Posts made by JonnyDev13

@petewill Thanks for explaining. That will be helpful if I get to the point where I can try to do something like this!

@user2684 Looks great!

@petewill That's great! So do you basically have one ethernet cable going to each room and then split out the different wires within it to wire up the PIR and contact sensors within that room? What was the trouble with the temperature sensors? This page says you should be able to connect many of them to a single arduino pin, but I admit I haven't tried it with more than one.

I assumed this, but maybe it's better to ask. Do your PIR sensors and Temperature sensors get their power from the arduino they're connected to, or do they actually get it directly from your whole house power supply?

Can I suggest updated sourceforge to say that the code has been moved to github, and leaving little else there? That way it's easier to update everything in the same place. I was browsing on sourceforge for a while and wondering "Why isn't this on github instead?" It wasn't even until I came back and started skimming this thread that I realized it was moved to github.

What type of wires did you use for your contact sensors? I will hopefully be building a new house soon I was thinking of putting a separate node for each room or each door/window depending on floorplan, but if I could run all contact sensors to a single node, I think that would simplify it and make it a lot easier to put in place. On that same note, if you know, could you run wires for temperature sensors and PIR motion sensors or anything like that over longer distances similar to your contact sensors?

It took me a while, but I just figured out how to get a bootloader burned onto the chip and I'm ready to make my slim nodes! Which board type in Arduino IDE do I use to program the chip once I'm using the 6 pin header after it's installed in the PCB?

@Nca78 Thanks for your thoughts. I will try testing it with 5v and see what happens.

@mr_const said:

ybe that aliexpress listing has changed). Project uses same relay, but 5V version

Uggh, I just received 20 of the 12v ones yesterday that I purchased from the BOM link. Is it safe to say that these will absolutely not work, or is there some way to adapt them with a step-up converter or something?

@m26872, yes you are correct. I have the larger ones. I must have copied and pasted the wrong part number. Thanks for the quick response. That's helpful information!

@m26872, am I understanding correctly that you did not need to step the voltage up to 5v in order to use this PIR sensor? If that's correct, do you know if the HC-SR505 works the same way? I will probably buy some of these smaller ones, but I have HC-SR505s on hand right now and would want to try it soon.

@sundberg84, thank you for the input. I will make sure to get the additional parts so that I don't risk any problems happening because of an unprotected converter.

@mfalkvidd, thanks for the response. I will check that thread out more closely. I had seen it, but a lot of that discussion seems to have "assumed knowledge" that is over my head at this time. I think I found that thread through a google search result so I didn't see the "findings of this thread" diagram in the first post.

So, if I were to put the HLK-OM01 module inside of some kind of project container that is not inside of a wall, would you still recommend using the same circuit diagram as shown at the top of the thread? Or are there things that could be left off in that case? I obvioiusly want to be safe, but I also don't have all those parts and would have to wait to receive them if I had to order them and I want to get moving on some of this.

I am just recently getting into building some MySensors sensors. I have a little background in electronics, but it's probably just enough knowledge to be dangerous...

I just bought 5 HLK-PM01s in hopes of using it to power a number of Arduino Pro Mini 5v based sensor nodes. I was hoping that this part was something that could be plugged directly into the wall outlet (US), but I was clearly mistaken. It's a small box that has two AC in pins and +Vo and -Vo DC out pins.

So my question is, how do I use this?

Can this be soldered into a PCB board with my other sensor components and fed with a 2 wired plug from the wall? If so, where would I get such a plug? If not, what do I need to physically connect to it so that it is powering the arduino circuit?

On a related note, are there small wires used to solder to a PCB board when using it as a "permanent" mount for arduino and sensor circuit? I've looked for "jumper wires" but haven't found anything that seems like what I'm thinking. What do people usually use for something like this?

I've read some of the other threads in this forum discussing the HLK-PM01, but they generally have additional parts in the circuit diagram (varisistors, capacitors, etc.). I'm not sure if those are necessary to power the arduino or if they were specific features for the boards in those particular threads.

I'd love some guidance on this. Basically I'm looking for an easy way to power a MySensors node with a wall plug that doesn't take up too much space. If I should go a different direction, I'm open to suggestions.

Ok, now we're cooking! @tekka, thanks for explaining some of the details that I was missing. I'm sure I read that before, but I guess I swapped "gateway" with "controller" in my head, assuming that the sensor node would be assigned an id by the gateway.

I placed the following in my sensor node's sketch:

#define MY_NODE_ID 2

This avoided any errors, but I still wasn't seeing the correct message come through MQTT.

Not sure if it was required, but I ended up having to add

#define MY_PARENT_NODE_ID 1

to the sensor node's sketch, and

#define MY_NODE_ID 1

to the gateway node's sketch. Once I did that, the temperature readings started showing up in MQTT!

Thanks for the help everybody. I still have quite a bit to learn, but getting a working sensor sending data all the way through the gateway to MQTT was the biggest hurdle to really making progress on implementing these. THANK YOU!

@TheoL, you're absolutely right. I was just about to post about that. In the instructions about Connecting the Radio to your Arduino it mentions "Refer to the notes about using a regulator or a coupling-capacitor below." The "or" in there made me think I didn't need a capacitor since maybe the regulator took care of the problem or something. I added in a capacitor and the sensor is connecting to the gateway!

Now the gateway is at least receiving messages and passing them on to MQTT. Unfortunately, the messages don't contain any numbers. There also seems to be something wrong on the sensor node side. I don't see any of the serial prints that should be showing the temperature readings in the serial monitor:

Here's the sensor node serial output:

!TSM:CHKID:FAIL (ID=255)
!TSM:FAILURE
TSM:PDT
TSM:INIT
TSM:RADIO:OK
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSP:MSG:READ 0-0-255 s=255,c=3,t=8,pt=1,l=1,sg=0:0
TSP:MSG:FPAR RES (ID=0, dist=0)
TSP:MSG:PAR OK (ID=0, dist=1)
TSM:FPAR:OK
TSM:ID
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=ok:
TSM:ID
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=ok:
TSM:ID
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=ok:
TSM:ID
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-0-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=ok:
!TSM:CHKID:FAIL (ID=255)

And here's some output from the gateway. (I'm not sure if they line up exactly.)

0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:FPAR REQ (sender=255)
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:CHKUPL:OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:GWL OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:SEND 0-0-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=8,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:0
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:READ 255-255-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
0;255;3;0;9;Sending message on topic: mygateway1-out/255/255/3/0/3
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:READ 255-255-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
0;255;3;0;9;Sending message on topic: mygateway1-out/255/255/3/0/3
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:SANCHK:OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:READ 255-255-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
0;255;3;0;9;Sending message on topic: mygateway1-out/255/255/3/0/3
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:READ 255-255-0 s=255,c=3,t=3,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
0;255;3;0;9;Sending message on topic: mygateway1-out/255/255/3/0/3
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:READ 255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0:
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:BC
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:MSG:FPAR REQ (sender=255)

The mygateway1-out/255/255/3/0/3 topic is receiving blank messages.

Is there a reference somewhere about what the output failure messages mean? I feel like I could look some of these things up myself if I knew where to look.

@Boots33, thanks for the tip! That definitely gets me a little bit farther. I removed the Serial.begin line and set the speed to 115200. Now instead of garbage I'm getting this message over and over when I have the serial monitor watching the sensor node:

Starting sensor (RNNNA-, 2.0.0)
TSM:INIT
TSM:RADIO:OK
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
!TSM:FPAR:FAIL
!TSM:FAILURE
TSM:PDT
TSM:INIT
TSM:RADIO:OK
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
TSM:FPAR
TSP:MSG:SEND 255-255-255-255 s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=bc:
!TSM:FPAR:FAIL
!TSM:FAILURE
TSM:PDT

I see that something is a "FAILURE", but what? Any ideas what is going wrong at this point?

I'm just getting into MySensors. I've purchased a variety of parts and played around with connecting sensors to the arduinos on a breadboard. I've had an openHAB server running for various things in my home for over a year, and have been using MQTT for some of the things connected to it.

I just got a NodeMcu Lua ESP8266 0.9 board so that I can make a wifi gateway that connects to my MQTT broker. I followed the steps on the Building a WiFi Gateway using ESP8266 page. I got MySensors 2.0 installed with the Arduino IDE on my windows 8.1 machine. I believe I was able to successfully the GatewayESP8266MQTTClient sketch that comes with the MySensors library.

It successfully connects to MQTT.

0;255;3;0;9;Starting gateway (RNNGE-, 2.0.0)
0;255;3;0;9;TSM:INIT
0;255;3;0;9;TSM:RADIO:OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSM:GW MODE
scandone
state: 0 -> 2 (b0)
state: 2 -> 3 (0)
state: 3 -> 5 (10)
add 0
aid 8
cnt 

connected with MY-WIFI-SSID, channel 11
dhcp client start...
0;255;3;0;9;TSM:READY
f r0, scandone
.ip:192.168.1.175,mask:255.255.255.0,gw:192.168.1.1
.IP: 192.168.1.175
0;255;3;0;9;No registration required
0;255;3;0;9;Init complete, id=0, parent=0, distance=0, registration=1
IP: 192.168.1.175
0;255;3;0;9;Attempting MQTT connection...
0;255;3;0;9;MQTT connected
pm open,type:2 0
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:SANCHK:OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:SANCHK:OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:SANCHK:OK
0;255;3;0;9;TSP:SANCHK:OK

The line that shows up 4 times at the end there continues to repeat as long as I leave the gateway running.

The first sensor I'm trying to make is a simple Dallas temperature sensor on an Arduino Pro Mini 5v with no other sensors attached on the node. I've been able to get successful readings through the serial output in both codebender and the Arduino IDE. Since I'm using MySensors 2.0 in Arduino IDE and that version doesn't work in codebender, I'm trying to get this node to also work in Arduino IDE. From what I can tell, the sketch on the Temperature Sensor page is for the older MySensors library and it causes errors in Arduino IDE with MySensors 2.0. I didn't see any premade sketch for just a DallasTemperatureSensor, so I've attempted to combine a working temprature sensor sketch with the MySensors calls from another sketch. Here's what I came up with:

/*
 * The MySensors Arduino library handles the wireless radio link and protocol
 * between your home built sensors/actuators and HA controller of choice.
 * The sensors forms a self healing radio network with optional repeaters. Each
 * repeater and gateway builds a routing tables in EEPROM which keeps track of the
 * network topology allowing messages to be routed to nodes.
 *
 * Created by Henrik Ekblad <henrik.ekblad@mysensors.org>
 * Copyright (C) 2013-2015 Sensnology AB
 * Full contributor list: https://github.com/mysensors/Arduino/graphs/contributors
 *
 * Documentation: http://www.mysensors.org
 * Support Forum: http://forum.mysensors.org
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
 * version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 *******************************
 *
 *
  */


// Enable debug prints to serial monitor
#define MY_DEBUG 

// Enable and select radio type attached
#define MY_RADIO_NRF24
//#define MY_RADIO_RFM69

// Include the libraries we need
#include <OneWire.h>
#include <DallasTemperature.h>
#include <MySensors.h>


#define CHILD_ID 0

MyMessage msg(CHILD_ID, V_TEMP);  
unsigned long SLEEP_TIME = 10000; // Sleep time between reads (in milliseconds)



// Data wire is plugged into port 2 on the Arduino
#define ONE_WIRE_BUS 3

// Setup a oneWire instance to communicate with any OneWire devices (not just Maxim/Dallas temperature ICs)
OneWire oneWire(ONE_WIRE_BUS);

// Pass our oneWire reference to Dallas Temperature. 
DallasTemperature sensors(&oneWire);

// arrays to hold device address
DeviceAddress insideThermometer;



void presentation()  {
  sendSketchInfo("My Custom Temp Sensor", "1.0");
  present(CHILD_ID, S_TEMP);  
}


/*
 * Setup function. Here we do the basics
 */
void setup(void)
{
  // start serial port
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("Dallas Temperature IC Control Library Demo");

  // locate devices on the bus
  Serial.print("Locating devices...");
  sensors.begin();
  Serial.print("Found ");
  Serial.print(sensors.getDeviceCount(), DEC);
  Serial.println(" devices.");

  // report parasite power requirements
  Serial.print("Parasite power is: "); 
  if (sensors.isParasitePowerMode()) Serial.println("ON");
  else Serial.println("OFF");
  
  // Assign address manually. The addresses below will beed to be changed
  // to valid device addresses on your bus. Device address can be retrieved
  // by using either oneWire.search(deviceAddress) or individually via
  // sensors.getAddress(deviceAddress, index)
  // Note that you will need to use your specific address here
  //insideThermometer = { 0x28, 0x1D, 0x39, 0x31, 0x2, 0x0, 0x0, 0xF0 };

  // Method 1:
  // Search for devices on the bus and assign based on an index. Ideally,
  // you would do this to initially discover addresses on the bus and then 
  // use those addresses and manually assign them (see above) once you know 
  // the devices on your bus (and assuming they don't change).
  if (!sensors.getAddress(insideThermometer, 0)) Serial.println("Unable to find address for Device 0"); 
  
  // method 2: search()
  // search() looks for the next device. Returns 1 if a new address has been
  // returned. A zero might mean that the bus is shorted, there are no devices, 
  // or you have already retrieved all of them. It might be a good idea to 
  // check the CRC to make sure you didn't get garbage. The order is 
  // deterministic. You will always get the same devices in the same order
  //
  // Must be called before search()
  //oneWire.reset_search();
  // assigns the first address found to insideThermometer
  //if (!oneWire.search(insideThermometer)) Serial.println("Unable to find address for insideThermometer");

  // show the addresses we found on the bus
  Serial.print("Device 0 Address: ");
  printAddress(insideThermometer);
  Serial.println();

  // set the resolution to 9 bit (Each Dallas/Maxim device is capable of several different resolutions)
  sensors.setResolution(insideThermometer, 9);
 
  Serial.print("Device 0 Resolution: ");
  Serial.print(sensors.getResolution(insideThermometer), DEC); 
  Serial.println();
}

// function to print the temperature for a device
void printTemperature(DeviceAddress deviceAddress)
{
  // method 1 - slower
  //Serial.print("Temp C: ");
  //Serial.print(sensors.getTempC(deviceAddress));
  //Serial.print(" Temp F: ");
  //Serial.print(sensors.getTempF(deviceAddress)); // Makes a second call to getTempC and then converts to Fahrenheit

  // method 2 - faster
  float tempC = sensors.getTempC(deviceAddress);
  Serial.print("Temp C: ");
  Serial.print(tempC);
  Serial.print(" Temp F: ");
  Serial.println(DallasTemperature::toFahrenheit(tempC)); // Converts tempC to Fahrenheit
}
/*
 * Main function. It will request the tempC from the sensors and display on Serial.
 */
void loop(void)
{ 
  // call sensors.requestTemperatures() to issue a global temperature 
  // request to all devices on the bus
  Serial.print("Requesting temperatures...");
  sensors.requestTemperatures(); // Send the command to get temperatures
  Serial.println("DONE");
  
  // It responds almost immediately. Let's print out the data
  printTemperature(insideThermometer); // Use a simple function to print out the data

  float tempF = sensors.getTempF(insideThermometer);
  send(msg.set((float)tempF, 2));

  
  // delay until next measurement (msec)
  sleep(SLEEP_TIME);
}

// function to print a device address
void printAddress(DeviceAddress deviceAddress)
{
  for (uint8_t i = 0; i < 8; i++)
  {
    if (deviceAddress[i] < 16) Serial.print("0");
    Serial.print(deviceAddress[i], HEX);
  }
}

Before I added the MySensors specific lines to this code, I was getting the temperature outputs in the serial monitor. After adding MySensors lines, I get a few garbage characters in the serial monitor for that node, but that's all. When I have the serial monitor running on the gateway and then power up this node, I never see anything different in the serial output.

I've also been monitoring the MQTT topics that I configured in the gateway code and I never see any messages posted.

I feel like I'm probably missing really simple, but I'm just not sure where to go from here. It seems that the radios do not connect between the nodes, but I'm not sure the next steps to determine if that's the case. Can somebody help me get pointed in the right direction with next steps?

I got a test circuit wired up yesterday afternoon with one temperature sensor and the arduino. It didn't work. I got out the multimeter and there was not voltage coming through the wire connected (through the breadboard) to the VCC contact in the arduino, even though there was voltage if I touched it to the arduino contact directly. Apparently something I'm doing with the headers is not quite right. I'll research and try to figure it out, but I'd be happy if anybody here has suggestions.

Thanks for the additional suggestion.

I tried two additional mini USB cables that I had, and neither worked at first. Then, the last one I tried just started working and successfully uploaded the sketch. I tried the other cables that weren't working before and they worked too. Then I tried the first Arduino that I couldn't upload to, and it worked as well!

All that to say, I don't know what the problem was before, but it seems to be ok at the moment...

One more quick question. I'm using some of the headers that came with my Arduinos to connect the FTDI adapter, and they don't seem to be in there very firmly or with a consistent connection to the contacts. With all the tests I tried before, I made sure that the power light seemed to have a constant on-state as I attempted to upload. I don't think the physical contact was the issue, but I want to make sure I'm doing things in the best way I can.

See the attached image. Is this a good way to be connecting the arduino and adapter?

Thanks!

Thank you for the responses!

@Hermann-Kaiser, I confirmed that the pins are aligned properly. The FTDI board needs to be upside down in order for the proper pins to line up. But I have VCC->VCC, and the Tx->Rx and Rx-Tx pins matching between the two boards. I assume that is correct since the board is being powered, and one board's transmit would be the other's receive. Is that correct?

@mfalkvidd, thanks, I'm excited to be here! Ok, I closed all browsers with Codebender and disabled the extensioin for good measure. Just to clarify, BareMinimum is one of the Arduino 1.6.10 examples I'm trying to use without even including MySensors yet. I don't think that matters at this point, but just want to be sure we're on the same page. I tried hitting the reset button two different times. The first time, I just clicked it after "Uploading" appeared. Still got the same error. The second time, I clicked upload again, and when "Upload" appeared, I held the arduino button down for about two seconds and then released. Once again, I received the same error both times.

Any additional thoughts?

Hi everyone,

I'm in the very first phases of trying to build some mysensors. Among other things, I purchased the 10pcs Arduino Pro Mini Compatible 5V and the FTDI USB to TTL Serial Adapter from the store page of the site.

I am running Windows 8.1.

I don't have the ethernet hardware I need to build a gateway yet, but in the meantime I have been trying to do really basic things with an arduino, like get a sketch to upload to it and run. I've tried on both codebender and Arduino 1.6.10 installed on my machine and neither work.

I have connected the FTDI USB to TTL Serial Adapter to my USB port, and a new COM3 port shows under Device Manager as "USB Serial Port (COM3)". I originally had a sensor wired into a breadboard with an arduino to see if I could get some readings, but since then I pulled the arduino out and connected it only to the FTDI adaptor and nothing else. When the adapter is connected to the arduino, I get one solid red light and one that flashes on briefly every second or so.

On the desktop IDE, I tried using the BareMinimum example, which consists of this:

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:

}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:

}

In the IDE, I've selected
Board: Arduino Pro or Pro Mini
Processor: ATMega328 (5V, 16MHz)
Port: COM3

And I get the following message when I try to upload:

Build options changed, rebuilding all

Sketch uses 444 bytes (1%) of program storage space. Maximum is 30,720 bytes.
Global variables use 9 bytes (0%) of dynamic memory, leaving 2,039 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 2,048 bytes.
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 3 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 4 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 5 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 6 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 7 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 9 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x25
Problem uploading to board.  See http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload for suggestions.

On codebender, I created an account and tried to run through the Getting Started guide. I installed the Chrome extension, I downloaded and installed some drivers, and now I'm stuck on Page 4 of 5, which is trying to run a basic sketch on my Arduino. Using the same options as above for the local IDE, it gives me the error "An error occurred while connecting to your device. Please try again."

I've tried what troubleshooting steps I can find for this issue, but most of the advice I see says to select the correct board and correct serial port in the settings. As far as I know, I have done that. For good measure, I even tried one of the other Arduino boards I received in my 10 pack in case the one I was using had problems. The 2nd one didn't work either.

What do I need to do to get past this issue and be able to upload a sketch to the Arduino? What am I missing?