I thought I'd share a part of my 'workshhop'. Only part of it due the rest being in a bit of a mess at the moment, so here is the 'good' bit......

I would really like to get OTA working here as it's freezing outside and I have to go there to update the software in the greenhouse control system.

So please, can we have a 'how to' step-by-step guide to OTA? Please?

S.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you on (or behind) this forum.

Here's to 2018 and a much better year for us all!

Seasons greeting to all of you. Hope you have a nice festive season.

@bc123 said in I am in need of some programming help.:

I have a cool project

So does everyone else

I hired someone to do about a year ago, but it never worked entirely.

Why is that?

need some help with the programming.

Then post your code and the issues you are facing and someone might help you out.

Project: Driveway alert system, looooong driveway.

So it's just a basic 'alert system' - good.

I have 4 sensor beams shooting across the driveway and they are spaced about 100' apart from each other.

That is good if that is what you want/need for your cool project.

Each can provide a NO or NC contact.

Good.

I have conduit running between all 4 points

Good idea if you don't want jammable RF.....

and was planning to run Ethernet wire between them

So only empty conduit at the moment then?

The board has a LORA radio on it

Good.

and is transmitting to my Arduino receiver, which is tied to a pi running Domoticz.

Good.

I hired someone a year ago to build a system for me using 4 transmitters (one for each sensor),

You already told us this bit.

but I don't think he knew what he was doing.

Why is that?

We got several running temperature/humidity data

That wasn't the original 'alert' spec was it? Or maybe it was? Maybe it is supposed to be a driveway alert system with temperature and humidity sensors 100 feet apart? Who knows? What are you 'really' wanting to do here?

but, the input pins don’t work like they’re supposed to.

So is this faulty hardware issue then?

Why 4 sensors on the driveway? Eventually I’ll install my railroad signals and be able to direct one way traffic up and down the driveway! How cool is that!

If you really have that much traffic on your driveway then it might be a better idea to have a 2-lane driveway.

Help anyone? Happy to compensate for your efforts!

How can we help? You posted an 'alert' dream that later included temperature and humidity. Then it morphed into a traffic control system (either automatic or manually controlled, we don't know which at this stage).
Then you ask for programming help and don't even post a single line of code.

Yes that was all a bit 'tounge-in-cheek' but hopefully you get the idea.

First define what you actually want.
Post code you are trying to get working.
Post drawings of how it is all connected up.
Post photos of the project.

Where is the project located on this once fine planet?
Where do I get my compensation from?

The current NRF24 set up is more secure than bluetooth or wifi from attack.

I say this based on the fact that anyone with a laptop, mobile etc can have software to crack/hack/spoof/inject into bluetooth or wifi. It is not that difficult for kids to do.

The NRF is another matter as to achieve this on that radio module would require acquiring a module, setting it up with a pc/phone and then getting software to attack it.

People often go the easiest route and I am less worried about nrf24 than I would be if the system used bluetooth/wifi or cloud.

Just my thoughts on a dark and wet Monday morning.....

@TheStaticTurtle You are using an older version of mysensors. 2.3.2 is current so first of all upgrade to that.

Second, looking at the node log it never finds the gateway. FPAR is "find parent" and it never does, so nowhere to send the data. The "!TSM:FPAR:FAIL" is also a clue as to no comms with the gateway.

Why this is I don't know as you haven't posted your code.

@Stevanov

Your best bet is still to simply change to a different unused channel.

Nrf24l01+ has over 100 channels available, why insist on using one in use by someone else nearby?

Even if you do encrypt all data the radios will still suffer due the the high level of signals around swamping the receiver front ends and reducing sensitivity adn increasing liklihood of packet collisions.

Far better to find a clear channel and use that, but it's up to you at the end of the day.

There are 2 ways of doing this.

First is to have a 'dumb' node that sends data to the controller. Then the controller decides if the relay has to be on or off and sends a signal to make it happen. This is how many systems work.

The down side to this is that if the gateway becomes unavailable or the controller crashes, the relay state will not change.

Personally I prefer to make the node as smart as possible, collecting data, doing calaculations and performing actions while sending the results to the controller for display. The controller can still send commands to the node but if the gateway or controller fail the realy will still operate as expected.

You could even have the nodes request/send data to each other to confirm the status of the realy or anything else for that matter. That's really a third option

So I would approch it by haing node 1 get temp, send to controller and node 2. Have node 2 decide on realys status, switch relay and inform node 1 and controller of the status change. I am sure you can think of variations on this as well because you know best how you want things to work.

Just to say I wish you all good health in 2021 and thanks for the stimulating discussions and friendly forum.

god Jul och Gott Nytt År!

@Alex-Miller If you have a 'maker' space near you it might be better to get him some lessons before buying a printer - That way he will know if he is going to be able to use it for what he wants and get all his questions answered by people who know about 3D printing..... Just a thought.....

@Diazovitch69 Converting to mysensors is not difficult for this one reading you want to use - but whether or not domoticz will be happy I don't know as I don't use it.

Best to go to the 'build' page (see top of this page) and look at the door/window sensor. This is fairly basic and should give you a clue to start experimenting with.

First add my sensors to the code, then a message construct, then presentation function and then send message in code. Sounds worse that it is. Try it and post your code if it doesn't work.....

@maddhin Any version 2 sketch with HTU21D should work as slim node is atmgea328 based. I use adafruit lib for mine and it works well. To conserve battery energy follow all the steps on the battery power page in here and send data as infrequently as you can for your needs.

here is the code I use to test with - you can safely remove all the "force n updates" to reduce memory use ( I always do). It also only send if the temp or hum has changed since last reading to further reduce battery consumption....

/**
 * The MySensors Arduino library handles the wireless radio link and protocol
 * between your home built sensors/actuators and HA controller of choice.
 * The sensors forms a self healing radio network with optional repeaters. Each
 * repeater and gateway builds a routing tables in EEPROM which keeps track of the
 * network topology allowing messages to be routed to nodes.
 *
 * Created by Henrik Ekblad <henrik.ekblad@mysensors.org>
 * Copyright (C) 2013-2015 Sensnology AB
 * Full contributor list: https://github.com/mysensors/Arduino/graphs/contributors
 *
 * Documentation: http://www.mysensors.org
 * Support Forum: http://forum.mysensors.org
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
 * version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 *******************************
 *
 * REVISION HISTORY
 * Version 1.0: Andrew Sutcliffe
 *  
 * DESCRIPTION
 * This sketch provides an example of how to implement a humidity/temperature
 * sensor using a HTU21DF Sensor.
 *  
 * For more information, please visit:
 * http://www.mysensors.org/build/humidity
 * 
 * Connect Vin to 3-5VDC
 * Connect GND to ground
 * Connect SCL to I2C clock pin (A5 on UNO)
 * Connect SDA to I2C data pin (A4 on UNO)
 * 
 */

// Enable debug prints
#define MY_DEBUG

// Enable and select radio type attached 
#define MY_RADIO_NRF24
//#define MY_RADIO_RFM69
//#define MY_RS485

#include <MySensors.h>  
#include <Wire.h>
#include "Adafruit_HTU21DF.h"

Adafruit_HTU21DF htu = Adafruit_HTU21DF();

// Set this offset if the sensor has a permanent small offset to the real temperatures
#define SENSOR_TEMP_OFFSET 0

// Sleep time between sensor updates (in milliseconds)

static const uint64_t UPDATE_INTERVAL = 15*60000;

// Force sending an update of the temperature after n sensor reads, so a controller showing the
// timestamp of the last update doesn't show something like 3 hours in the unlikely case, that
// the value didn't change since;
// i.e. the sensor would force sending an update every UPDATE_INTERVAL*FORCE_UPDATE_N_READS [ms]
static const uint8_t FORCE_UPDATE_N_READS = 10;

#define CHILD_ID_HUM 0
#define CHILD_ID_TEMP 1

float lastTemp;
float lastHum;
uint8_t nNoUpdatesTemp;
uint8_t nNoUpdatesHum;
bool metric = true;

MyMessage msgHum(CHILD_ID_HUM, V_HUM);
MyMessage msgTemp(CHILD_ID_TEMP, V_TEMP);

void presentation()  
{ 
  // Send the sketch version information to the gateway
  sendSketchInfo("HTU21DF-TemperatureAndHumidity", "1.0");

  // Register all sensors to gw (they will be created as child devices)
  present(CHILD_ID_HUM, S_HUM);
  present(CHILD_ID_TEMP, S_TEMP);
}

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("HTU21D-F test");

  if (!htu.begin()) {
    Serial.println("Couldn't find sensor!");
    while (1);
    }
}

void loop(){
  // Get temperature from HTU21DF library
  float temperature = (htu.readTemperature());
 if (temperature != lastTemp || nNoUpdatesTemp == FORCE_UPDATE_N_READS) {
    // Only send temperature if it changed since the last measurement or if we didn't send an update for n times
    lastTemp = temperature;
    
    // Reset no updates counter
    nNoUpdatesTemp = 0;
    temperature += SENSOR_TEMP_OFFSET;
    send(msgTemp.set(temperature, 1));

    #ifdef MY_DEBUG
    Serial.print("T: ");
    Serial.println(temperature);
    #endif
  } 
  else {
    // Increase no update counter if the temperature stayed the same
    nNoUpdatesTemp++;
  }

  // Get humidity from HTU21DF library
  float humidity = (htu.readHumidity());
  if (humidity != lastHum || nNoUpdatesHum == FORCE_UPDATE_N_READS) {
    // Only send humidity if it changed since the last measurement or if we didn't send an update for n times
    lastHum = humidity;
    // Reset no updates counter
    nNoUpdatesHum = 0;
    send(msgHum.set(humidity, 1));

    #ifdef MY_DEBUG
    Serial.print("H: ");
    Serial.println(humidity);
    #endif
}
  else {
    // Increase no update counter if the humidity stayed the same
    nNoUpdatesHum++;
  }

  // Sleep for a while to save energy
  sleep(UPDATE_INTERVAL); 
}

Hope it helps you get up and running.

@maddhin FWIW I always use the adafruit library for htu21D and it has a similar test in setup that does not give me any errors - might be worth a try?

@chamroeun-ou If you need to reverse polarity then a H bridge would be good - I would aim for 12V (maybe a lead acid battery with solar panel and small charge controler). This assumes a coil pules reversal to change over the relay, if it is dual coil relay then it will be different, but we don't have that info. Also note the coil resistance and therefore current needed. A 6681FNG H bridge would be good as it is rated up to 15V and handles 1A with ease...

@Croma-Nnon You know this forum is for MySensors right?

@Alpoy Well done! - That is interesting! - I never used a SAMD, but at least you have a way to make it work! Maybe I should try one someday....

@Alpoy void presentation() is empty - That could have an effect as the node is probably going round and round in circles trying to find the gateway. We will only know if you would post your debg output to see what is really going on here.

@alexelite said in RSSI value variations on RPi 3 Gateway with RFM69:

I was trying to use a Python library and found a note about RFM69 H version that it should not be powered from the 3.3V pin. This should only matter for transmitting not for receiving,

Finding a warning in the library and then ignoring it is asking for trouble - that note is there for a reason! - What makes you think it only has an effect on Tx and not Rx? It ay well be due to noise on the 3.3V power pin.
Have you any capacitors on the 3.3V near or on the rfm? It might have a positive effect.

I changed the board and powered it from 5V with a dedicated 3.3V regulator and RSSI increased a bit.

This would also point to noise on the pi 3.3V having a detrimental effect.

This pin can only support low power mode. Use different supply if you want to use the RFM69HCW in high power mode.

Another important hint!

@jamozu Wow! - You have put a lot of thought into not only your project but in documentation as well. Thanks for kindly sharing your project, I am sure many people will find this useful!