@zboblamont
Power options as follow:
1 sensing when the gate opens (mains available)
2 irrigation controller (mains available)
3 water level sensor (solar/battery power)
4 weather station (solar/battery power)
5 hothouse controller (mains available)
6 greenhouse controller (mains available)
7 - 11 soil and environment sensors (solar/battery)

I would say the most central point is the greenhouse (mains available). I have a Wifi AP there that connects with the main Wifi AP and ADSL station. Thus the greenhouse is probably the ideal location for a gateway and controller. This should bring most distances closer, bringing the maximum distances perhaps down to 500-700m.

The whole farm is pretty much covered with Wifi but I would have liked to keep the nodes -> gateway off our wifi, and only use the wifi for the controller...
Do you consider the amplified (and slightly optimised) NRF24L01s sufficient for the node network? Or RFM69HW?

So if this was your farm, what would you do?
Thus 11 Arduino projects currently and I would like to turn them into nodes. I have a Raspberry Pi to use that I can place of at any one of the Wifi AP's.

1 sensing when the gate opens
2 irrigation controller
3 water level sensor
4 weather station
5 hothouse controller
6 greenhouse controller
7 - 11 soil and environment sensors

• all above is Arduinio

@Grubstake this is exactly the type of advice I was hoping for, thank you for your response!
I have Domoticz in my top 3 options for controller, the other 2 OpenHAB and MyController.

Controller: I will give Domoticz a try. Will one of my older Raspberry Pi's be sufficient?

Sensor Node: I have some NodeMCU boards with sensors, currently connected to my Wifi. I can try your suggested procedure from simple to more complex, just to get a feel... but yes ultimately I need to make the node network separate from the wifi network with radios etc.

The Grafana and InfluxDB dashboard sound interesting, I will have a look :)

@Carywin thanks, it's now in the top 3 of my controller options at this stage. So you can see this for managing some sensors and relays on a farm?

@NeverDie said in I need advice with brainstorming my farm project:

I would imagine that on a farm you'd be better off with LoRa nodes. Without getting exotic, they have the most range.

Thanks for the reply!

I was looking at LoRaWAN, amazing range and reasonably low power consumption for what you get. It's a small farm and the maximum distance from node will be approximately 1000m... thus 'nRF24L01+ w/ PA+LNA and Antenna' or 'RFM69HW' could be sufficient?

In terms of LoRaWAN, I have not seen many projects and examples on MySensors, thus I was slightly put off. Or maybe I'm missing something?

Your info on LoRa node is fantastic.
My I ask what your setup is in terms of nodes, transceivers, controller, gateway etc?

@sundberg84 said in I need advice with brainstorming my farm project:

Hi @peterrr and welcome!

@peterrr said in I need advice with brainstorming my farm project:

I will add NRF24L01 for all the nodes

If you have a greater distance to cover, have a look at the RFM modules as well...

Have a look at https://www.mysensors.org/about and go trough the tutorial there. You need a controller of some kind to which you connect a gateway (or if a raspberry you can do both controller and gateway in one). The rest of the nodes talk to the radio (gw) which hands over the message to the controller.

Which Raspberry model will be best to use?

Dont know, sorry - I think they all work? Im using 2 and 3 for controllers but have a own GW on a Nano Arduino.

Which Controller platform is the best to use for my function?

You have to check them out and see for yourself. All controllers have different things to offer.

Great advice, thanks!

Transceivers:

Regarding transceivers, yes you are right I will need more distance. The RFM69W and RFM69HW look like excellent options.

RFM69W
Transmit power = +13dB
Receive sensitivity = -120dB
current consumption transmit = 45mA @ 13dB
Temperature: -40 to 85 C (-40 to 180F)

RFM69HW
Transmit power = +20dB
Receive sensitivity = -120dB
current consumption = 130mA @ 20dB
Temperature: -20 to 70 C (-4 to 158F)

nRF24L01+ (No power amplifier)
Transmit power = 0dB?
Receive sensitivity = -82dBm @ 2Mbps, -104dBm @250kbps
current consumption = 13mA @ 0dB
Temperature: -20 to 70 C (-4 to 158F)

nRF24L01+ w/ PA+LNA and Antenna
Transmit power = 20dB
Receive sensitivity = -82dBm @ 2Mbps, -104dBm @250kbps
current consumption = 130mA @ 20dB
Temperature: -20 to 70 C (-4 to 158F)

Gateway / Controller:

Is it better to have a separate gateway and controller? Or have one device doing both? Mostly in terms of what would be most reliable and easy to maintain...
I already have hardware for Raspberry Pi or Arduino options...

Controller platform

I had a look at the various controllers, and I suppose some of the best options might be between Domoticz, MyController.org and OpenHAB. But I really have no clue. I guess the question is for someone who has tried various controllers, imagine you had a small organic farm, what will you go with?

Hi, I've been reading through the forum and website and what a great community and fantastic projects!

I'm a farmer and electronics hobbyist. I've built several Arduino projects to help me run the farm, including automation of our greenhouse, hothouse, orchards irrigation and weather station. It's all great but it's time to integrate everything... It's too many odd projects and they do not talk with each other. I'm so excited when I found the mysensors.org site.

Thus I have reasonable Arduino experience, but limited Raspberry experience.

Hardware I have:
Aduino: Mega's, Uno's, Nano's, NodeMCU's, Pro Mini's
Raspberry: Pi B+, Pi A+, Pi 2 Model B
Plenty of sensors etc.

I need some guidance, advice or tips please!

My goal is to turn all my existing projects into nodes. This I will be fine with. I will add NRF24L01 for all the nodes.
But the rest is new territory...

Do I understand it correct that I need a gateway / controller (Raspberry) with NRF24L01 and then my nodes will all talk with the Raspberry?

Which Raspberry model will be best to use?
Which Controller platform is the best to use for my function?

Any guidance will be appreciated please!

Kind Regards,
Peter