@wrendral
For the valve & driver I used a off-the-shelf battery-powered irrigation timer/valve (without the timer). Similar unit, US $24 here: and a $5.00 US TB6612FNG polarity-reversing motor drive board, all running from 9v battery.
Original idea & code: here
Beware of possible failure mode if power fails while valve is open. 
(Sorry I cannot help verifying your board, not an engineer, sometimes manage to get things to work anyway. )
@bjornhallberg said in RFM69 Range issues:
Gateway (rfm69hw) initialization:
#define MY_IS_RFM69HW
#define MY_RFM69_FREQUENCY RFM69_868MHZ
#define MY_RFM69_NEW_DRIVER
Maybe I missed someone pointing this out, but the original poster's gateway initialization looks like it's missing something. These defines are not at all obvious, especially with the HW version. Strange things can happen, including unexpectedly low power. Check the API docs and also another thread.
With the HW version of the RFM69 on the gateway, and the RFM69 new driver, in addition to what you list, you need to also include:
#define MY_RADIO_RFM69
#define MY_RFM69HW true
https://www.mysensors.org/apidocs/group__RFM69SettingGrpPub.html#gaf1455cd3427c9dc4c4564542c3dafc16
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/11316/rfm69hw-atc-not-working
@flix said in Sensebender micro failing with funny characters:
I don't think it is a power supply or radio issue, given it was working fine previously
"It was working just fine before" is pretty much the case with 100% of failures! It sure looks like you covered all the likely culprits EXCEPT the power supply. Software seems unlikely. Are you testing while powering the Sensebender from a USB cable to your computer? Try different USB cable and/or a different USB port directly on your computer (not a hub). A bad USB cable could have trouble with either power or data. You might also test with battery power directly to the board if external usb power is the usual mode.
@Olaf-Jacobs I've run DS18B20s and learned that with "1-wire" the wiring details and are important unless wire runs are short. Also, parasitic mode (2 wires only) is less stable than using three wires. The type of wire, capacitance of the cable run, interference from nearby electrical, especially high voltage AC, and the topology (with star topology being the worst). I have no idea if this could be an issue for you, but if you want to test it you could try testing with the same number of sensors with very short runs and see if that improves the instability you are seeing.
@iancu said in Battery powered latching relay node:
The last part would be to have it run in smartSleep and wake up when state change request is sent by gateway (as far as I read this is not possible).
As Electric pointed out, when it is sleeping the radio is turned off and it's not possible to listen for communication. How quickly do you need to be changing the relay state? Unless you can be sleeping almost all the time, you may have a problem. If you can wake up for a second or two every 5 or 15 minutes and check, that's much different than if you need to respond to a light switch within one second. You need to know how much power is used while sleeping, then how much is used to wake and check if a change is needed, then go back to sleep. Do the math based on how often you need to be checking.
I have been using Domoticz (currently 4.10717) for a few years and it has always very stable except sometimes when the trouble is introduced by my mistakes. If you are satisfied with Domoticz, except for the current stability, I suggest it is something you can correct. Changing to another controller will be a lot of work.
I have had very good stability with Domoticz on rPI first, now on a basic Intel NUC running Ubuntu with SDD drive which is of course much faster.
Of course hardware trouble on the device running Domoticz is possible. I suggest using fastest, best quality hardware & SD card for your controller. Other software running on the same Pi might be causing your problem rather than Domoticz.
You can probably get better help debugging Domoticz on their forum.
A few ideas:
Good luck!
It sounds like you are getting excellent range.
If you haven't spent a lot of time with locating, orienting, tuning/optimizing the antennas (and feed line) on your gateway and your nodes, this can make a big difference. I noticed you mentioned 8db omni antenna. Of course a true omnidirectional antenna would radiate in a sphere, and gain above 0db means directionality.
Good antenna info at Low Power Labs. A few notes from reading there and other places :
No antenna is omnidirectional in 3 dimensions. Radiation patterns either give OR take. Vertical or horizontal orientation impact is not intuitive and varies by antenna type and desired directionality both horizontal and vertical.
Use feed line in half-wavelength multiples to minimize RF going back to the transmitter
I only mention this because it sounds like it might be much easier than working on the radios. Of course, maybe you have already done these things.
Good luck!
Tim
Hello,
I have worked with a lot of home irrigation equipment including both AC line-powered relays and a little with battery-powered 9vDC latching relays. I understand you are interested in learning MySensors, Arduino, etc. It appears that you could easily get a reliable wired commercial irrigation controller and valves working quickly and at low cost. The main reason to use this approach in my opinion is your major requirement - reliability. But also, speed and cost.
I have worked with hobby electronics for many years, and many hundreds of hours with MySensors and related electronics, and thousands of hours of software development. I use commercial irrigation controllers because I would never be able to build one as reliable even if I had unlimited time to do it. Even if building, writing code, and testing was done, something designed and built wll not have controls, display, and functions anything like a commercial unit.
I suggest you make your first MySensors/etc. project only for the sensors you want. This is challenging enough for your first project since you mention you are not experienced with electronics. It is better to learn to walk before you learn to run!
One example of this difficulty: have you bench-tested using an Arduino to activate/deactivate a latching 9vDC irrigation valve? They are not at all like an ordinary relay. If you can do this, I am impressed at what you have learned.
In your situation suggest you put a commercial AC mains to 24vAC powered irrigation controller (USA $50-$100) at your house with a cable to your valve box, and use non-latching 24vAC valves. If you must use 9vDC battery-powered valves, or must locate the controller underground (no way to use buried cable) you can buy commercial battery powered valves with built-in control for each valve (USA $25-$50 each), or a commercial battery powered controller for multiple valves. (brands: DIG, Orbit, Rain Bird, Hunter).
I apologize if it sounds like I am trying to discourage you. I am not! But I encourage you to start with a simpler project as it is hard enough to get your first working project even if you are only building one sensor or relay!
Good luck!
@mrhutchinsonmn
I agree with the previous responses.
I know you said wireless, but if feasible I would strongly favor 100 feet of direct-burial irrigation cable and a relay for pump, and a hardware float switch, for simplicity and reliability.
@mfalkvidd said in RFM69 custom frequency:
Welcome to the MySensors forum @olka
Use
#define MY_RFM69_NETWORKID number
where number = 0-255MY_RFM69_FREQUENCY is also available, but is only used to select different bands (433 and 868 for example).
Is this current info? I haven't tried it, but the API doc (RFM69 new driver) refers to "Custom frequency in Hz":
#define MY_RFM69_FREQUENCY (RFM69_868MHZ)
The frequency to use.
RFM69_315MHZ
RFM69_433MHZ
RFM69_865MHZ
RFM69_868MHZ
RFM69_915MHZ
Custom frequency in Hz (new RFM69 driver only). <------------------------ NOTE
See also
MY_RFM69_NEW_DRIVER
@mfalkvidd
Thanks, it looks like the Rev 9?, where the older pic you posted looks like a smaller version. I didn't realize the board was rearranged between Rev9 and recent R10.
Nice clean signal scanner build! I must have one.
Is that an open source proto board you used? I couldn't find it poking around a bit.
Thanks for sharing it!
Hi,
I'm no MySensors guru to be sure. You started by saying you were considering a second Controller. Then mentioned two Gateways.
You didn't mention what particular Controller you are using now. I've been using Domoticz for my Controller for a couple of years. Domoticz is perfectly happy to talk to multiple Gateways. I have some sensors on a MySensors radio network exposed to Domoticz through a single Mysensors Gateway. I also expose multiple ESP8266 (wifi) sensor nodes, each of which Domoticz sees as a separate Mysensors Gateway. I also have several virtual gateways collecting online data from Netatmo sensors and other online sources.
You can certainly have more than one MySensors (radio) gateway if they are on different radio types (and I believe different channels). The concern is that Mysensors radio nodes must communicate exclusively with a single Mysensors radio gateway. You can't have a gateway wander around into the area covered by another gateway unless its on a different frequency, or routing may get all mixed up. It doesn't work like Wifi or cellular where connections are handed off.
Your sensors won't get exposed to Controllers at all. Just one gateway for any node and multiple Gateways should be OK...at least for Domoticz.
Hope I got that all right.
Cheers!
@rozpruwacz
Late to this but for anyone who finds this thread (like I did) with the same thing in mind...here's a relay that looks like it might work for some. (I have not received it yet.)
Specifications:
Working voltage: DC 5V
Working current: 70MA
Standby current: 1UA
Load current: AC 250V / 10A, DC 30V / 10A
Trigger mode: Low pulse trigger
There are 10 more listings for what looks like the same product...most about $2 US.
This seems useful for any sort of battery powered node that is to trigger opening or closing a circuit. I certainly would not use it for house lighting in general due to the toggle/uncertain state, storing the state at the node, detecting the relay state when switching, and synchronizing to correct an error seems possible if needed.
My use case is to provide remote control to outdoor landscape lights that use AC line power and a transfer to feed low voltage lighting common in the USA. I have a large yard with 4 different transformers that currently mechanical timer, light sensor, or electrical timer. I'm usually happy to NOT automate dedicated independent simple systems that just work. In this case, my equipment needs fixing after a power outage (mechanical timer), doesn't work well in winter when photo sensors don't get enough light, and I can't turn on the lighting manually very easily. I want to keep these transformers in place as a fallback (in manual 'on' mode), so I could use remote controlled relay to switch the 12 volt AC output to the lighting circuit. I prefer to use battery powered nodes even though line power is available because everything is outdoors and weatherproofing an AC power supply to power a node might be more work.
I have had good luck with 1 wire but only after careful attention to the wiring itself. Star topology can work fine for several sensors, but daisy chain is important for less trouble, as mentioned.
Wiring comments: wiring is the most important thing.
Use a twisted pair cable (or twist your single conductor wires). Cat5 or telephone wire or similar works well. Solder all connections in the daisy chains or use wire nuts or terminal blocks, or other connectors. Do not just hand twist.
Your ground and + wires to the sensors should be connected directly to the board terminal closest to the power supply. Don't use skinny jumper wires or connect to a different convenient spot on the board, or to some other ground or +5 device connected to the board. (Yes, all +5 and ground terminals are not 'the same' when it comes to analog circuits.)
Don't run the wires in a bundle or nearby other wiring.
A lower value pull-up resistor is easy to try and may help. Another trick is adding a 100 ohm resistor in series where the 1-wire signal line connects to the board. (Disconnect wire from board, connect resistor to board, connect wire to resistor.)
Tim
@adiculiniute
Of course commercial controllers from Rain Bird, Orbit, and others are only $90-150 that will do exactly what you are asking about. A dedicated device will always have fewer points of failure. You can build this as others are suggesting but it will take an investment of time and money, not the easiest solution.
I love building projects but usually stick to those that have functional benefits I can’t get with inexpensive commercial products. Your priorities may be different of course.
Tim
@joedirt16
A lot depends on your background and how much of this is completely new to you. MySensors website assumes you have a certain level of knowledge and experience. To build something with MySensors you will need background in several broad areas:
Electronics hardware in general. Wiring together various electronic components. Selecting and buying parts and pieces. Soldering. Testing and troubleshooting.
Software/coding/programming. Much of what you will do with this is more about hooking together different existing software code, but usually some level of code writing to glue together the different pieces is needed.
If you have some experience & skills in either one of these two areas, you can probably learn what you need in the other one. If you don't have any experience in either of these areas, you will likely have a lot to learn before you will be able to build something you have in mind.
Specific platform knowledge. You need to know how to work with Arduino hardware and the IDE (development environment). You need to have a basic understanding of programming Arduino such as writing "C" language code.
Mechanical fabrication. You can do desktop prototyping without this, but to make a real-world device you need to be handy enough to put your electronics in an appropriate enclosure. Simple workshop fabrication, fasteners, adhesives, connectors, cables, etc.
Where to start:
There is a lot of information available for beginners. A starting point would be to focus on learning Arduino. It was designed for beginners. You will find a lot of beginner tutorials on the internet, one good place to check out is Adafruit. There are many others.
I would not start out focusing on MySensors. After you learn basics of Arduino and build some simple projects, it will still be quite challenging to jump directly to MySensors. MySensors is one part of a larger system - it lets you build sensor nodes but relies entirely on you having one of many separate Controllers to collect and work with that sensor data.
I have been building hobby electronics for many years, and it still took me many days of work to get my first MySensors device to operate and send data to a controller. (You need to get a working controller, too!)
I took this path, doing the easy work first and the hard stuff later:
Good Luck!
Tim
@od1
Can this scenario be practical for ALL battery powered devices?
I haven't seen battery powered controllers or gateways discussed here. I think the scenario described presents some challenges in addition to build/coding issues discussed.
Sensors normally independently send data any time they want, so sensors can be built to be low power by being asleep (using little power) most of the time.
Gateways and controllers on the other hand must be listening all the time so they cannot sleep, and would have shorter battery life.
If you are also requiring all sensor nodes to be listening for a command to turn on a LED, the sensor node will not be able to sleep.
Is it OK if the nodes can only run for a matter of days or weeks on its batteries?
I have been using Domoticz with MySensors nodes in several different configurations.
The closest I have done to what you are asking is to use the GatewayESP8266MQTTClient version, with one or more sensors connected directly to the ESP8266 running the above client software, so there is no separate Arduino. This is of course wifi only transport from the sensor node via the LAN to Domoticz controller, and it requires a MQTT broker (server).
Similarly I also use Domoticz with ESP8266 running ESPEasy which also transports by wifi, no Arduino. I strongly recommend this combination to get started as the only hardware is a ESP8266 like NodeMCU, Wemos Mini, etc. and your controller host (Linux computer or RPi), and the only software is Domoticz and ESPEasy, both of which require configuration but no customizing code. Of course you can as many sensor nodes as you like.
From reading on this site I got the impression that the ESP8266 is NOT an ideal choice for a general purpose MySensors gateway-to-LAN solution using radio-equipped Arduino sensor nodes, and the W5100 Ethernet Gateway is far better. But I am not using this myself.
Finally I also use MySensors with Arduino and attached radio link to a radio-equipped gateway on a RaspBerry Pi. This is a more complicated solution as you are now dealing with two radios, and both sensor node and gateway software you must configure/customize. It works well, however, and there is the opportunity to wire custom code at the sensor node if you require this.
If you do not have an existing working Domoticz or Mysensors installation, and you simply need data from common sensors, I strongly recommend trying Domoticz + ESPEasy. It is MUCH easier to set up and get running with supported software, as you simply install it on the ESP and configure via a webpage. It is a great help to learn Domoticz without too much complication.
Domoticz is a pretty easy package to get working compared to the others I looked at.
@peterrr said in I need advice with brainstorming my farm project:
The whole farm is pretty much covered with Wifi but I would have liked to keep the nodes -> gateway off our wifi, and only use the wifi for the controller...
I felt the same and monkeyed around with radios for quite a while. (I have a much smaller place, 3 buildings, good wifi everywhere.) Then I tested out the ESPEasy on ESP8266 sensor nodes and it was so straightforward that I haven't gotten past some prototype radio nodes. As has been said you can mix wifi and radio nodes to a single controller. Are you sure more devices on your wifi will create even the slightest problem and you aren't making it more complicated than needed for a good reason?
Many of my sensor nodes run a handful of sensors on a single ESP8266 (no Arduino needed, but runs code via Arduino IDE), the hardware couldn't be simpler. In this scenario with MySensors nodes the sensor node IS the gateway...no fussing with radios outside the builtin wifi.
Do you consider the amplified (and slightly optimised) NRF24L01s sufficient for the node network? Or RFM69HW?
I messed a lot with the NRF radios and for the most part the market is full of dirt cheap clones mostly with counterfeit chips and the consistency and reliability is all over the map. Some radios work OK, but a huge pain sorting them out The RFM radios do not appear to suffer from this problem and I suggest starting with them.
Tim
@peterrr said in I need advice with brainstorming my farm project:
So if this was your farm, what would you do?
Thus 11 Arduino projects currently and I would like to turn them into nodes. I have a Raspberry Pi to use that I can place of at any one of the Wifi AP's.
What functionality are you looking for when you say "turn them into nodes"? Receiving/logging data from multiple supported sensors for remote display is the simplest and a controller like Domoticz cat be a hub for many types whether DIY or commercial. Controlling remote switches/lights is fairly straightforward. Controlling custom built projects in an interactive way is not so easy. Having a remote node is not like having your Arduino plugged in to your computer (serial monitor, software updates). If you are trying to integrate monitoring and control of multiple devices the controller and its capabilities become the big issue.
My experience so far is mostly monitoring sensors and simple controllers (DIY thermostat/humidistat). RPi works fine but is somewhat fragile IMHO with write fatigue on the card storage. If you want something a lot faster and more robust an inexpensive headless desktop computer works well. I got up to speed on a single RPi 3 running domoticz, with a MySensors radio gateway, InfluxDB and Grafana. Once I found it would work I moved it to an Intel NUC computer with SSD storage running Ubuntu Server. Way faster and easy to back up on my LAN.
If you are a software developer type itching to learn a complex system for maximum flexibility OpenHAB has a good reputation (and steep learning curve). If you want to get get something working quickly and get your bearings Domoticz is a lot closer to plug and play, who knows it may suit your needs.
I like to try to find the simplest/fastest way to get the job done as I'd rather be using this stuff rather than fussing around under the hood all the time...I already have other hobbies.
@peterrr
As a wet-behind-the-ears but reasonably successful novice with MySensors etc., I recommend first thing that you get something, anything, up and running that will cover the whole range of sensor->transport->controller working in a very simple way. This will dramatically help you figure out the parts and pieces. It can be very frustrating and time consuming getting your "hello world" first example of having sensor data appear on some device, as you really don't know which pieces are working and which aren't until you are there.
Specific suggestions:
Controller: Start with Domoticz as your controller. Vastly simpler than OpenHAB to get running, and surprisingly useful. Install it on a RPi connected to your LAN.
Sensor Node: If you have any practical use for wifi as the transport for some of your sensors (i.e. areas with wifi coverage) the simplest sensor/transport is ESP Easy on a ESP8266 such as WeMos Pro Mini or NodeMCU hardware, with any supported temperature sensor such as NRF24L01 or DHT22 (AM2302). These will talk over WiFi directly to Domoticz on a RPi. No code to write or modifiy with ESP Easy.
In a fraction of a day you can have a controller and working sensor up and running. Knowing your controller actually works is a much easier place to start from with MySensors radios etc.
Next steps: MySensors sensor nodes can be run on an ESP8266 client gateway without separate radios where Wifi is available, so you can get ahead on how MySensors code works out of the way before tackling radio hardware.
Finally, for long range/out of wifi scenarios, you can then start messing around with radio transport, which means you need sensors attached to one or many Arduinos which host one or more sensors. To get at the sensor data, you need a controller (Domoticz etc.) to receive the sensor data and make it available on your LAN with a web browser.
Domoticz is able to forward data to cool things like Grafana/InfluxDB or other dashboards for graphing, consolidating, presentation, etc.
None of these parts or pieces are too tough for someone with your background. But working on all of them at the same time is a pretty tough learning/debugging process.
Have fun,
Tim
@tbowmo said in Irrigation Controller (up to 16 valves with Shift Registers):
It seems that you have not read up on how mysensors works.. The purpose of mysensors is to create wireless sensors. To do this, we normally have a gateway connected to a computer running some kind of controller software.
Then we have sensor nodes that transmit (wireless) sensor data to the gateway which sends this to the controller software.
Again, please read up on how mysensors are designed, find more here https://www.mysensors.org/about
Hi Thomas,
You have hit on a point that I see over and over here, and that I shared with @tombstone for a long time before I was able to get a successful MySensors node working. (And I've worked with electronics and tech much of my life.)
Understanding the key components and how they fit together is essential for newcomers to MySensors, and is not very complex, but the information is widely scattered and completely missing from the the top level of the website. This discourages newcomers and creates endless questions on the forums as it is quite difficult to get anything working without many hours of reading and experimenting.
There is no obvious place on the website that explains the big picture as well as your last message! Newcomers to MySensors do not benefit from a clear simple picture of sensor nodes, gateways, and controllers and how they fit together.
(I'm sure there is much of this elsewhere on the website, but its not easy to find from the obvious links.)
It would be hugely helpful if Getting Started was an actual detailed overview of MySensors diagramming examples of complete end-to-end systems.
Gateways are difficult to understand at the beginning as there are so many different ones and the Gateway names don't help...some are named by a single transport protocol (i.e. MQTT) some for an interface (Serial) some for a hardware platform (ESP8266), etc. I'm sure this seems obvious to lifelong engineers/developers but not so much for regular hobby geeks like many hobbyists.
I'm impressed with the work that has gone into MySensors and am grateful for all the hard work by the many developers and users who have contributed to it. I don't mean my comments to be a complaint. Presenting technical systems to often less technical newcomer/users is a challenging area. Improving the first impression of the big picture to newcomers would be a huge move forward.
Tim
@barduino Thanks for that. So many great suggestions in this thread.
For the "learning this stuff as I go along folks", like me 
could you share briefly what's involved in using your code, beyond basic install of node.js?
Trying to choose my battles, and moving from Domoticz to OpenHAB, new setup of InfluxDB, Grafana, Node-red are already on the top of a long list... So much software, so little time...
Not to mention hardware...
But, hey, an ESP-Easy MQTT node popped up in my OpenHAB Paper UI last night, after a few minutes of tweaking the node, which is a first, so that's a baby step. MySensors next...
Tim
@ericvdb Eric, I did not know that the MySensors binding wasn't needed for MQTT on OpenHAB. My short term goal is to get ANY sensor configured and running on OpenHAB 2.0, and since I already have a MySensors MQTT gateway running on my rPi, that is an interesting option. Very helpful, thanks.
@Yveaux No controller...Interesting. Thank you for sharing that, it moves NodeRed up on the list I think, even though I do want to get OpenHAB running to see how useful it is. Thanks!
@Yveaux Interesting. What controller does your gateway talk to? I'm trying to get up and running with OpenHAB 2.0 which has its own MySensors binding issues to deal with an its unclear if it will work with MQTT.
Tim
@Yveaux Thanks, Yveaux. Mode Red looks pretty interesting and I think it may be very useful down the road. At this moment I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible (despite my MQTT constraint). I'm already comfortable with MQTT and if serial is a problem I'll probably go to ESP8266 Wifi, as I'm already familiar with the ESP modules.
I'm just trying to select the best gateway, with the transport from radio to WAN being as fast/low latency and trouble-free as possible...but not looking for extra work! Wondering if the MQTT protocol already integrated into MySGW on the Rpi, ESP/Wifi, and Ethernet gateways might be a possiblity for Serial.
Tim
I've been using MQTT with a GPIO-wired Raspberry Pi gateway successfully for a number of months. I don't like the jumper-wire interconnect to the radio, so I'm moving off the Pi and onto a small Linux server (Intel NUC). As part of this I'm considering a serial gateway...but I notice there is no MQTT client option in the gateway code GatewaySerial.ino.
Am I missing something or is this a technical limitation? I'm aware of the options with ethernet or Wifi gateways, but like the simplicity of a USB connection if it is a viable option. I'm committed to continuing to use MQTT. I also like the idea of a direct wired connection from the gateway to the controller without hopping over the LAN in between.
Any info or opinions welcome and appreciated.
Thanks!
Tim
Hi, I have had good luck with MySensors with Domoticz on rPi 3 and have decided to try cranking it up to 11 and try OpenHAB . I've only used a gpio-wired RPi gateway so far.
I've set up an Intel NUC computer running Ubuntu Server that I've installed OpenHAB 2.1 on. I realize a lot of work of late on OH 2 and here on MS gateway stuff. So I'm wondering the best choice for a MS gateway build?
I'm looking for path of least resistance and an entirely separate build from what I have, so no RPi. A small issue is that I have zero consumer devices, only MySensors and ESP Easy sensors so far, and an unconfigured OpenHAB isn't exactly easy to learn by looking under the hood - there's not much working to emulate.
SO I'm guessing maybe a Serial gateway plugged directly into my controller/computer? I'd prefer to continue to use MQTT over whatever the hardware is, not sure if that's ready to go on the MySensors side? Really just want quickest way for SOMETHING to be running in order to learn OpenHAB. Oh, and if anyone knows if I'd be advised to hold of for the next greatest release of something, it would be nice to know.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Tim
@Osch Kind of hard to splice small gauge wires without soldering or terminals. A step towards wire splicing without soldering is to buy a wire stripper suitable for small ~20-28 gauge wires like this:
• Small wire nuts (probably the purple ones for 20-28 gauge or so). Requires wire stripper. Just cut jumper wires in half, strip, and twist up 3 or more for more grounds. Wire nuts make excellent connections, maybe use electrical tape to wrap them if there is any concern of tugging on the wires.
• No-strip insulation-displacement connectors aren't likely to work with the tiny stranded wire in your jumpers.
• Crimp splice connectors like used for telephone wire splices might work but then you need a decent crimper, although a pliers may do. May be too big for smaller wires.
• Screw terminal blocks can work well for wiring to sensors if you have a place to anchor the block.
Tim
@user2684 Here are the ones I thought were great, but ended up not so much (2 of 4 acceptable). Board build quality initially looked very good. On the second order one had a bizarre 1/2" untrimmed edge on the PC board. It worked, though. One of the initial ones failed after a few weeks. One of the second batch unusable out of the package. I bought them from seller Makerfocus at Amazon: 
@user2684 Have you swapped in a regular non-LNA-PA nrf radio to confirm everything else (software, hardware) is working fine? In other words absolutely every single solitary thing identical except the board.
These particular boards appear to be very low quality, probably are made with reject components, etc, none of the four I bought consume the same current.
But 2 of the four work OK at 100 yards thru walls with zero fussing around with power settings, capacitors, tinfoil hat, antennas, etc. Oh, and this is with the board powered by the 3v output on a cheap Uno clone (no cap).
There is no question in my mind that by far the most likely culprit is a crappy board, and unless you are comparing results side by side with a known good board and configuration you are doomed to perpetual tinkering. I gave up on these and have been shopping for much more expensive correctly built radios instead.
(But surprisingly some of the cheap $2 non-LNA-PA radios seem to work nearly as well... with little unit-to-unit variation.)
This is not voodoo, it's simple electronics. Crappy hardware quality is a giant waste of time.
Tim
@ccy Look at the chart below "NRF24L01+ Radio". That shows the PIN numbers on the Pi and the pin labels on the radio to interconnect. Pay no attention to the labels on the RPi generic pinout diagram except the PIN numbers. The RPi SPIO labels are not what you are looking for. And be sure to use the chart for the correct RPi model.
@marlin said in 
Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway:
where the first picture indicates that pin 24 and pin 26 should be used, while the second indicates pins 22 and 24 should be used.
Be careful because the wiring page shows two pinout diagrams, one for the Pi 1, another for the Pi 2&3, but which is which is not inside the graphic itself. Please don't ask how I know.
Tim
@gohan said in Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway:
After updating domoticz to beta version I finally have the MQTT working with controller and I can see the sensor node seding in data: my question now is how to I debug the gateway if it is running as a service on the RPI without messing things up?
I have my gateway on a headless pi 3, no monitor, GUI or keyboard. (I don't care for the nest of wires connection to the pi.) I also use MQTT which is very reliable.
An easy way to see the full MQTT traffic is to not start (or kill if it starts on boot) the MQTT server in the background, and start it in the console you can monitor. This won't impact Domotics one bit. In my case I do this by invoking "mosquitto -d" in the terminal
A simple way to monitor MQTT once its up and running is to look at the Domotics Log on the Setup menu.
Another way to watch it is to, in a terminal window such as running ssh from your computer, use MQTT "sub" in your terminal to see the MQTT traffic both ways to and from Domotics. If this isn't familiar, you need to learn it, (read the MQTT docs) and it's quite simple. Example might be "ssh pi@rpi.local" or "ssh <IP address>" from a computer on the local network, assuming the user is named pi and the pi is named "rpi"
Your MQTT topic must match what is in the sensor node sketch, the gateway sketch, and the domotics MQTT config. In my case I use "mosquitto_sub -d -v -t domoticz" and everything starts showing in real time in the terminal window.
MQTT is a bit more fiddly to set up but it's nice that different environments can push sensor data into the same MQTT server, in my case MySensors and ESP Easy.
Tim
@boozz said in How to test/monitor packet loss for each radio node?:
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/3984/nrf24l01-connection-quality-meter
Thanks, Ronald. I will definitely be putting together one of these very shortly. Looks handy for testing coverage and new radios.
In addition to this approach, has anyone come up with a technique for monitoring all the nodes on an ongoing basis and flagging problems in real time?
I greatly appreciate the value of the shared contributions on this forum!
Thanks,
Tim
I've seen a bunch of comments about packet loss % in various discussions here. Despite searching here and Googling, darned if I can figure out the technique (hardware, software). I understand what packet loss is, have looked at this in troubleshooting my LAN, but when it comes to packets in the MySensors radio network, I am at a loss.
I'm trying to figure out potential relay issues and was quite surprised to find that the NRF+PA+LNA radios I bought easily reached several hundred feed through several stucco (wire mesh) and internal walls. Then the cheap typical 'bag 'o boards' are often doing the same thing. (And everyone here complains they only go "a few meters/yards". So I'm suspicious.
I want to cover 3 separate buildings each 100-200 ft apart and had SWAG'd using PA+LNA radios for gateway and relay to each separate building and the cheap boards within each building. I'm paranoid that my binary range testing is not enough.
Thanks!
@user2684 Don't leave your antenna unplugged as without the transmitter being 'loaded' by the antenna the power amplifier may be damaged.
I'm convinced that the component and/or build quality on most of these NRF boards is abysmal and so there is tremendous variability from unit to unit. I bought two +PA+LNA units initially and was quite impressed by my 100 yard range between two buildings, each building has stucco walls with wire mesh buried in the walls. Much better range than my wi-fi router. I ordered two more units from same source and one works but the PC board was trimmed with an extra 25mm along one edge of the board; the other unit had very high power consumption and does not work at all.... Go figure.
Thanks for posting this! I am just getting past the breadboard/UNO stage and your timing is perfect. So far I have only used NRF24L01+PA+LNA and I want to build smaller units with NRF24L01+.
Would it be possible for you to post your photo ("the components") with higher resolution? There are so many different NRF modules sold and I cannot see the details of the NRF module this adapter board will fit. Also can you share the source/model for the NRF module?
Thanks again,
Tim
