Best posts made by Larson

@NeverDie Yep, that rocket stuff, and that dedication-to-task stuff, is pretty cool. Thanks for sharing - very inspirational.

At a more modest level ... I received the Atmega 328P programming harness/clamp you recommended long ago. Nice. And your barebones board loaded with my RFM69HCW jig are working nicely. Also received: a bunch of your suggested radios and the carrying boards. Time, I need time. Can't thank you and @alphaHotel enough for the encouragement. I look forward to reporting if only to chronical for my own record and possible use for others.

I hope it doesn't take me 7 years, but it may. Now all I need is a bunch of 48 hour days.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

ey'd have a different ISP, or, if not, can at least pass your traffic to someone else on the LoRaWAN who has a different ISP than you. If you were also running Amazon Sidewalk, then you'

@NeverDie. Thanks for your write-up. Before I lose my train of thought and go look at StuartsProjects I have to ask about the EasyEDA design: doesn't it make TX/RX much better with no groundplane around the antenna? I've just completed a 433 MHz project and found that I was better to get the TX side way off my groundplaned board. Also, I've noticed that other ESP8266 breakouts dutifully remove the groundplane from breakout boards that would be near the ESP's built-in PCB antenna.

I don't know much about radio's so can easily accept any comment for the better, or even ridicule. I've learned as much as I can about radios from Andreas Spiess. He would simply test the difference with a RF sensor.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

would last... ready for it?.... 1,537 years!

Have you considered comedy as a profession? I love your postings. The self-discharge of the human is another limitation. Unless, of course, you have a couple of Methuselahs in your progeny and a good set of instructions. And I know you can write good ones.
Thanks for the post.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

What all does the elder care entail? If it's just supervision, maybe you can provide it using your automation skills.

Thanks for asking. Yea, I thought of assigning a robot to the task of caring for my mother, but then I would be cast to the dungeon of my own making. Broken-hip, surgery, Rehab, Discharge - it is complicated and demanding. Fortunately we have skilled nursing and CNA's to do the bulk of the hard work. But getting mom's 'extended' taxes done, pain management intervention, arranging for PT, OT, Surgeon follow-up, rehab facility discharge, hemotologists, PCP's and where to land... it is a full time job. And then there is emotional support visits for the patient, my mom, while stress among sibilings and spouses becomes damaging. We all live too long.

Yea, programming radios is my relief: develop, test, then correct. Far less human, and far more certain and way more fun. And when you are done for the day... you simply go to sleep. Sweet!

I've been rereading this thread this evening. I'm glad for the record as I can relearn - even from myslef. So many great ideas that need further work by me. My 433 ASK transmitters are now controlled by 328P chips because the transmit times can be limited to 200 mS at about 6mA. I know, some of your radios can transmit faster but I'm just now divorcing my HT12E and HT12D chips and that is going to take time. Baby steps.

On my new config (Barebones/SR501 motion detector/433 transmitor, the sleep current seems to be about 62 uA and that supports the SR501 motion detectors. That power dominates the energy profile of the device and is near the shelf-discharge of the battery - so it doesn't deserve much study. But the speed of the radio transmission does warrent further study since that is the high current period.

@NeverDie. Thanks for the comment. I'm not sure if I've got that ground-plane radio interferance thing right. Maybe there is a SMD socket thing in which a radio could be clipped so you don't have to commit a radio to the board to find out. I've not seen one but I've not looked. Maybe it is time to invent one with springs to receive castellated edges. A jig like that would also serve ESP8266's. I like the PTH sockets for this kind of experimentation.
The idea of sawing off the top just north of the TXEN/RXEN connections is good. Maybe you could do that after mounting so you could test before AND after. That would be definitive.
On the other hand a redesign and reorder from OSHPark can't be that much of a setback. I really enjoy their service. They happen to be less than 5 miles from my home - but they ship globally. Small world.
Let me know what you learn. I'll learn with you much as I have been doing with hundreds of your other posts - and I thank you.

@NeverDie Sorry to bother again... but I gotta say this Hartley traning video has been monumental. I always thought the world was divided into AC and DC. NOW, I think I get it: DC circuits flipping on and off at a SIGNAL frequency are actually AC just with a different voltage basis. The KEY, Hartley says, is that the energy is not in the trace, but in the field during the rise and fall of voltage. This is also helping me to finally understand inductance. WHY didn't they say this 40 years ago in school? Oh, perhaps I was sleeping as I did.
This is a breakthrough that may lead me to understanding antennae theory and a bunch of other stuff. I thank you for the introduction. I gotta go find this Hartley fellow to thank him.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

Anyhow, if you find out anything more, I'd be interested.

Eric Bogatin, master and professor of signal integrity, gave this presentation at an Altuim conference. At about 42:00 he talks about 7 Habits of Good Design. This, again, has more to do with PCB design and not radio performance. I have a suspicion that several radio boards I designed failed not because of the transmitter, but because of bad PCB design. I can make a failed transmitter (whip antennae) board work by putting the 433 MHz transmitter on a 7" leash away from the board. Now that is a sign.

@ejlane - Thanks. I'm just now learning of the EMI/EMC testing required for commercial products and FCC requirements. While that exceeds the requirements and budget for my home projects, I do think that I might employ the pre EMI testing that one can do with a scope and probes. That may drive me back to school to learn scopes!

@ejlane & @NeverDie: Amazing technology that was available for $1 was … too hard to believe. Even $5 for a ProMini is pretty mind-blowing. Not that I buy commodities, I do buy these components a dozen at a time to save on shipping even when it is ‘free’. I laugh at myself when I spend a week of my time on a $2 chip and then wonder how I can rework it from a PCB (never worth the attempt). Compared to any other hobby or habit this radio-electronic stuff is cheaper than cooking top-ramen at home.
BTW, thanks for the radio discussion posted last week. I will read and learn later.

@NeverDie, Thanks again for all the blogging on this subject. If you have not yet ordered your custom low-noise PCB, I had one design idea. If you flip the ProMini orientation end over end most of the traces will be shorter, especially the RX/TX lines. I’ve not examined the code, but I’d think that the RX/TX connections have the most signal activity on the board, thus EMI potential. I like how you keep all the traces on one side. That should solve the interrupted ground-plane problem we learned from Rick Hartley above.

It is far more fun to roll-your-own. Alternatively, I was thinking … I just checked the Moteino breakout boards from Felix at LowerPowerLabs to see if those would work with your Ebyte radios: too bad, different pinout. I just bought a few Moteinos (915 mhz) boards to save myself from my low-quality solder jobs and shaky hands – only $13 but I have to add my own radio or spend another $7. Everything I've seen from LowPowerLabs has been high quality.

@NeverDie. You are way out there, man! Thanks to the references to the other boards made by you. What fantastic contributions to the maker market.
I suppose D20 and D21 are the same as PCINT6/XLTAL1 and PCINT7/XTAL2? I once reassigned RX and TX on an Attiny85 to RX and TX (edit: output functions) as I was pin limited. It took some doing, but that is the beauty of these multifunction pin assignments. The code, if I remember, had to be in the loop after a delay in the setup; that gave me a way to access the RX/TX pins again to reprogram if necessary. Maybe there are similar challenges with bypassing the crystal.
@samh. So you are setting power levels on the fly. Very clever.

@NeverDie: Yes, as you describe elswere, and taught me, the design trade-off parameters are frequency, bandwith, dwell time, bit transfer rate, power demand, and most importantly, range. I'm looking forward to your findings.

Regarding the low reciever current: don't know about the FOB's but I have found the transmitter power to be key. My design has the "always on" reciever connected to mains. so I don't worry about that power. But the battery-limited transmitter devices are brought to life and triggered by the signal pin of the SR501 sensors that is high enough, long enough to complete a transmission, or several. The HT12E (encoder) chip is connected to the SR501 pin is fired and sends the settings of the dip-switch pin hi/low settings that is recieved by the always-on HT12d (decoder) that the Atmega 328PU can understand. I think the HT devices are MCUs in a different form, like what I imagine a FPLC to be like... don't know for sure. Why do I drone on? Because of the HT12D and HT12E pariings are very specific and very low on power demand due to their design. When I built my configuration (6 years ago) I knew more than I do now. But I'm relearning more. Andreas Spiess, Great Scott, Big Clive, and YOU, explore this stuff extensively, and I thank you all.

In summary, my repeaters and base RX station are mains powered so I don't worry about power & batteries. The primary focus for conservation of batteries is on the TX/Motion devices. Everything downstream of TX is mains powered or can be suitably backed up in the short term.

@NeverDie Yes, you are correct: the HT12D datasheet indicates that multiple signals must be recieved before the enable pin is activated. I think the 'multiple' is a count of three and there is probably a preamble in advance of the main message of high/low settings. The transmitter, again I think, just keeps sending the message until the SR501 drops power (2 seconds on the minimum settings). I get alot of double hits because of this. Good to know about the noise and history. Thanks.

@NeverDie : Very interesting stuff. Even at the lowly 8MHz, the speed of processing pretty much blows away the human concept of time. Fun to hear of the Raspberry and Due. I’ll have to play with those.

HT12D/HT12E: Yes, I learned that the processing could be done on a MCU and I did that on the repeaters I built. I put a Pro-Mini in between a 433 Mhz RX and TX. This repeater sits and listens in the RX mode until it is pinged with a transmission from one of the 433-HT12E detectors. Once a message comes in, the MCU then switches to TX mode and passes the message along, then reverts to listening again. The repeaters and the base station are mains powered as I figured the always ON state would be a battery killer whereas the 433-HT12E’s are very low power and outfitted with batteries.

Rather than using the IIRC library I used RCSwitch – probably because I found that first. RadioHead was another option. The biggest challenge for me was learning which protocol to use for the 433 radios. The command mySwitch.setProtocol(11); did the trick.

@NeverDie Yes, the experience and knowledge found by doing (measuring) is always deeper,

Forgot to mention: Kevin Darah. I have bought several of his TrigBoards. I find the price to be a good value for the design, components, assembly, and all the content he has posted. The quality of his boards is great. I am a Patreon of his. I just need to play with the TrigBoards some more.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

I wouldn't say the PPK2 is good at measuring <1ua currents though, such as sleep currents. If that matters to you, you'll want a Current Ranger, or TinyCurrents or similar.

I'd say the PPK2 is the way to go. Your other post defines the <1ua current as ... nearly infinite in human terms and battery self-discharge rates. Squeezing a stone can yield no more water. Thanks for the posts, once again.

@NeverDie
For me, it is one step at a time.
PPKII: Bought one! I'm back ordered at DigiKey and expect delivery in early June. I'll have to wait on the uCurrent or CurrentRanger until I get a scope. ... I know, the SSD screen on the CurentRanger and a bit of math would suffice. I may get there. Sounds it sound like you have already settled on the best-radio, so your test-rig may be for naught. If you need help, and the PPKII is sufficient, let me know. I am indebted to you for your work.

@NeverDie Wow, that was fast. I just found it. Thanks. I'm on the bus.

@NeverDie Thanks again. I've downloaded both and am putting together a BOM to send to DigiKey. Hopefully I'll sneek an order in with my back-ordered PPKII. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions. The Assembly plant I use allows one-side component placement. I'll have to choose one and it will probably be the sole 386p chip. I've never come close to soldering that fine of pitch. Surely it would be a mess.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

We've barely scratched the surface of what can be done.

Openhardware.io gift coming. Please use it to replace your missing uCurrentGold with the proceeds. Someday I’ll contribute my own projects to these splendid forums, I hope.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

All this time the ESP8266 had been type-cast as impossibly power hungry. I guess the main downside is that anything in addition that one might do, such as measuring the battery voltage or doing an TH measurement, as examples, will be done at a fairly high current burnrate.

By turning off the 8266's radio and only using the CPU for TH, voltage, or any other measurement, considerable power savings result. I think I was getting down to the mid-teens of mA, instead of the 70 mA or so with the radio on. Another power savings came to me by saving up periodic readings, in like a table. Then every 50th reading, or so, turn radio back on and do a bulk-load to whatever database is desired, then turn off the radio and go to sleep. It was a kick to learn how to do this. Here is a posting I did at mathworks with more detail as it relates to loading to Thingspeak: https://www.mathworks.com/support/search.html/answers/890382-how-to-efficiently-transfer-bulk-upload-from-an-esp8266-to-thingspeak.html?fq[]=asset_type_name:answer&fq[]=category:thingspeak/write-data&page=1
I've seen several other uses of the ESP that exclude radio use and just implement the CPU.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

Anyone have any ideas on what form that should take?

Second effort: This link shows a type of box with mounting points on the bottom. It would be nice if there were a PCB footprint for the holes, but I could find none. Using a paper rubbing and a set of calipers one can create their own footprint and build the PCB to that dimension. For any hard wires that must be passed through the box, I've been using cable glands like these for a waterproof enclosure. See the Cave Pearl Project for a different deep-sea approach,

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

if you look carefully you'll see that the adapter PCB covers up the nearest header pin hole beneath it on either side of the board.

Yea, but a Dremmel snip job would have those two pins accessible in a flash! In my hackish world, there has to be three errors to warrant redsign... unless it is an unrecoverable error, of course!

@Larson said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

I checked my solder with a caliper since the dimensions are listed in Chinese: it is 0.6 mm so I'm not far away.

Ha, I just did the simple math. Since the cross-sectional area is function of the squared radius, 0.4 is vastly different (better?) than the 0.6 mm. The 0.4 mm will feed 2.25 times as fast as the 0.6 mm for the same volume - maybe even more if there is a higher evaporative flux component. That is a big difference.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

What kind of device/component do you use to make the yelp sound?

My present "Yelp" design comes from a Thingspeak script that sends an email. Yelp may have been the wrong word, but I was thinking of smoke detectors that beep to say, "I'm dying, replace my battery". Previously, I built a WiFi mouse trap that sent email/text/phonecall via SMTP2GO if the trap was tripped (mouse, or no mouse). That was fun! That code could easily be modified to trigger on a voltage threshold, or any other variable.
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@NeverDie For skunks, and racoons I use an electric fence. I string a wire around the lawns & ferns about 6" up from grade using non-conducting stakes. I think it works and is non-lethal. The e-fence was the smallest Coastal Farm offers. Our cat has 'figured' it out and knows to stay away.

In the spirit of radio electronics, I did build a system for mole elimination. It was complicated. I use a vibration detector/WiFi (ESPNOW) that sends notice to a piezo beeper inside the house. The detector is planted in the last active mole pile. If I hear the beeper I jump to action to hit a button (Transmit/Recieve pair) to ignite an electronic firecracker that would be burried in the last visited mole pile. I could have automated that button-pushing task, but the extra human control made it safer and more entertaining. The firecracker is be fitted with a nicrome wire fork, inplace of the normal fuse. The firecrackers I prepared were painted in some waterproof paint to keep them from degrading in the moist soil. An 18V Ryobi tool battery is used for the power source in the relay circuit because that gives enough juice to burn the nicrome wire. I tested it but have yet to deploy it. Here is the circuit for the igniter.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Will a firecracker actually kill a mole?

I'm not sure. But the MoleCat100 uses the blast from a 22 blank, and that has to be close to the concussive force of a firecracker. Being under the dirt by about 4" has to also help in rendering an effective shock wave since dirt is far less compressible than air.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

The key seems to be charging high voltage capacitors, so that enough current is released at 500v when triggered.

Smoking Cool, and yea, probably dangerous. I was playing with flash bulb circuits from disposable cameras as a potential igniter. I accidently shorted a loaded circuit, and the thing burned a hole in my screw driver. Stunned and temporarily blinded, I put it away immediately and haven't gone back since. I don't think the 500 V device would work on moles; they do their foraging in their tunnels. Probably grubs and worms. Maybe they come out at night?

MouseTrapMonday has probably featured this 500 V device. He has quite a collection.

The Comidox 15KV looks like fun, and again dangerous. Glad to see that the thing comes disassembled. Assembly provides some knowledge requirement at least.

My electric fence is this one. It seems to have internal circuitry that limits grounding problems. The thing sends pulses at about 1Hz. Using a blade of grass, or green straw one can feel the pulses. I've had branches fall on the fence and pin it to the ground without resulting in problems so far. It would be fun to do a tear-down to learn how they work... but I've got these radios to play with.

@skywatch said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Do you have any links to this please?

Sure, Here it is on Amazon. I got mine at Coastal Farm and Ranch. While I'm now using it for skunks and racoons, I initially used it on the swim platform of my old wooden boat that was a party scene for sea otters. They can really stink up the boat after a winter.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

Anyone else reading this having any opinions on the matter that they are willing to share?

I'm sure there are. Initially, I was not only occasional but also reluctant to comment due to my lack of credible contribution. You helped me overcome that. This thread will be a resource for a multitude of others that will be too late for contemporary comment. Keep on going, man.

Today's achievement for me: PPK2 software is loaded (not that simple) and it is funcitoning. Super cool metrics. I'll shortly post my crystal/non-crystal measurements for my own enjoyment.

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

@Larson Here's all you need to know in one place on how to get to 100na sleep current on the atmega328p: https://www.gammon.com.au/power He covers all the different methods. TL;DR: burn your fuses to:
External: 0xFF
High: 0xDC
Low: 0xC2
and then run Sketch J from the Nick Gammon link. That's all there is to it, provided you have an external device/circuit to wake up your atmega328p.

It sounded so simple. Today I gave it a shot. The fuse setting is just like I remembered it: complicated. The bottom line is that, using Sketch J, I am able to get down to 0.25 uA even without changing fuses. Not that I didn’t try to change fuses. I got out my USBASP and have been bootloading and fuse-setting all day. I used avrdude and had trouble getting the commands to work right (conf file directory must be specified.) I tried your recommended fuse settings but then couldn’t upload programs. So, I changed back to default fuse settings and still couldn’t upload programs. Seems to be that another bootloader reset got me back to normal. So… if I can get to 0.25 uA, I’m super happy. The additional 0.1 uA reduction is just too difficult for me. I'm not exactly sure how this helps in the radio stuff, but it has been a really good excercise of my new PPK2 device. I am very impressed.

I’m kind of shocked that the PPK2 has that granularity. As Gammon indicated with Sketch J, I could ground D2 (INT0) to cause an interrupt to blink the LED. That on its own is a valuable tool. Here is a picture. Thanks for holding my hand in this stuff – it has been most helpful.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

which is to do channel hopping and time synchronization among motes.

A guy by the name DeKay played with frequence hopping when trying to hack a Davis Pro Vantage Pro Weather station. He has several blogs about this. Here is one: [http://madscientistlabs.blogspot.com/2014/02/build-your-own-davis-weather-station_17.html] but there are others. Kobuki was one of the contributors of note.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

On Aliexpress they're even cheaper, but the wait is much, much longer: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251801699158809.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.202b38dax6gRtv&mp=1

At 10 for $5.30, I can wait. I just ordered some!

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

No need to guess. It's been done already. Here's one of the mods:

Very interesting. Based on the measurements the author, Pete B, shows, the on-board antenna length is 33.3% the 1/4 Lambda WL. He adds 66.7% for a total 1/4 Lambda. I'll say the same thing is probably true for the ESP8266 antennae lengths. I'm looking forward to trying this with the ESP.

[Edit: My mistake. I looked at this further. The full 2.4GH WL is 4.92". So, the onboard measured 1.64" WL is a 1/3 WL. The additional 3.28" would bring the total WL to 1.0 * WL. Several simple RSSI tests would show the results. Frist test would be no change for a base case. Then test with the addition. Then one could cut the wire back to 3/4 WL, 1/2 WL, 1/4 WL, then finally remove the antenna to verify the original test, or to inspect for circuit damage.]

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

The sigrok list of clones and variants hasn't been updated in many years.

Yes, I saw the list of 2 originals and I counted 12 clone/variants. And that list was from 2015 and it is still instructive. If the chips are compatible and deliver value, then it is sufficent for those on the learning curve, like me. Probably not sufficient for market tested commercial products.

Fun to see the Nordic employee comment about a datasheet error that ended up in a clone. I remember that paper roadmap makers from 50-years ago, like Rand, used to deliberately make mapping errors to catch clones. Times have changed and methods haven't. The die comparisons referenced in links to your link are, again, mind blowing.

@alphaHotel Thanks for asking for the program files. I was too shy.

@NeverDie You do fine work! Thanks for the NRF24 updates to openhardware.io.

Today I placed a bundle of orders for your boards and one of mine (RFM69HCW) at OSH Park. I wanted to send you the RFM69HCW board on this forum. But, I just learned that I can't send a zip, nor sch, nor board files through MySensors. That is very smart and prudent of them. I'll do as you do and am sending the jpg files that I derived from KiCAD. You will notice my plagerism of your broad power traces and narrow signal lines. So very fine. Let me know if there is a way to share the files with you, if you are interested. I'm not ready for an openhardware.io account just yet.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Yabba Dabba Doo!

You were there! What a great cartoon. It was a shame they didn't have stone PCB's. They would have used mica.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

It must be something about the physics of buzzers that the thinnner they get in these small packages, the quieter they are.

I'm thinking of speakers of the 1970's: the drivers, midrange and tweeters would be nothing without the cabinet boxes. Does that apply here? In the 2010's these "soundbars" come into the picture. But there is still a box involved. Yes, it is probably about the physics of sonics... I'm thinking.

From the MySensors forum entry:

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

Hmmmm... Something's wrong then with Adafruit's design if it's 20uA. The chip itself consumes only 35na according to its datasheet:
https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tpl5110.pdf?ts=1652658923819&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

My TPL5110's arrived and I hooked one up to the PPKII to take a look. Remember that Adafruit advertised a disappointing OFF-state current of 20 uA. Fortunately, I have found this not to be the case. Instead, my PPKII shows the off state to be 120 nA; picture attached. The load I used was an LED hooked up to a resistor and the PPK is supplied with 3.3V. As earlier discussed, I’ll next dig out the TrigBoards that Kevin Darrah sent me to see how they do.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

CORRECTION: Earlier I said that Adafruit's TPL5110 breakout board appeared to use a 1M pulldown resistor on DONE. I remeasured today and that's wrong. It's actually a 10K resistor.

Thanks for redirecting me to this thread. I think you were right on your original 1M Ohm assertion. Since I'm playing with my new TPL5110,s I took it on to make my own MM measurements. While my Harbor Freight MM might not be the most accurate instrument, I did show the resistance between DONE and GND to be 900 K'ish. Next, I got out the magnifying glass to spy the resistor in-line with said pins to have a marking of 1004. Google affirmed that that means 1 M ohm. So, your 5K, or 10K would be a big change – and if it comes at no cost for the quiescent current AND enables ESP action, then perfect!

@NeverDie You have a point. The TPL is also simpler.

But bless the developer. Yes, I was trying to hype his product. I forgot to mention that doing this current test was really easy because this thing just worked... right out of the box (really, out of the anti-static bag.) Rarely have things work so quickly for me. Even the TPL required fumbling.

So if sleeping is the objective and timing isn't really important, then the TPL it is. But if configuration settings, Bluetooth, ADC, I2C, SPI and timing are relevant, then the Trigboard is the way to go.

@alphaHotel said in Most reliable "best" radio:

I thought your turnaround time was decent compared to mine.

My latest OSH Park order was 9 days inclusive (ordered 6/20/22, delivered on 6/28/22). I find that pretty remarkable. I've read, somewhere, that the timing is at risk of your position in the panel queue; if you are early on the panel, then it is slower. There is a “super swift” service from OSH for a charge. Free-shipping moves faster than I can, so I can wait. The price can't be beat and the quality is great (except for the errors that I make!!!)

@NeverDie
The silkscreen markings for the AA mount posts on your Test Platform V001 are on the right side for me. Mine arrived last week! Sure, the markings are on the reverse side, but once the batteries are installed, that side is invisible. I’m still fretting the moment when I need to solder the Atmega 328P chip.

To follow-up on earlier posts: the speed of delivery from China has dramatically improved. Most of the orders I’ve place in early June have arrived. Even the hard-to-get Atmega 328P chips have arrived so I don’t have to desolder my old Nano’s or ProMini’s. And the Chinese packaging is efficient - less trash for my conscience. Digi-Key leaves me wondering how such little can arrive in a box that is so big. But... Digi-Key is so fast.

@NeverDie Thanks for the tip. I went as far as dipping my solder wick in my new SRA Flus #135 (yes, your recommendation; thank you again). That may have been the trick because ... it worked! Actually, I didn’t dip it but smooged the stuff onto the wick using a toothpick as a trowel. Yea, it was a mess afterwards. I used a foil tray as an alcohol bath before cleaning with a toothbrush.

My problem today is bootloading the brand new 328's with my old USBASP. The IDE says something about “cannot set SCK period” and then “initialization failed”. I’ve been here before and it just takes time to relearn. I made ReadMe notes but I can’t find them. I’ll try again tomorrow.

@NeverDie said in Bootloading a barebones arduino:

Myself, I burn the bootloader and fuses in one of those spring-steel clamshell chip holders:

@NeverDie I just ordered one! Thanks. I didn't know these existed. Slick.

@NeverDie said in Bootloading a barebones arduino:

For a "known good" starting point, you could pop the DIP atmega328p out of an arduino uno and practice burning your bootloader into that on a breadboard. If it gives you the same guff, then you know it's your procedure and not the chip that's at fault. Anyhow, as there's not really much that can go wrong, my WAG is that, based on @alphaHotel 's earlier comments requesting a reset-pin breakout (now baked into Version 3.0), it might have something to do with either the means or the assumptions under which your burner is accessing the reset pin.

I've got some DIP 328's. Good Idea. I'll try that. Your V1 board has access to Reset. I used an alligator pin to clamp on to the mcu side of the reset switch. So far, I have connected that to the RST pin of the USBasp.

@NeverDie said in Bootloading a barebones arduino:

I just had an idea that might help you.

Thanks for the thoughts. I have pretty direct access to the 328p's reset pin now by alligatoring on to the 328p's side of the reset switch. But... If I needed to connect DTR to Reset I think I would leave the capacitor in place and jumper from Reset to DTR. Soldering those capacitors into place is something I really don't want to relive.

@NeverDie said in Bootloading a barebones arduino:

Actually, the same would hold true on an Arduino Pro Mini,

For a known good platform, I've been using the Nano because it has the ICSP direct access to reset. But I see where you were going with the ProMini. Looking at the schematic you attached, I see that direct access to reset exists on JP7, pin 10. That would do it, wouldn't it?

@alphaHotel said in Bootloading a barebones arduino:

I'd suggest putting this one aside for now and trying again (I'm assuming you have at least 2 other copies of V001 boards as OSHpark tends to sell them in 3-packs).

Thanks again. I will put this aside for a while... eldercare calls anyway. I'm going to order V3 boards and maybe have them fabricated too. The last picture is of the second OSHPark board and second 328p. So I'm down to three 328p's.

I am indebted to this community and I thank everyone for the gracious help.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

@alphaHotel Thanks for your post. It reminded me that for one-time programming, all one really needs is just the through-holes on the board. You can then bend the pins on a male header to create a kind of "weave" pattern, and that alone is enough to hold it into place during the programming, after which you can simply remove it. I've confirmed this works at 2.54mm pitch, and so I'll try it at 1.27mm pitch. I expect it should work well with that too.

Those castellated notches of the RFM69XXX radios and ESP12 radios appealed to me as an opportunity to use springs in a different way. I think I talked about that in an earlier post. Well, I designed one based on NeverDie's radio boards and the picture below is how it turned out. For the springy things I used high-carbon-wire (guitar strings.) I had to cut the wire with a Dremel grinder because shears would bend the wire at the cut. The springs don't need to be nearly this long, though it does allow for a lot of flex when entering the jig at the top. At the pads on the board I used large via's (about 21 mills, I think) so that I could solder both sides of the board for rigidity. This would all for the rapid testing of dozens of radios if necessary.

As you know, I am having trouble with bootloading so I haven't implemented the idea yet. But I'm really pleased at how the dimensions worked out and the spring tightness. I got this idea from looking at RJ45 connectors and thinking that I could do something like that.

I tried a few pogo-pin designs for ESP programming, and they work... but not easily. This design is a snap. I think I left behind the design files.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Exactly which type of guitar strings do you buy that work the best? i.e. do you try to match the castellation diameter with the diameter of the string?

The brand is D’addario, I think. It measures 22 mills, and yes, I was trying to fit the diameter of the castellation. Looking online I see there are many different types, but I just asked for high carbon steel at the local music store.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

Also, regarding your layout for them on the PCB, how do you decide where to position them? i.e. do you use a formula or something, or do you eyeball it and take a WAG?

It was a calculated WAG, but it worked. I wanted the rows of vias to be about 10 to 20 mills closer than the radio’s two rows of castellated pockets. The distance between the radio's castellated surfaces measures 616.5 mills. The distance between the via centers is 622.0 mills. Subtracting the 23-mill hole diameter would result in the via surface-to-surface distance on the board of 599 mills. The 17.5 mill difference (616.5 - 599) means the radio would not be able to slide all the way to the bottom. When engaged, the radio slides down within 1/4 inch of the board while the springs tops splay outward slightly.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

And how do you keep them perpendicular to your PCB while you solder them?

You are asking all the right questions. Since OSH Park gave me 3 boards, I used one at each end of the wire. I think I used some blue-tac under the target board and maybe some blue-tack, or tape, to hold the place-holder board at the other end of the springs. Then I soldered top pads of the target board, flipped the assembly over, remove the target blue-tac, and soldered the bottom via surface.

To do this again, I would add SMD pads on the bottom of the board that would give more soldered rigidity to the spring base. I also had some slight alignment problems as the vias are not exactly straight. It was my first KiCad project; thank you for encouraging me to try. KiCad probably has an alignment tool. The other change I might make is to cut the wires down to about 0.5-inch, or less. The existing 0.9-inch length was helpful for assembly and soldering access, but my fear is that each of these longer wires form a potential antenna. I wouldn't change any of the other dimensions.

You are welcome to 'my' KiCad file based on your design. Is there somewhere that I can drop it. I can't do it here.

@NeverDie said in Bootloading a barebones arduino:

Honestly, you'll be surprised how easy it is to desolder a 328P if you use enough Chipquik.

Before undoing my solder job on the barebones, I had to try again. I think my problem is solved. The short story is that the chips I bought are looking for a clock. (See This is a symptom of the target chip's clock not running.) Once I gave the chip a clock (thanks AlphaHotel for the insight of LED driver pins 20/21 hack) wala ... I'm now talking to the chip in CMD terminal. More to come.

DogWithABone

@NeverDie said in Anyone using/tried the E28-2G4M27S 2.4Ghz LoRa SX1280 27dB module?:

https://mcudude.github.io/MiniCore/package_MCUdude_MiniCore_index.json
It's very easy to use. You can install it into the regular Arduino IDE, pick from among the MiniCore "boards" in the board manager, select the 8Mhz option and a few other obvious options, and then you're done with instalation. From that point on your code will automagically compile using MiniCore. Just to be sure, I gave it a try myself, and I'm now blinking a blue LED off of Ardino Pin 20. It works!

I leave this post as a reminder to anyone else reading this thread. The MCUDude link and installation step is VERY important. To install in the Arduino IDE add the link in File/Preferences/Additional Board Manager URLs; go to Board Manager and filter on minicore, click on Install when MiniCore comes up. Next when selecting the MiniCore board, make sure to select Clock as Internal (8 MHz), or avrdude won't be able to find your board. I went with the other board manager defaults and ... WaLa... my new barebones board is blinking on both pins 20 and 21. Overlooking, or not remembering, this May 14 post has cost me several weeks. So if you build yourself a barebones, heed this post.

@alphaHotel and @NeverDie

It has been a long journey. Since being able to hack my barebones with an external clock onto the D20 and D21 nets, I’ve been able to talk to my barebones MCU in CMD window and Arduino IDE. Once talking, then I could bootload using internal crystal. But the major breakthrough today was trying to get the LEDs blinking. That brought me back to post 110 of https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/11917/anyone-using-tried-the-e28-2g4m27s-2-4ghz-lora-sx1280-27db-module/110?_=1659129333013. And here I re-learn that I’ve been on the wrong path along. After installing MCUDude in board manager, bootloading, and reprogramming (USART via USB-TTL) my LEDs are blinking away.

But along the way I’ve learned a couple of things:

1. The barebones Atmega 328P running without an external clock can’t exactly keep up with the IDE’s baud rate of 9600. Clock accuracy, I’m told, is the cost of using the low-power internal clock setting. So after some iterative looping, I’ve discovered that coding Serial.begin (8800) works on one board, and Serial.begin(9000) works on the other. Your chip will probably be different.
2. To make the crystal hack noted above, I had unsoldered the two resistors on one of my barebones. On my second board, I simply held the crystal against the resistor base (facing D20, D21) while resetting fuses to internal clock setting; it worked.
3. Before finding MCUDude, I had made edits to Board.txt file and copied one of the Pro Mini boards, renamed it, re-fused it, and that worked do. But as mentioned, the LED’s didn’t.

I have been around the block a coupe of times with these boards and learned a bunch. Soon, I hope to actually mount a radio which originally looked like it would be fast work.

Thank you to the contributors and readers of this post. For me, this forum has become a great source of discussion and documentation for my own record.

@NeverDie Soldier on, my friend. I love reading, but I've got nothing to add other than to report that I'm moving on to the radio portion of the barebones design. Maybe I do have something to add: I found that having JLCPCB/LCSC fabricate parts was really easy and not very expensive. The required EasyEDA design environment, I recall, linked LCSC inventory with JLCPCB quite seemlessly. As usual, for me, the learning curve took a long time. I think there were limits that wouldn't allow for exotic parts. That is not a problem for me and my simple ways. But shipping confusion did not exist as it was a combo thing. The minimum order of 5 and the single-sided fabrication were limitations that I could work with. Manually soldering SMD's is really hard and JLCPCB makes it so easy.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

because the resonate frequency seems to change

Ahhh, I have something to offer. I remember way back when playing with piezo buzzers (something that is part of my mole project and in use today unfortunately) I remember incrementally changing the PWM frequency and duty cycle in the loop. I may be off base because I really don't understand what you are doing. But I remember that there is a sweet spot (resonant frequency, perhaps) where the sound would just pop. I've seen this in vocal quartets too (we are talking humans) when they hit some vibe some kind of God's amplifier gets invoked. It is really cool unless one has hyperaccousis, as I do. So I run an hide, but marvel at the science.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

compare the design in the photo against another design which might use, say, a CR2477 or a CR2450 or a CR123A, etc. Probably somewhere someone has built a coincell simulator to answer these types of questions.

During dev, I try to overpower with big batteries, or lines to sort it all out before playing with the smaller cells. Understand the demands first, then find the cell that can deliver. The LIR2450 seemed to deliver a good punch of curent that can carry radio transmission peaks of a ESP8266, 400uF caps helped. Nice thing is that you can control the timing of the peak audio with any other peak load... like a radio or something and prevent an overload.

@NeverDie Yea, I think I knew you upversioned the silkscreen. I think I remember you commenting on it. Looks pretty. BUT in my effort to add to the community, since I typed it for my self for my V001 boards, I thought I'd share it incase there is anybody like me with V001.

I like the V003 upgrades, specially that reset bypass via as discussed with @alphaHotel . Maybe I'll try it. I've got so much into my little V001's (yours actually) that I just can't give-em up. When I get the boards rigged up with radios, GPS (on the USART bus) and SD Card reader (on the SPI bus with a different CS), I'll shoot and send a picture in the spirit of a party!

@NeverDie said in Which PCB fab do you currently like the best?:

higher than quantity 5, then it seems to get kicked into a slower queue

Well, you could play the game of ordering 4 separate orders if you wanted 20 boards. Seems silly... but if that is their system.... I always enjoy the minimum order so I can find my errors, then order the updates, and find my errors, then order the updates. Life is itterative.... until it isn't. What a blessing to have so much technology at such a little price. If you make a mistake you lose a little and remember the error.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

The only upside is that it's sure to work.

Very, very funny. Fell off my chair, funny. I had a similar experience with testing buzzers only I failed to recognize the upside/benefit. I ended up putting a switch on the speaker effect to maintain domestic tranquility.

Yes, frequency user selection was my thought. It sounded like the mV range detection/optimization was too complicated. If the design gets close enough to the expected range, then punt to the user for fine tuning.

Shells: Unless a resonant cavity is important, how about a simple tic-tac container with a pre-drilled speaker hole and some hot glue? Maybe a pezz container, if they make those any more? Even a Gatorade bottle cap filled with epoxy might work (use cellophane to cover/embed the mechanical parts of the speaker.) Failure has taught me many things, and this is one of them.

@NeverDie Sorry for your pain. Something that has worked for me: once I detect a robo-call I leave the phone on but just walk away. I let them hang-up on me. Seems that they never call me back. Plus, sometimes I remember and block them. I like skywatch's idea of a accept-list rather than a block-list.

Due to my elder-care responsibilities, I must answer all calls because I’ve made so many inquiries and dearly need help. Funny, my mom doesn’t have the volume of robo-calls that I get. Maybe the calls are related to activity? Burner phones with friendly-forwarding-filters might help?
I would have called you to deliver this message, but …

@Larson Okay, No picture party yet. But, I did get a notification from Digikey that the Atmega328P-AN is back in stock for $3 each.

@NeverDie Here is a set I found on Amazon.

Do you have a Dremel tool? I'll bet there are several sets of those. Dremel also has a nice jig that will hold the drill stationary and you can press down through it.

Drilling the hole is one thing, connecting it to a trace could be a little tricky.

[Edit: spelling errors.]

@NeverDie If I remember correctly, I was working on 433 MHz radios at the time - so a little slower rate. The sampling rate available though Audacity was way more than I needed to see the digital signal. At the time it was my first introduction to digital radio. And, in life so often, the first experience is the best. And it helped me realize that more advanced SW/HW like the PPKII depend on the same sampling of a signal. Pretty danged cool.

@NeverDie Here is a view of what the Power Profiler Kit II sampler (100,000 samples/second) could see. This is my 433 MHz radio/motion-detector rig picking up motion and sending a HT12E 12-bit address/data byte. Really fun to see that the ones and the zeros can be clearly seen in the FSK profile of the measured current of the device.

@NeverDie Excellent thinking on the signal detection. I think I'm going to build a garage door repeater. While the signal probably has some kind of encryption, maybe all I need to do is to repeat the same signal. But before I do that, I’ve got to return to the radio project you inspired. Elder-care has all of my time for now.
My description above was a bit cryptic. What I marvel at is that I was only measuring the device power and didn’t know the transmitted code would be revealed in the power profile. But that makes sense now for most any battery powered transmitter including OOK, ASK protocols. As such your thought about detecting codes from TV remotes to garage doors would apply just by measuring the power battery power to the device. Effectively the PPKII becomes an O’scope.

@NeverDie said in Most reliable "best" radio:

your garage remote most likely uses some kind of rolling code

Yep, that's me. I figured the relay/repeater would echo the same rolling code in-and-out without having to figure it out. I've got enough earthly bound problems that are hard enough, so I'll take your advice and spend my festering curiosity on something more productive. But still ths PPKII is pretty danged cool.