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    nagelc

    @nagelc

    Mechanical engineer for a living, but I love these sensors, processors, radios, and programming, for fun.
    Some people meditate . . . I prefer to solder.

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    Location Melrose, MA - Near Boston in the US.

    nagelc Follow

    Best posts made by nagelc

    • RE: What did you build today (Pictures) ?

      A family member gave me an old lamp with a fancy glass base. Well, I didn't like the lamp, but the base was nice, so I kept it in my basement for a few years. I found it again the other day and decided it needed to become a new type of lamp. I put a 150 LED strip (WS2812B) inside. I have an STM32 Blue Bill and RFM69HCW to run the light patterns and connect to MySensors.
      In Domoticz, I have it set up as a dimmer light, but the node just switches patterns depending on what the dimmer level is.
      At first, I wrapped the LED strip carefully around a tube that sits in the center of the glass jar, but it didn't look very good. Somehow just spiraling the strip in the bottom of the lamp has a much better effect.
      My wife even liked it, so maybe I will put some finishing touches on it and actually use it as a lamp : )
      0_1556834583958_20190502_174734.jpg

      posted in General Discussion
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: What did you build today (Pictures) ?

      I've been playing with an Adafruit AudioFX board and cobbled together this annunciator. Eventually it will be a MySensors node to play alarms or other sounds. It is using a cheap portable speaker to play the sounds. I got it to work with my doorbell button node today.
      annunciator test

      posted in General Discussion
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: STM32?

      Just got a blue-pill, RFM69 node working. It was a bit of a learning curve moving from Atmega.

      • Cheap J-Link: Never got it working. Cheap ST-Link: Worked
      • Arduino (and VisualMicro) uploaded blink sketch with ST-Link: no problems
      • Uploaded the USB bootloader using the ST-Link: no problems
      • Took a while to figure out I didn't have the dfu driver loaded (Windows 10), but after that no problems using the usb
      • MySensors security personalizer: no problems.
      • Mock MySensors node: no problems. Talked to my gateway. Uses RFM69 encryption.

      Seems like this is the Nano of the future, but without needing to level shift for 3.3V. I'm looking forward to making some real blue pill nodes and gateways.

      posted in General Discussion
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: What did you build today (Pictures) ?

      BT832 Thin Node prototype. Inspired by https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/2067/my-slim-2aa-battery-node and @neverdie nrf5 and am612 research. I noticed the BT832 is about the same width as a AA battery holder. I'm using one AA LiFePo4. This is my first sensor with nrf5, bme280, and am612. I also incorporated a jst-sh 6 pin connector for programming. It includes swd, power, and text. All sensors are working. It did not turn out to be very thin. Need to try some smaller PIR lenses and rearrange components for the next iteration.

      0_15359f16272331_20180902_125543.jpg

      posted in General Discussion
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: What did you build today (Pictures) ?

      I am testing a node with a DigiPyro, PYD 1598 motion detector. It is advertised to be low power and runs from 1.8 to 3.6 volts, so should run well with a coin cell. They have to be programmed with several options and I have not found a lot of documentation. I went with what seemed like the most sensitive choices and it seems to work so far. More research needed . ...
      https://www.excelitas.com/product/pyd-1588-pyd-1598-low-power-digipyros

      I bought a couple of these from DigiKey for around $4 each. Now they are more than $12 each and there is no stock. So, these may not be as good a choice as they seemed at first. We'll see . ...

      20201128_190045.jpg
      20201128_190153.jpg

      posted in General Discussion
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Electrodragon NRF Pro Mini Sensor Board

      @mfalkvidd Thanks for doing this kind of work (deleting fake users and stopping spam). I am sure it is not as much fun as answering real questions about MySensors topics. But I learn so much from people in these forums, that I would hate to see it overtaken by trolls and spam.

      posted in Hardware
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Something's cooking in the MySensors labs...

      @Yveaux
      Another experiment, using 2mm machined pins and sockets. Since the RFM69HCW and the RFM95's share the same pinout, I could switch radios easily for testing. 20201208_215918 (2).jpg

      posted in Announcements
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: RFM69 radio 915Mhz

      Unlike the NRF24, the RFM69 is not 5V tolerant on the data pins. The Uno and Nano both have 5V data pins. The NRF24 can work with them as long as it has the 3.3V supply. Unfortunately, the RFM69 needs the data pins to be 3.3V also.
      I have used the RFM69 915Mhz successfully with a 3.3V ProMini (all pins 3.3V). To use with the Uno or Nano, you would need to power from the 3.3V supply and use a 5V to 3.3V level shifter on the NSS, MOSI, and SCK data pins.

      posted in Troubleshooting
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: What did you build today (Pictures) ?

      I finally got a BT832 (NRF52832 from Fanstel) to talk to my NRF24 gateway. I got the NFR5s a while ago. Made a quick breakout board (quick to design, but slow delivery). In the mean time, I configured a STM32 "Blue Pill" as a Blackmagic Probe to program it. I had to get the latest Sandeep Mistry NRF5 files from github in order for it to support the blackmagic probe, but . . . it worked : ) So far I have just run the MockMySensors and it shows up on Domoticz.
      0_1517119518925_20180128_004035.jpg

      posted in General Discussion
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Everything nRF52840

      @NeverDie
      There is an article on hackaday about this type of clamp that even has a KiCAD footprint. I bought one of the clips, but haven't tried it out yet.
      https://hackaday.io/project/165917-soicbite-programmingdebug-connector-footprint

      I also tried this one from Adafruit;
      https://www.adafruit.com/product/4048
      small, jlink-mini compatible, and polarized.

      So far, my preferrred solution is a 6 pin jst-sh connector.
      small. 3v3, gnd, swdio, swclk, tx, rx
      and polarized.

      My old eyes get tired of confirming I have the pins on in the right direction. Polarization is really nice.

      posted in Hardware
      nagelc
      nagelc

    Latest posts made by nagelc

    • RE: CR2032 coin cells - expected life?

      @skywatch These used the Fanstel BT832. Not sure about the bootloader. I just programmed them as they came. I programmed them using Arduino and the MySensors MyBoardNRF5 files, and a black magic probe for the programmer.

      posted in Hardware
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: domoticz motion(type)sensors don't show battery level

      I know what you mean.
      I have several Pi's. I upgraded them from Stretch to Buster using instructions found here https://pimylifeup.com/upgrade-raspbian-stretch-to-raspbian-buster/

      I only got the courage to ugrade my domoticz server after having upgraded 3 others first with no problems.
      But it did work.

      posted in Domoticz
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: CR2032 coin cells - expected life?

      I recently completed an experiment with 2 nearly identical nodes and had very good results just using @NeverDie MySleepPrepare() without any other real effort to reduce power consumption.
      The nodes were NRF52832 and BME280. One with a CR2032 Coin cell and the other with a LiFePo4 (AAA size). The CR2032 lasted a little longer in this application.
      I stopped when the CR2032 dropped below 1.8V because that was the low voltage rating for both the processor and the BME, but the node still appeared to be working normally.

      Vertical axis is volts. Horizontal axis is days.
      6988a0a4-aec8-454b-92ce-5b424525f399-image.png

      posted in Hardware
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Automated Pergola

      Wow. Very cool! Now I'm thinking of some similar projects I need to do for Summer.

      posted in My Project
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: domoticz motion(type)sensors don't show battery level

      I have 2 motion sensors on Domoticz, and they both show the battery level.
      Maybe it is because your level doesn't get sent often enough. I do send a battery level every 30 minutes even if the value hasn't changed (which is way too often. But, I am still experimenting with these nodes.)
      Or, maybe it has to do with the Domoticz version. My Domoticz version is 2020.2

      posted in Domoticz
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: What's the best PIR sensor?

      @lood29 Interesting. Looks like I can cut the threshold way down. I'll give that a try.

      posted in Hardware
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: What's the best PIR sensor?

      @lood29
      I recently got a PYD1598 sensor up an running. I made a lot of guesses at the settings and would like to hear what you are using. I wound up with:
      Pulse Detection Mode 0 = signal has to exceed the threshold and change of sign
      High Pass Filter Freq. 1 = 0.2 Hz
      Filter Source 0 = PIR (BPF)
      Window Time 0 = 2 seconds
      Pulse Counter 0 = 1 pulse
      Blind Time 2 seconds
      Threshold = 128

      I played around with the threshold a little, but didn't get a very good sense of the tradeoff of sensitivity vs false alarms (working in a relatively small room). The 128 seems to work, but wondering if there are better settings.

      posted in Hardware
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Waking up on timer AND interrupt

      @BearWithBeard
      Wow. Thanks. So many times, I have wanted a function like this, but I did not know it existed. I'm going to have to go back to the documentation and see what other good tricks I have missed.

      posted in Development
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Something's cooking in the MySensors labs...

      @Yveaux
      Another experiment, using 2mm machined pins and sockets. Since the RFM69HCW and the RFM95's share the same pinout, I could switch radios easily for testing. 20201208_215918 (2).jpg

      posted in Announcements
      nagelc
      nagelc
    • RE: Something's cooking in the MySensors labs...

      Thanks @tekka
      This is awesome and came along at the perfect time. I have 4 networks because of experimenting over the years and have been meaning to clean up the rats-nest of wires that is my current set of serial gateways. Enter Multi-Transport.
      I made a gateway with NRF24 and RFM95 (915Mhz) running off an STM32F411 black pill. Worked right off the bat.
      Now I just need to duplicate for RFM69 and RFM95(433Mhz).

      20201205_204557 (2).jpg

      posted in Announcements
      nagelc
      nagelc