I would say the 2W should be used. I say this because it would be exceptional to spec 2W and there is probably good reason to do so, though I do not know that reason.

Often times people with experience with the design reason that a different value will work. Or they find that the component doesn't mechanically fit into the modified design. (I will admit to doing this myself) I suspect that the resistor periodically is dissipating 1W (1W of tolerance). If this is the case, after many cycles, even years, the 1/2W will fail.

I will share some experience. I put 2W (12V/0.15A) into a 2W resistor. I went to pick up the board and grabbed it by the resistor and burnt the crap out of my fingers.

Overdesigning is good. Cautionary tale: Mrs. Fiorina told the printer mech designers that they make the printers too good and that they should make them cheaper. The company of which she was CEO is not doing so good today.

The distance to my sensors would be 20-30M through a fire separation wall, four interior walls, a ceiling and an external wall.

I, too, have done some experiments with the RFM69 and had the same experience. But they are about 10x the price of an nRF24. ($6.80 vs $0.68) The cost of the RPi zero 2W is $15 (though I've had two where the WiFi chip failed).

The LNK364 has an internal 6.3V zener diode across BP and S so the 10V is OK, though the 50V is probably a better idea. The data sheet indicates the capacitance should be 0.1 μF (100nF). I'd recommend the latter. (It could be a typo in the EasyEDA)

@skywatch @sindrome73 This is what I do, too.

Note that it is wait(), which is a MySensors function and not delay(), an Arduino function. wait() checks for MySensors messages, delay() halts all process, thus a message might be missed.

Yes, nRF24 is attached to the RPi3B+ on which the gateway runs.

I have long considered an Arduino Nano with nRF24 connected to the computer that runs Home Assistant. This probably would not work because the sensors are in the backyard and the HA computer is in the garage which is at the front of the house.

I have configured the Nano to be a gateway sans radio to which a sensor is connected. This is a very effective way to give the computer some I/O!

I will consider it for future designs. For now, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

(I, too, hate delays)

@mfalkvidd

This statement is the crux "It just needs to expose its capabilities in a form the AI can use".

The IoT device would have to present its capabilities in MCP-ese. This could be complex, for example, one could tell the AI, "Heat my house in a way minimizes on/off cycles." It would have to know a large number of things, temperature (indoor, outdoor, outdoor and indoor heat transfer fluid), fluid flow rate, fluid pressure, indoor and outdoor fan speed, how to regulate those speeds, and more.

What I think I'm trying to say is that it will create more overhead.

And this AI, where does that reside? If not in the cloud (the cloud has its own set of negatives), then on a home server? ... yet more overhead.

It seems like instead of simplifying our lives, it would overly complicate them.

Of course, I guess, we could ask AI to design our IoT devices :o

-OSD

@skywatch

Where would I find those? I must believe that they are in the MySensors code because it is not the RPi rebooting.

I say the RPi is not rebooting because I am monitoring the output of mysgw via an ssh connection and the connection is not being broken, which would indicate a system reboot. It is the stream from the pipe that stops.

I have a 10µF capacitor soldered onto the board of the nRF24.

@TheoL

I'm using the nRF24L01. It's sounds like you're implying that the radio is doing a lot of retries. I don't think that's the case.

The sensor sends to the gateway. The gateway sends to the MQTT broker. Home Assistant (HA) has subscribed to the broker, but HA takes a while (I've seen as much as 3 seconds) before it acts on the data. If I'm not mistaken, an ACK follows the route back. Presentation data takes a lot longer than regular data.

When I have a serial gateway, I set the time to wait to a half second and 1 second for presentation.

To confound even more, I have HA running in a virtual box.

Different controllers may react faster (or slower?)

Yes, the delay is annoy, but I find it reliable.

That said, I will give serious consideration to providing the radio with good quality power. My RPi zero 2w gateway uses a rock solid 12V 20A power supply followed by a 5A buck converter. My sensors, though, use a really cheap 700mA wall wart or a really cheap 80-277VAC to 5VDC 700mA buck converter.

Perhaps I should add a bypass capacitor to the existing electrolytic capacitor that is already on the radio.

My understanding is that if the rating of an electrolytic capacitor is double or more the expected voltage, it will last a very long time. (eg. my computer is at least 15 years old and is still running well...if Microsoft would stop giving it updates it would be working great.)

I have found that when I do a send that a wait (not delay) must precede the next send.

I think all my gizmos are conspiring against me. This is just one of their ploys.

My gateway is running on an RPi 3B+. Integral to the gateway are three "sensors" for irrigation control. It receives 3 commands from Home Assistant: Zone, Runtime, and Start. The program translates these inputs into when and what relays to energize or de-energize.

There are six nRF24 nodes; four soil moisture sensors, a water flow meter and an energy meter.

All of this worked well but went to *@#!! while I was gone. The nodes worked fine (other than the usual problems with DIY stuff). It was the irrigation control that I couldn't figure out.

I disabled the service and ran mysgw from the command line instead of as a service so I could try to catch the problem. There was to much data and the problem and the problem seemed to go away. But back as a service, the irrigation control would stop (not the other devices), but when I restarted the service, all was fine (sudo systemctl restart mysgw) for a day.

I read the documentation about piping the output. This essentially makes the output available when running as a service. At some point the output would stop. I couldn't determine why it stopped and there was no timestamp with the output.

I installed the utility, ts, that would put a timestamp on the output stream. The stream would stop at midnight every midnight, but the service must have just restarted because mysgw was still running.

Now here's the weird part. The irrigation control is working.

Wait, Wait, Wait!

I just checked to see if mysgw was working. It wasn't! no output from mysgw, meaning all the devices were not working. systemctl status mysgw said it was running. I restarted the service and now it's running as expected.

Any ideas for me to try. Yes, I could run a cron job every day or every 8 hours, but I'd like to have it work without this crutch.

@TheoL that would probably be a hall effect sensor that draws in the microamp range. Per @KevinT 's circuit, it would draw 33mA full and 11.3mA empty, somewhere in between depending on the depth. MySensors and a controller like Home Assistant (with the MySensors Integration) can monitor the battery level as well as the level of the sensor.

I have exactly the same level sensor but not the controller. The level sensor output is essentially a variable resistor. When the float is at the top, the resistance is minimum, at the bottom, maximum. I have the 0-190 ohm sensor.

My "reader" is an ESP-12F (ESP8266). Put a 470 ohm resistor from 3.3V to the Analog input and one of the leads of the sensor and the other lead to ground. The program is Tasmota configured for analog input

I power it with this power supply.

Typically Tasmota devices use the MQTT method of delivering data. and is auto-configured in the Home Assistant controller.

This could could work great with an Arduino in the MySensors eco-sphere. The could would basically be: read analog, send.

@sandorhoffmann I hope there is someone that can answer your question.

But, I really recommend using DHCP. In that way, you can control all of your IPaddresses in one place, your DHCP server (almost always, your router)

The huge advantage of ESP devices over Arduino is the WiFi. You don't need a big library. The MAC address is hard coded at the factory. I'm not sure that you can change it, which you would want to do if a device failed and you need an EXACT replacement.

The downside of ESP is also the WiFi. Most home routers can only handle 20-30 WiFi devices My Asus routers start dropping WiFi devices resulting in difficult reconnects. The network becomes unusable. Because I have many ESP devices, I employed a Ubiquity access point that can handle 300 WiFi devices. The routers can handle 254 (253?) IP assignments, though some only allow 64 DHCP assignments.

There is a discussion on this forum someplace on the number of clients there can be in a MySensors network. In theory 254 (253?) is the max, though I am unaware if anyone has tested it. I use an RPi as my gateway and haven't had problems with too many devices. If one is considering a very large number I would recommend starting each sensors one at a time because the gateway way will assign the NodeID which gets written into location 0 of the EEPROM. Or burn a NodeID into the Arduino EEPROM before running the actual code.

bottom line, you didn't do anything wrong, its the nature of the beast.

@paede said in LGT8F328P and MySensors:

LGT8F328P

There are some instructions on this page? Here's another link that might be helpful.

I know nothing about this device other than the google search I just did on. Some red flags went up for me. The use of software for the third party board, and a newbie extoling its virtues. (astroturfing)

Even if you get it running, it may not work with MySensors. I bought three official Nano Every's with your same hopes and expectations. It claimed to be a direct replacement/upgrade. First, the MySensors nRF24 software did not work. Then I was unable to find a reliable way to put the Every into deep sleep.

I've had pretty good luck with the Nano clones on AliExpress. I'd recommend getting the RF Nano because the radio is built in. Before I put one into production, I spray it with electrical lacquer to prevent corrosion. That said, as with everything else you get on AliExpress, caveat emptor.

It will be appreciated if you get it working and present the details here as to how you did it.

-OSD

@sebastieng Thanks for letting us and future readers know.

-OSD

@nagelc I find that naming is a personal thing, though it should be consistent. For example, I had 9 devices, one of which was primary, and a controller. they were named, Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and the controller, Reins.

While there is quite a discussion, names are what works for you. If your design is for someone else, then names that easily documented, while descriptive, are appropriate.

Reminds me of a joke. This woman had 13 children, 6 boys and 7 girls. All the boys' name were Bob, and the girls, Jill. When asked, "Why?", she responded, "At dinner time I only have to call two names." "But what if you want a specific one?" "Oh, then I call them by their last name."

If you give careful thought to your naming system, it will be easier for you to remember. Otherwise you have to review someone else's naming system regularly.

-OSD

@mfalkvidd Yes, I understand that 253 is the software limit. I was wondering about the hardware limit.

For example, my Asus router has a software limit of 253 devices. But when I get 20-25 WiFi devices trying to connect, the network goes haywire. (pun intended ;) ) I am quite convinced that this is a hardware limitation of the router because the router has to carry some information about each connection.

If the gateway is dumb, that is, carries no information about any connection, then it could truly have 253 connections. After a bit of contemplation, I realize that the name, gateway, implies this.

If that is the case, it is good news for the DiY'er in that this very inexpensive and cheap hardware could stand in for a LoRaWAN, again, with a number of compromises.

Re: Gateways

Re: Gateways

I got interested in LoRaWAN(R). It actually looks much like MySensors, with long range radios. In fact, MySensors supports the rfm95 radio that is identical (?) to the LoRa radio.

So I built a MySensors Gateway with an rfm95 radio running on an ESP-12F (Arduino board Generic ESP8266 Module) and a MySensors relay node running on an ESP32 WR-32 Development Board (Arduino board DOIT ESP32 DEVKIT V1). I included Over-the-Air (OTA) code, which is quite handy when it works. I was pretty impressed with a range of 25m through five walls...the WiFi didn't go that far!

Here's the challenge, though. The ESP-12F does not have a lot of storage. Every "node" connecting to it will take a bit of that. How many nodes can attach to this gateway?

I don't think a MySensors rfm95 sensor network could compete with a LoRaWan(R) network on specs. But when a LoRa humidity/temperature sensor goes for € 44, I think a DiY'er could justify a few compromises.