Posts made by MrRobots

If the copper loop is continuous (it looks like it is), inject a small RF (mW) signal on the wire (at the feed end of the mesh) and place the complement detector under the final end.

@sergio-rius said in Occasional MySensors network drop outs:

banning

Yes - sounds like it but I haven't had the chance to look much further yet.
The fact that you switched out the radio with a different type (previously RFM69?) and power supply seem to point more towards s/w. I assume your new power is capable of sourcing more current.
That said, when I do get a chance, I'll look at the Pi side of the equation and see if there is something along the lines of 'blocking call' happening (ie. sleep, ISR, etc.) and during that time, an ACK gets transmitted but the g/w never sees it. Sounds unlikely, but just something to think about.

Could even be something to do with message queue settings in the mqtt '.conf'. Another place to look at too.

@et al.
For what it’s worth, I too have experienced the issue. The only difference I experienced was communication never re-established itself. And in some of my FMA’s I guess I was too impatient to wait. ;-{

System under test:

RPi 3B running latest version of Stretch.
MySensors Gateway with MQTT (as service)
Node 1 Teensy 3.2 running simple loop waiting for request for Temp, Humidity, and Battery V.
Node 2 Arduino Uno running simple loop waiting for wind direction queries.
[in case your are interested my direction sensor is also home grown, using a MLX90316. I strongly urge anyone to take a look at this device. Reports complete 360 degrees. A sweet device indeed. Only problem is 5V. The 3V part lead time is toooo long to wait]

Both nodes get polled at 30 second intervals with 10 seconds between nodes.

(However - node #2 also transmits unsolicited every 10 seconds to my ‘home grown’ controller running on the same RPi as the gateway. But again, even with node 2 out of the picture, problem still occurs.)

Both nodes reporting TX and RX RSSI nominal. (Distance isn’t a problem – and I doubt the radios are getting ‘front-end’s are getting overloaded.

Radios are all RFM69HCW @ 915

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the ‘lack of comms’ has happened while all nodes were in my office and I could experiment a little.
Here’s what I found:
Powering off any/all the nodes with the gw running to not resolve the problem.

Running with only 1 node (either node) at a time did not resolve the problem.
Service status of mosquito always showed it was running (during time of no-comm).
Gateway logs simply stopped – nothing past the point of problem.
My controller s/w continued to poll the nodes with but none responded when issue was in effect.
After power cycling PI everything came back to operational – until it happened again.
Pretty sure Pi is receiving the current it needs during transmit – although I will monitor this as soon as I have time (I’ll need to set up a laptop to continuously record current draw on nodes AND on gateway).

In the mean time, I hope this information helps someone discover a potential cause.

My gut feel:
Race condition, or a stuck while(). Again haven’t had time to look through source.

I made my own (similar to the one in the Ali Express link below) for just a few bucks and a little time buy using white plastic cereal bowls, some 1/8 threaded rods, cap nuts and wing nuts. I also built the battery enclosure for it using the a pair of the same bowls.
I made the battery enclosure detachable (via wing nuts) from the rest of the station - so I can take the battery and recharge it - until I have time to make a MPPT type solar charger.

Finally I used a piece of house screen (fiberglass - not metal) for the center portion to add protection from insects. (Wasp have been an issue in my area of the past couple of summers).

I bought the bowls from a local 'dollar general' store for ~ $1 a pair.
[I used 14 in total - but that is overkill - and over sized. :-)]

Threaded rod (4 - but 3 would work just as well) from the local Ace for ~ $4.
[3 will probably be easier to deal with and adjust]

~ 3' piece of rigid PVC tube cut into 1.5" pieces.

You can adjust the size (height) of your enclosure by simply adding (or removing) more bowls.

BTW - I used a Teensy 3.2 controller (which works great with MySensors) on a 'Teensy to Arduino adapter shield', and an Arduino 'Weather Sheild' and instrument package to start with - but I am building a more customized weather sensor board to provide reduced power consumption (much needed!) and more precision.

I'll be happy to send more pics or provide info if anyone is interested.