Hello all,

I am quite new to this form. I really like the idea of using small nrf24l01+arduino nodes around the home to control electronics.

I have successfully hand built few nodes (2 based on Arduino Nano and 1 based on Arduino Pro Mini) and deployed around the home.
Here are some of the pictures of my nodes

It takes lot of time to hand build these nodes. So I decided to make a small generic PCB uing Arduino Pro Mini and fabricate it and use it. I designed the PCB in Eagle SW and fabricated with Seedstudios.

Here is my board looks like

After mounting the components, I found it is not working. Tx/Rx was completely failure. After several hours of debugging, found that my circult is correct and I assume there were some EMC effects.
If I touch the antenna of nrf with my finger, Tx/Rx is successful and everything works perfect. If I remove my finger it does not work again.

I thought because of placement of nrf module there were some EMC effects and created a V2 of my board by just changing position of nrf. It looks like this

Unfortunately, even this board/design has the same problem.
These are how the boards look like

I also tried changing the position of nrf module by placing it in proto area and rewiring from the actual position, seems to have same problem.

On both of these board when I lift the nrf module at higher level than the Arduino Pro by stacking additional female headers for nrf (as shown in below picture), they seem to be working.

Could some please help me understand whats happening on my board. I want to go for V3 of board which solves these problem but I could not figure out what exactly is causing the problem.

Thank you so much for your support.

Unfortunately, I do not have privilege to upload board and schematic files, so I adding screenshots here.

@pansen Hi thanks, I will try in that forum you mentioned and yes I have tried different nrfs too ..

Hello all,
Thank you so much for all your kind support. From a review from one my colleague, I learned that 90 degree sharp bends should be avoided. These sharp edges acts as local antenna and EMC interference. Unfortunately, my design has several of such sharp bends.

@bjacobse Hi, Thank you so much. This exactly meets my requirements too, I will re-use it.

@mfalkvidd Thanks for the hints. I will definitely consider this in my design.

@scalz HI, thanks for the kind words. Its a very useful hint about VCC lib. Even I was thinking around saving the power loss at the resistor. Thanks again.

@pansen Hi thanks, I will try in that forum you mentioned and yes I have tried different nrfs too ..

Are there any hints/advises or best practices, if I decide to re-design from scratch ?
Thanks.

@pansen Even I have doubts on ground. My gateway is pretty good. I still have my hand made nodes deployed around home working with Gateway without any problem.

@sundberg84 I will give a try to source the groung from Arduino. I also had same doubt about the headers, so I tried headers of different qualities. So, I hope headers are good, nevertheless I will try to solder directly.

@pansen Thanks for reply. I tried to upload the .sch file could got some error, so I added schematic screenshot. I do not have a sophisticated equipment, but I can manage to use a oscilloscope from my office.

@HarryDutch Thanks for the reply. I think if I remove nrf and keep away from board it will definetly work. As shown in one of the pictures above when I put the NRF little higher than Arduio, it works flawless. I tried to share the board and schematic files, but I could not upload seems I do not have privilege to upload them. If there special way to upload .brd and .sch files ?