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 : )

@berkseo
Hey. Our own berkseo is on Hackaday. Congrats!

https://hackaday.com/2021/03/11/nrf52-weather-station-gives-forecast-with-style/

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.

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.

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.

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 . ...

@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.

@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.

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.

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.

Ah ha. It worked. Updated the 250KBS callouts per the pull request.
NRF5 communicates normally.

Thanks!

Thanks @mfalkvidd I'll check these out.
I'm seeing an upgrade to 1MBS in my future, but I have a lot on nodes that would need to be updated. I'll probably put that off as long as I can : )

Hi All,
I have not been able to connect my NRF52832 nodes to the gateway when using the MySensors development branch. I used the MySensors PassiveNode sketch to run some tests. It is a very simple sketch that sends random temperature readings. I tried the basic passive node, commenting out passive node, and disabling the uplink check on using both branches. Results:

So the node appears to have some difficulty receiving messages from the gateway and has different issues between Master and Development branches. I have done some diffs of likely files but nothing jumps out at me as a suspicious difference between Master and Development.
I'm using MY_RADIO_NRF5_ESB and assigning a static node number.
I have to define MY_NRF5_ESB_MODE (NRF5_250KBPS) when using the Development Branch because my network is 250KBPS. I know this is deprecated. Could the low data rate be causing the receive issues?

Can anyone point me to next steps for troubleshooting?

I realize I hadn't paid that much attention to the rated shelf life of the batteries. More than a year on a battery seemed good enough. But now I need to shop around. Maybe a less cheap coin cell would actually be cheaper in the long run.
My Subaru remote key fob battery goes dead frustratingly often. I was blaming the fob, but maybe that is unfair. Going to buy a better quality coin cell next time.

I'm amazed what can be done with the basic low power instructions on the MySensors site. I have played with a few different types of batteries all in low power temperature nodes.
2 x Alkaline AA. I routinely get more than 2 years with arduino pro mini and dallas sensor.
LIFEPO4 AAA. This is a really weird battery. I got about 10 months out of it. Difficult size to find. i would stick with AA.
I have an LIFEPO4 AA powered node, but don't have good data on it. Over a year.
CR2032 coin cell. I get over a year using NRF5 and BME280.

The LIFEPO4 is nice for PIR nodes because they have very flat voltage curve around 3.2 to 3 volts. And rechargeable.

Check out the Hammond 1551V1gY (vented) or 1151SNAP1GY (unvented).
They look like they are about the same size. I've been using the vented ones for temp/humidity sensors. Not as ugly as most project boxes.

This seems to be a fairly common problem with PIR motion sensors.
One trick is to add a short sleep statement before your final one to let all the voltages settle:

// Short sleep to let voltages settle  (change duration as needed)
sleep(500);

  // Sleep until interrupt comes in on motion sensor. Send update every ten seconds for testing.
  sleep(digitalPinToInterrupt(DIGITAL_INPUT_SENSOR), CHANGE, 10000);
code_text

Thanks. I'll have to try them out. It is crazy how cheap it has become at least for small prototypes.

I've been using something that looks similar called Command Strips.

https://www.command.com/3M/en_US/command/products/~/Command-Medium-Refill-Strips/?N=5924736+3294529207+3294773681&preselect=5584742+3293786499&rt=rud

They work pretty well, but there are a few downsides.

• You have to leave the end of the tab exposed so you can grab it and pull it down to remove the strip.
• They seem to have about a 2 year life span. After that, they seem to lose their holding power and the strips don't remove as cleanly as they are supposed to. My sensors are very light weight, so not an issue for those. But I have had mixed success with heavier items.
• There are velcro versions if you think you may have to remove them often.

That said, I have had better luck with these than sticky-both-sides tape or other kinds of velcro.

How is the shipping time vs cost for JLCPCB and PCBway?
I'm in the US and just ordering small prototype numbers, so OshPark works well for me. But I am thinking of a larger qty order at some point.