Hello,

one of my big concerns with sensors is to have something good looking without my wife asking me what this ugly plastic box is. After failed searches for good looking and small enclosures, I decided to search for electronic items and only keep their boxes. I have tried with a tiny 333cm 2$ mp3 player and managed to fit a jmodule and sensors + cr2032 inside. But the plastic is still looking too cheap.
Then I discovered those great looking wireless chargers and bought 2 different models, they are pretty bad at charging but they look really good. Only problem: they are flat. No way to put a jmodule inside so I went for an EasyPCB and removed the plastic stripes on the headers to make the pcb as flat as possible. I choosed the smaller (but thicker) black one as in the other the PCB + NRF24 was already too thick (because of the crystal).
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/QI-Wireless-Charger-Charging-Pad-for-Samsung-Galaxy-S7-S6-edge-Note-5-Nokia-HTC-8X/32694769031.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Factory-price-Qi-Wireless-Charger-Charging-Pad-for-LG-V10-Other-Qi-Phone-Mmar25/32639543557.html

To fit the pcb I had to remove the right part, and then cut the corners. Still, the antenna of the NRF 24 was too much so I had to cut it too I put a 10cm wire instead, soldered at the beginning of the cut pcb antenna and ... it works really well !
Unfortunately I couldn't fit a CR2032 after putting the PCB, so I decided to experiment with alkaline button cells, the more convenient solution was to take tiny ones (LR41/AG3) and put them between power connectors of the PCB.
I also added a bicolor led (green / red) aligned with the led window of the charger, it blinks at each sending loop, wether data is sent or not so I know it's still running. When battery level is high it blinks green, when it gets low it will blink red color so I know it's time to check if I have spare batteries. Also, voltage drop is smaller on red led so it's brighter, green led is dim even at full battery and would be invisible with low battery.

I use a SHT21 sensor and at the moment I send every minute (if values changed) the temperature, humidity, battery level (%) and battery voltage (to have history). With the led blinking that's a lot to bear for LR41 batteries (rated between 25-30 mAh) but it's done on purpose, to see how fast they get empty.

The PCB ended up pretty atrocious as I did many trials and errors with it (and kept long pins 11,12,13,RST to program the board and have to bend them to fit inside the box) but fortunately when I close the box everything is hidden and the sensor really looks good. With the led flashing it really feels like a commercial sensor you could buy in a shop. I put the sensor not too far from the usb plug hole, but there are also a opening all around the bottom of the enclosure, so I have no visible difference in measure temperature/humidity when I open or close the box.
Next step is a dedicated PCB to have a clean board and be able to fit bigger coin cell(s).

Wow I'm typing too much Here are the pictures...

Everyone is busy reading your NRF5 thread @NeverDie

Today I (finally) finished a full working version of that old Livolo 3 buttons switch. I removed the RGB led on the central button as it's not visible, but the basic switch functionality with buttons/relays and blue/red status leds runs fine.
It's running with MYSBootloader, it's really convenient to update without having to switch of the fuse and unmount everything.

A (quick) video, touch sensibility is perfect now, I'm really happy with it !
MySensored Livolo 3 buttons Switch - v3 – 00:11
— Nicolas Cambier

I have to agree with @skywatch and a few others here, MySensors is relatively easy to start with using the documentation, you wire your pro mini & radio for gateway and sensor and you're running your first sensor in no time.
But as soon as you want to make things a bit more advanced, you face a lot of challenges that the doc on the website and suggested components make harder to solve :

• PA/LNA radio that fail, need wrapping in foil to have decent performance etc etc I'm pretty sure this is the most frequent cause of failure for MySensors network.
• examples with DHT sensors that are not convenient for battery usage => use of step up converters that create a whole set of new problems and unreliability
• PIR example with SR501 that runs at 5V so you need to alter them to run at lower voltage (3.3V) that's still not so convenient and they become unstable (triggered by radio tx/rx)

I'll make a list of suggestions to improve the docs, it will probably include writing a few more examples also, and some tutorials for a few things that are easy in fact easy to do but can seem hard from the outside like flashing bootloader on a pro mini or OTA update.

Currently I have restarted to test my NModule "shields", I will improve and/or fix them and probably convert the most useful ones to MySX Connector.

Working on clearing up the backlog of unfinished NModule shields, today I finished to test the dual touch button shield, made a script to use it as on/off button or as dual button with short press = on and long press = off, as seen below as a dual scene controller.
Scene controller with NModule dual touch button – 00:23
— Nicolas Cambier

I made a box so it can be easily customized depending on what you use it for. Unfortunately internet is too bad at the moment in Vietnam to use Fusion 360 so I made it with 123D Design which is less convenient and it's not really high-end assembly

Not related to MySensors but I also assembled a first version of a battery powered led light, it's small and cheap and I will assemble a bunch to put around my home when there are some power cuts in evening/night. I'm using 3020 leds and they emit a lot of light for their small size, even with low current so I expect to get around 2 hours of battery life with the cheap aliexpress 16340 batteries, and way more than needed with the 18650 cells salvaged from my old laptop battery.
My first board with a li-ion charger and it is working well, now I'm waiting for the battery protection ics (cheap DW01 from AliExpress) to arrive as my batteries are not protected.

@dbemowsk said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:

The nice thing about owning a 3D printer is that I don't have to buy enclosures any more. I just have to buy rolls of plastic. The sky is the limit when you have a 3D printer. I do like that enclosure though.

Can't agree more, made a quick box for the lights with "crystal" PLA. You need a lot of imagination to believe it's crystal, but it's nice for a light enclosure as it acts as diffuser.

@EddyG said:

Any news on the new board? I am really interested.

I'm testing a first version right now
It's running fine but there are some annoying defaults.
I'm making improvements to the PCB now and I will publish on openhardware.io in the coming weeks.

I'm using SMD NRF 24 with antenna outside for better reception. Radio capacitor is SMD also but big size (1206) so easy to solder.

This is what the assembled board will look like, it takes a bit more surface than jModule but as you can see it's really flat, around 7mm and less than 6mm if you remove the big reset button on the pro mini.

I just received the white version and it's gorgeous ! Ordering bunch now to put everywhere in the house

It seems there's a fast + good (enough) + cheap options now, AllPCB asks 5$ for 10 boards up to 100*100mm, it's limited to 1.6mm, green or white color (take the green, quality of the white silkscreen is not good, not fitting between pads of an atmega328 for example).
Doesn't sound like a great offer now, but there are some insane things :

• the "top speed" option is included meaning your board are done in 2-3days after order
• there is free shipping with HK Post
• there is free shipping ... with DHL

Result is boards received 6 days after placing orders, very impressive !
And good point I order 10 but for the biggest bord (98*98mm) I received 12, and for the smallest I received... 34 while with another small board I received around 20.

So if you want to test your boards quickly and don't mind the 1.6mm thickness in green color, this is the perfect offer. Every option that you will select (color, thickness, panelization,...) will make the price increase quickly, but it's a good way to test functionality of your board quickly then order fancy colors/thickness etc from another fab when your board is completely designed.

A relatively basic board, based on a cheap CDEByte module, some leftover iTead power supplies (with not so-well aligned footprint) and a PCA9555 to drive the SSRs directly. I have suspended ceiling with many light spots so I want to be able to control them either one by one (in small rooms with less than 8 spots) or by groups/area in bigger rooms. This will be hidden in the ceiling in an electric box so I have no size constraint and it was easy to respect the creepage/clearance distance and include slots.

Resistors are the pullups for the I2C bus that I stupidely forgot (and yes I fixed that ugly solder point for the middle SSR)

Result in Things Gateway:

Great work shoehorning MySensors and BME280 lib in 8 K !

But CR2032 is a bit over 200mAh so the battery life will be closer to 6 months. I don't advise to skip the capacitor, and I would even put a 100uF one. CR2032 has a high internal resistance and when you draw 20+mA for sending a message the capacitor will help supply enough power and help the battery so its voltage will not fall too low.

@monte said in Everything nRF52840:

Found this repo: https://github.com/xriss/nrfx

Gone already ...

@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:

@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.

A very interesting project, too bad they are using NRF52832 and not NRF52840, the max SPI speed on ...32 is too low (8MHz) and I'm afraid the LCD refresh will be annoyingly slow

@sola said in Ebyte nRF24 module comparison (2020):

@Nca78 I am planning to use a couple of repeater nodes to connect far-placed nodes to the gateway (on 250kbps).
Do you think nrf24 is bad for this?

If you haven't invested too much in NRF24 stuff yet then think twice about the RFM options, they have a much better range.

@secantscope said in Enclosure for Honeywell HPM-series PM sensor:

@Nca78 said in Enclosure for Honeywell HPM-series PM sensor:

For enclosure, another option is a radiation shield.

What do you mean by "radiation shield"?

Try Google

@sola said in Ebyte nRF24 module comparison (2020):

E01-ML01SP2

PCB Antenna will not give you good results with PA.
You should use one with PCB Antenna for the gateway, and use "standard" modules for nodes. If you can't reach your PA/LNA gateway with those, then probably it's better to switch to a more long distance technology than NRF24.

I use the same setup than @monte, same module with external antenna outside the enclosure, and I have put the gateway strategically in my appartment, relatively close to the middle, and I can get signal from the few nodes with cheap nrf24 modules I use at the moment. There's not a long distance, but thick concrete walls (high rise building) so the signal has to turn around them and cross doors. And a lot (>10) of wifi networks but most of them have low signal so probably don't interfere with the NRF24 signals.

Haha I didn't notice they now had those 2 "compact" models, obviously based on the Plantower PMS7003 (similar shape, similar vent position, similar connector). They seem to improve the hardware to make them more robust, but what I don't get is the decreased accuracy compared to the original models (PMS7003 and PMS5003).

For enclosure, another option is a radiation shield.

@Sebex said in Particle Powered Air Quality Sensor Logging to Google Docs:

Perhaps I don't necessarily need to use the same pins

Both the sensors you quote are using I2C. So they both use the same 2 pins (SDA, SCL) to communicate. You can put many I2C sensors on those same pins, they each have an address to know which sensor is receiving/sending data to the master (here, your arduino).
Look for a tutorial on I2C first.

@tbowmo said in Laundry sensors:

Just need to make something durable so that the sensor isn't destroyed if someone decides to overfill the basket, and force the drawer in.

You just need to put it recessed inside an enclosure, it doesn't need a very wide aperture.

For using above the table except if you have a low ceiling it won't do the job properly, in theory it's up to 2m but with daylight I couldn't detect non-reflective things further than 1m. If you have a relatively dark room you can measure further but it must be dark with a very reflective surface to really reach the claimed 2m.
There's a VL53L1X with twice the range that is more expensive (close to 10$ with shipping it seems) and that will likely use way more power. I've never tried it, but I think I will soon as I really want to buy one now

Hello @tbowmo,

for the drawers I think the best would be a ToF sensor, you can check the VL53L0X for "medium" distance (2m in theory, 1m practical use in daylight) which I think will be perfect for laundry drawer, there are very cheap board on AliExpress.
It is a very precise i2c sensor and with a low duty cycle you can have a very low power consumption and run on batteries. Opposite to "classic" proximity sensors it doesn't measure based on quantity of light reflected but based on time the light takes to come back, so all you need is to have a tiny amount of light reflected back to make a measurement.
It could be place on top of each sorting basket to tell you if it's full or even how much each of them is filled.