@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