterlevels had reached the cabinet itself, so I needed a way to measure waterlevels and have an automatic start of a sump pump when not at home (now my neighbours called me at work to tell me what was happening in the street).

As the house this alarm was built for, is not always occupied, we needed notifications via internet.

In the house I set up a MySensors network with a few nodes and a Raspberry which integrates the Controller (Domoticz) and Gateway functions (nrf24l01+ directly connected via interface board to raspi).

The basement is now being watched by a node which measures the distance to the floor using a cheap ultrasonic sensor. It will switch a relay if the "floor" rises a certain amount (10cm) and will switch off the relay when the "floor" is back within 2 cm from initial position.

The node resets itself to a start position on startup. This means that during startup a first distance measurement is done. This is the "zero" level. Any deviation from that first measured distance is "the change".

Here are some pictures of the node while not yet in the box:

And when mounted in the box:

I then installed this in the basement next to the electrical cabinet:

The node sends new distance measures to the controller only when they change. As I wanted to be able to remotely switch the relay at my discretion, the node itself is not battery based, but always on. I'm using a PCB I designed which you can find on Openhardware.io:
https://www.openhardware.io/view/11/ACDCBatteries-capable-atmega328p-board

You can use any relay module which can be controlled by a digital pin.

I use the PA+LPA version of the nrf24l01+ radio, since the basement is covered by a slab of metal re-inforced concrete. A normal radio did not reach the gateway.

I have added the sketch below:

0_1472292343284_BasementAlarmUltrasonic.ino

One of three ongoing projects:

lasercut box
atmega1284p based
DS3231 rtc (very accurate and 2 alarms!)
LDR
20 by 4 LCD, two sizes of numbers, menu driven setup
buzzer
leds for moodlighting
doppler for proximity detection
encoder for scrolling through values (for setting time)
buttons with LED feedback for interactivity
mp3 player
most interface objects MySensorised :-)

This entry is to boost my energy, because we are still a long way from home (pcb is still not made, focus is now on prototype and software).

Still testing this PCB, but so far everything is working. I now have a board which I can use in different power configurations.
Upper left is powered by 220V AC directly, an HLK-PM01 takes care of bringing that down to 5V. The radio gets power from an AMS1117-3V3 mounted on the bottom side of the board.
Top right is a board powered by 12VDC, with conversion (a 3A DC-DC step-down module) to 4V for the SIM800L (GSM module) and this is dropped to 3.5V by passing a rectifier diode, for the radio. Both are running repeater code in combination with some sensor code.
In the middle the version based with two AAA batteries, which I still need to assemble. It will be interesting to see if this also has a sleep current consumption of 1.45 uA like it's little brother (my GSRedboard)

I will do a writeup later, as I have a few improvements in mind, and I prefer to test everything first.

Just to show that using the Mysensors library allows me freedom to make stuff I (think) I need :-).

Here is the corner I share with my wife. Each has a desk, but since I was first to start this and need both a mental (my Mac) and physical workspace , my desk is a little wider :-)

Never mind the distortion, it's a badly made panorama, but gives a good idea of where I spend my free time.

@Samuel235

I do indulge in "suikerwafel" to keep my brain happy. My wife keeps me young. Running on occasion also helps. Never tried protein, does Rochefort 10 count ?

I have a Weller EC-2002 soldering station with a narrow point soldering iron (I also have the standard one, but never use it, too big for delicate work).

Stereo binoculars (20x magnification) with lamp to see those fine traces.

My trusted Fluke 87 mark 4

A large breadboard (and a few smaller ones):

My power supply is a repurposed old PC power supple (gives a fixed 12V and 5V).

Some tweezers and cutters.

A magnifying lamp when the micro is overkill, it's also my desk lamp.

I use an iMac with a 27 inch screen and 4GHz cpu for most of my software. Sometimes it is necessary to use Windows, which I do within a Virtual Box (e.g. to compile boot loaders with WinAVR2010).

And even with this supercomputer on my desk, I still use my trusted HP-41CX with the Advantage module (since 1985, I had an overclocked HP-41 with magnetic card reader from '82 to '84 but it was stolen from me) for most of my electrical calculations. I lost count how many times I changed the batteries, but it is about every 10 months on average I think.

Still on my wish list:

• a dual power supply with voltage and current setting/indicators (not decided on the model yet)
• a logic analyser (Saleae Logic 8 Pro, or 16 Pro if the donor is generous, in red !)
• a second high res screen (5K at least :-) ), no options available yet

I moved my desk to a new spot in the house and reoriented the desk. Still a mess, but that is how my mind seems to work these days: lots of stuff in parallel ...

@AWI No problem, this board is making its way to me via the mail now (was shipped from OSH Park last wednesday).

I'm hoping to test it coming week.

This board one is a one-trick pony. It is based on @m26872's concept of a very narrow board, but in my case I just need it to handle 2 magnetic switches. So pull-up resistors and connection for two contacts (normally closed) is provided (on the pins that allow hardware wake up from power down), and nothing else. No crystal, just minimal power decoupling and a led. No FTDI adapter or ISP. And of course only connection for the SMD version of the NRF24.

While that was being made at OSH Park I prepared a second design, but this one is still in movement (not ordered yet), measurements are in mm:

It is certainly not a Sensebender, as it lacks ATSHA204A, SI7021 and SPIFlash, but it does have FTDI interface and optional pull-ups on D2 and D3. It is my first try at SMD, with 0805 size components (I need to be able to hand solder them).

The objective is to make a working sensor board as flat as possible. At the moment is is even smaller then the CR2032 batteryholder I was planning to use. A possibility is that I go for a two board approach using this "flat node" and a second board to hold a CR1632 (a holder for this smaller battery is in the image above, Keystone Technologies model 3013).

To be continued ...

Just to let all know that I'm quite happy with my current setup: Domoticz as controller and a gateway running on a Raspberry Pi 2.

The serial gateway I use is made of a small board sitting on the GPIO pins of the same Raspberry.
The PCB for this gateway is public (https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/aXLXBO3f), the code to run is available from the Mysensors raspberry implementation. This creates a serial port which then needs to be represented via a symbolic link with a short name, so that Domoticz can see it.

This allowed me to eliminate a physical gateway, since the raspberry runs as a gateway and a controller at the same time.

Many thank to the MySensors team for the sensor software (same shoutout to the Domoticz designers) :-)

I thought it would be useful to compile a list of flash memory compatible with DualOptiboot and other OTA capable bootloaders.

So the plan is to pin this message and add SPI based Flashmemory typenumbers/brands and how they are connected to the relevant OTA bootloader.

I know most bootloaders require SPI based flash memory. I have found 1 article describing a bootloader which allows the use of I2C EEPROM (http://www.rotwang.co.uk/projects/bootloader.html). But this is outside scope of MySensors for the moment.

So for following OTA' BL's:

DualOptiboot:

Allows a maximum sketch size of 64Kbytes. People with atmega1284p and 130KByte sketches are out of luck.
From the designnotes of DualOptiboot:

Limited to 31K sketches for atmega328p and 64K sketches for atmega1284P

DualOptiboot is based on Optiboot 5.0

Brand, modelnumber, connectiontype, capacity, voltage-range

Adesto Technologies, AT25DF512C-SSHN-B, SPI, 65Kbyte (512Kbit), VCC = 1.65V - 3.6V
Bondwell, partnumber_unknown, SPI, 64KBytes
etc ....

MYSBootloader:
...

As you answer I will add this info to this first message.

Maybe more details need to be compiled if they are necessary for compatibility with the bootloaders specified. Feel free to comment on this as well

To make it a bit easier for some, here are the EAGLE files of this AC capable board.
AC based repeater V3.sch
AC based repeater V3.brd
AC based repeater V3 partlist.txt
AC based repeater V3.pdf

The very narrow boards v1-1 have arrived :-)

So here is my contribution to this tread: a differential drive "brain". A work in progress:

Below you will find a link to a board I made and now use with the MySensors library and EasyIOT.

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/qnkNIMZx

This is a version with the small nRF24L01+. I'm now working on a version using the longer board version (with SMA antenna).

@Nca78

The reason I use the ultrasonic sensor is because I do not like to put a wire along the wall and a sensor on ground level. Now I only have a small case at cabinet level, with the US sensor directed to the floor. And I can measure any water level up to 255 cm with this.

A collegue of mine uses this same node to measure the amount of rainwater collected in his rainwater tank.

In Domoticz I have set up several triggers so that I get notifications on specific waterlevels. This is needed if waterlevels keep rising while the pump is working, meaning the pump can not handle the flooding and needs to be assisted by extra equipment.

@alexsh1

Here are some images of the very narrow node in a 16x16mm cable duct. The batteries are AAA type.

@vladimir

you could use this under the bed:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-5-Pieces-RCWL-0516-Microwave-Radar-Sensor-Module-Human-Body-Induction-Switch-Module/32773310756.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dQaNm0K

It works like an infrared sensor (same three pins), but it does not need a line of sight. It just reacts to movement as this results in a disturbance in the emitted radio signal. Works very well on my clock :-)

The "high" value when movement is detected is not a full 5V, so I test the Out pin as an analog pin. Anything above 2.5V is an activation due to movement.

@phil83
Share this on OpenHardware.io !

@*alexsh1
*
Which fuses are set when loading a boot loader is defined by wich menu element in tools you have selected. Every processor or board you choose will correspond with values in a board.txt file.

You can have several board.txt files: 1 file per "family" of boards.

When uploading sketches, the fusesettings are ignored, only the uploadspeed counts then. Both when uploading with Arduino as ISP as with FTDI interface.

The internal oscillator of 8 Mhz is not as accurate as a crystal, so at higher uploadspeeds the errorrate can increase or decrease depending on the mcu temperature.

Some uploadspeeds are closer to optimal then others in relation to the frequency at which the mcu works. The baudcalculator shows the errorrates. Most are non optimal. avrdude can handle an errorrate of 2% or less. So using a specific baudrate in combination with the internal 8Mhz oscillator depends on the worst case combination of transmission errorrate plus clock deviation error.

For most mcu's the rate of 9600 baud will be acceptable because at that slow rate a clockerror will be relative small. At higher speeds the small clockerror becomes more important. Then it is best to choose an upload speed close to the optimum.

The fusesettings are only burnt when loading a boot loader (within the Arduino IDE, in AVRStudio you can set fuses seperatly from loading anything).

The frequency of 8 Mhz can be obtained via a 8mhz crystal or the internal 8mhz oscillator. The low fuse value 0xE2 sets this internal oscillator. By using value 0x62 you also set the clock division bit in combination with the 8mhz internal oscillator, so your mcu will run at 8mhz / 8 = 1mhz

There are other division values possible. Calculate the low byte value using an avr fuse calculator.

You can also use an external 8 mhz crystal, and combine this with clock division by 8 to get 1mhz operation.

And you can choose an external 1mhz crystal.

All this from choose the right fuse bits.

Same for Brown out Detection which is set via the three least significant bits of the extended fuse.

@Efflon

VCC pin is directly connected to the MCU.

The RAW or IN pin is connected to the regulator input. Th eregulator output is connected to VCC pin and thus to the MCU power input pin.

On a 3V3 promini you can give between 3V3 and 12V (on most promini's, some can handle up to 16V) on the RAW or IN pin. The regulator on the promini will bring that down to 3V3 (which you will be able to measure on the VCC pin).

By giving 3V3 on the VCC pin, some power is lost via the output pin of the regulator (through the regulator) towards the GND pin of the regulator. This should be minimal, but on bad regulators it can be enough to drain a battery in weeks. So yes, I would cut the regulator output line when giving power via VCC.

Cutting the line of the powerLED (on either side of it, doesn't matter) will make sure that the LED does not drain the battery either. This LED can pull between 5 -15mA depending on the protection resistor that sits in series with it.

So VCC pin and RAW pin are NOT the same.