Best posts made by gregl

Happy Birthday MySensors - 2 years ago you came into the world.

(im calling it today)
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,16170.msg123378.html#msg123378

Great work @hek – You should be very proud of what you have created and brought to life just 2 years ago.
I see there are now about 1500 users in the MySensors forum and I would think most have gone on to make MySensors a part of their everyday lives. You have introduced many of us to not just Home Automation but also programming , inventing and all the skills associated with electronics and creating many cool projects for all to share..

We’re all now monitoring our homes temperature, humidity, lights,heaters, garage doors, water heaters, shutters,power/water/gas usage. We’re faking that our TV is on, automating our pool, dog water bowls, sprinkler systems, the dust in our air we breath and how much rain has fallen. We can also now control our dumb TV’s with IR from our phone, or seeing what our Rooba vacuum has done.
We can hack our kids moneyboxes requiring a secret knock to access or see when the mailman has left us bills…
We can do it securely with encrypted transmission and we can log the data to the internet to see just how cold the beer fridge was last year in December.
We’re 3d printing special cases for our creations as we’re so proud of them and know they deserve a good home to operate in!

We’re all doing this and more because of your vision to create an open system and to seed and encourage so many ideas and contributors – so thank you and thank everyone who has contributed to mySensors.

I still remember this post in particular….
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,16170.msg127403.html#msg127403
I had only just discovered your work and was really concerned reading this post that there was no one interested…I certainly was and didn’t want you to lose interest in sharing your creation! Thankfully you didn't and we now have this wonderful community!

Happy Birthday MySensors!!!

and thank you Hek and everyone here whom has made MySensors awesome!

What are you actually wanting to achieve?

How long your kids are taking a shower for?
If they actually did have a shower vs "Yes dad I did have a shower...I promise"...but really didn't?

I ask as there are other methods to make assumptions that someone is in the shower...

eg: Humidity sensor to detect the steam...
Or temp sensor on the shower rose which heats up when the hot water flows...

You could use a light beam sensor set at waist height. These are easily waterproof and robust and cheap.

Hi John,

When I upgraded I startup a new gateway on a different channel and move each node over one by one..

I also migrated from Vera Mysensors Ethernet gw ( iboard with hardware hack) over to Mysensors 2beta MQTT client gateway ( iboard spi method) and Openhab...
This way nothing was "offline" for more than a few mins and all metrics continued to get logged to Openhab database..so no gaps in data.
It also allowed me to do the upgrade over several weeks.

Really nice board!

I think it would be good to have ( ver 2? ) a space for a voltage reg. Perhaps as an option, just put the pads on the pcb and user can add regulator if they need to.
This way larger batteries such as the 18650 cells could be used.

set the mysensor gw to connect to mosquito, then Openhab to Mosquito

Hey all - the SensorNode v2's arrived yesterday.
I didn't have much time to play with them, but thought id report in to say that they work!

To do quick test with them, i loaded up Heks' BatteryMonitor sketch, and just needed to make 2 changes..

Change the radio pins:
Sensor gw(8,7);

Change the BatteryMonitoring pin:
int BATTERY_SENSE_PIN = A0; to A2

Uploaded it...and worked first go! Nice!

I then hacked in quickly a tempsensor using the onboard MCP9700 and go this uploading to Vera too. - the temp values are incorrect, i think because of the reference voltage, but left it running overnight on batteries of unknown charge level....actually thats not true.. they were reporting to Vera a value of 89/88...

So yeah... seems to work, cheap and nicely made!

I'm not sure what ill use these for. Perhaps 1 as a remote temp sensor...and the other to monitor a sliding door. - two sensors...Is it open, and is the lock activated.

Have a great day!

Looks great guys!...especially your ribs @hek - Wish id been able to make it!

Speaking of cooking....there must have been some crazy ideas cooked up on what to mysensorize next??

(i've already thought of and semi built a mysensor meat thermometer...so anything else? )

ive used these with mysensors for several years now... they work great. Batteries last ages!

i started with Nano connected via serial to Vera lite - worked great when it was working, but vera kept dropping the serial port, so i moved to ethernet ( initalay via a Freetronics Etherten on 1.3) .. actually this is still running perfectly.

Also have been running on iBoard and 1.4 for a while and its now nice and stable.

Imho... Ethernet > serial.

i wrote a post about this board http://imall.iteadstudio.com/im120410001.html
before the forum crash.
I explained how to make minor modifications to it so its ready to go for a MySensors Ethernet gateway.

Is anyone interested if i recreate the post?

@rvendrame
Stick with it.... My pool controller is the reason I very reason I originally got into Arduino, which led to Home Automation and ultimately MySensors... I've learned a lot in the process and the rewards are great!!

The pH sensor I have is one from IONODE. They do not appear to sell them anymore, but its designed to be installed into a 40mm PVC T-piece and built for constant usage.. Similar to the "Industrial" ones here http://www.cwc.com.au/cat/sensors-probes/ph/
The phidgets site also has a pH sensor which is designed for permanent install http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=36&product_id=3551_0

Not cheap though are they!! I think my ph sensor was about $140 AUD

I made my own temp sensor... I just bought a Stainless steel bolt ( about 30mm long ), put it in a lathe and bored out a 5.5mm hole from the bolt side deep enough to install a ds18b20 sensor and epoxied it in.

The pH probe you have is designed just to dip in the water., take a reading then put back in its box...I have one like it for testing. I guess you could use this type of sensor, by periodically filling a tank with fresh poolwater, take your readings, then drain the water back into the pool... a bunch of solenoid valves to allow the water to flow in/out should do the trick. Or some irrigation poly and some pumps if you don't want to mess with the pool plumbing.

Here are some pics, in one of them you can see the homemade temp sensor and the pH probe installed in the pipework. https://goo.gl/photos/benm5vkpxbZjHEAW7

does the same issue happen with the arduino blink example?

I used one of these boards for a multi sensor recently.... Temp/Motion and Relay actuator.

Turns out to be a very tidy solution !

I'm using the A0 pins connected to a ds18b20 . This is really cute in that the sensor is connected in parasite mode meaning i only need two wires. To do this all you need to do is join pin 1 and 3 to GND and the middle signal wire goes to the A0 ( which is used as D14 ). The rboard also has a 10k resistor from the A0 connection to 3.3v. It works just fine!!

Then for the PIR, im using the readily available RF433 connections to provide D3, 3.3v and GND. The cute trick here is that even though these PIR's are designed for 5v, they run great on 3,3 v too...you just need to connect it differently! See in the photo where the yellow wire which is the 3.3 v vcc supply connects on the PIR sensor.. Genius!!!

See here for background on this:
http://techgurka.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/cheap-pyroelectric-infrared-pir-motion.html

Do this, feed it 5v ( as relay needs 5v) and you have a tidy little multisensor.

Here's some pics:

full sketch here https://codebender.cc/sketch:61919

Hi everyone.
Some chat on these Pete Scargill's site:http://tech.scargill.net/microwave-for-the-weekend/
It uses a different chip (RCWL-0516) to the other cheap radar modules discussed here last year...

Ive ordered two to play with so will report back in a few months if they work for me.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/262783104831

if you use the inbuilt dallas temp example in Arduino ( forget mysensors temporaily) - does it detect and read the values?

@blacey

Really Nice! Ive been thinking about a need for one of these recently to control a gas heater with IR remote function!...and I'd also missed your original post too, so looks like ill be ordering some IR candles too!

Happy wife thru gadgets like this also gives us more licence to spend hours tinkering!!!

Probably not something you need guys, but something i did the other day - a sketch to request the time from Vera and set an RTC.

My requirement is to keep the RTC synced when daylight saving changes, so sync would be at 2:01 Sundays.

https://codebender.cc/sketch:48244

i have a pool controller i built around an arduino and have nearly finished rebuilding around mySensors and Vera for instrumentation, datamine and pump control.
Ive been wanting to do a writeup about it...but not got there yet.

But to answer your question, yes you will need a temp sensor in the pool plumbing. I made mine by drilling out a 1/4 BSP stainless steel bolt in which i embedded a temp sensor.. this bolt is then insterted into the pvc pipe....

here's a pic

This then connects to the controller which does a bit more, but could just be as simple as the example.... http://www.mysensors.org/build/temp

Or this..somewhat more compact...
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/36V-Micro-hydro-generator-p-634.html?cPath=1_2

I was thinking about this too...i think i also posted here or micasaverde or whirlpool forum about it...

My thoughts are to use some of these types of "ibeacon" tags
http://www.phonecruncher.com/features/2227173/chipolo_vs_tile_vs_sticknfind_battle_of_the_bluetooth_finders.html There are loads of these types of devices out there... i have some trackr.com tags on the way...another drunken purchase

Anyway, each person in the house wears/carries one. ( personally id love to be able to embed one under skin...but unbelievably low WAF when mentioned!!!)

And in each room, i have a mySensors device with a BLE "receiver" reporting back who's in the room etc.

Why do this?

• its my hobby....
• so lights turn off when the kids leave them on!!!!! "how many times do i need to ask??!!!
• activate alarm when everyone has left ( doors already lock automatically - little interest in unlocking)

Hi @Hausner

I've a multisensor sketch. I havent tied my relay to any action of the PIR - as i may not want it to do any action unless Vera has instructed it to do so... ie: if the relay was to turn on a light on detected movement, i'd only want that to occur at night, or if the security system was armed etc...
Anyway sketch is here:
https://codebender.cc/sketch:61919

Im by no means an expert...but...
isn't the key difference of the two that one 32u4 has a built in USB controller, whereas the 328p doesn't and relies on an external USB controller (FTDI usually.)
All other pins are the same
So assuming the available arduino memory space etc is the same ( or more) then I cant see why it wouldn't work.

Personally I use Nano's are they are real cheap, or boards that require an external FTDI programmer ( Rboard/RBoardMini/Sensbender ).

I do have some Leonardo's which use the 32u4 chip, but never tried them with MySensors....

Didn't answer your question eh!.... Perhaps someone else is using them?

Nice one! - great project to get your kid into electronics and programming!

@danta lol - I too was inspired by this thread and bought a couple of modules which arrived last week. Mine are identical to those in your first ebay link.

I've not tried to use them yet, but I think you use them identical to a PIR. ie VCC, GND and Signal.

As @Yveaux mentioned... these use the same IC as the PIR's, but these do seem to lack the ability to tune the sensitivity and timeouts like the PIR's have.

So in short... try to use them as you would a PIR.

I was having some probs with the led dimmer sketch the other night beacuse i wanted to use PIN6 rather than PIN3.
My LED strip would flicker....had me puzzled for a bit until i remembered the mysensors v2 beta ( im using quite an old cut of it ) uses pin 6 for the RX/TX/ERR leds...
So i just reassiged them in my sketch...and problem solved!
#define MY_DEFAULT_TX_LED_PIN A2
#define MY_DEFAULT_RX_LED_PIN A3
#define MY_DEFAULT_ERR_LED_PIN A4

This may not be relevant to your posts... but i thought it was a PWM frequency issue initially!

Hi @mfalkvidd
Ive bought and used the 12mm metal buttons before... they are pretty good in feel/performance.
I've had some installed outside for probably ~2yrs ( undercover, but would still get damp etc.) Ill have a close look at them tonight to see how they are going with respect to corrosion etc.

I've also used some small black plastic ones... they are also OK, but I think I got these from my father, so don't have a link.

As mentioned in the post above, the switches are still perfect - its been raining here in Sydney, and as a result they have been splashed with rainwater, so they do get wet whenever it rains...and continue to operate and look as they did when new.