Best posts made by tbowmo

FINALLY! after a journey of almost 2 years, the official MySensors Sensebender Gateway (discussed over here) is now entering pre-sales at our parther itead.cc, with an expected shipment date of around 21st of January.

I know this has been a bit longer than first anticipated, but I hope that you all will bear with me on this one, as my daytime job has taken too much control over my life the past year.

The plan is that it will be released with the latest firmware (we have release 2.1 coming up one of the next days). It will be built for NRF24 radios, without signing. But you can all change this by uploading a new firmware with arduino.

Please head over to https://www.itead.cc/mysensors-gateway.html if you are interested in buying this board, or read the discussions on the openhardware project page https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/2761/mysensors-gateway

(By buying this board, you will also support the mysensors community, as we will receive a small commission of the sales from itead)

An almost complete rewrite of the node-red-contrib-mysensors has been released.

What have been done this time is:

• Rewritten in typescript
• a controller node is added, allowing node-red to hand out node id's to a mysensors network.

The move to typescript should enable more test of the software, as I now have a compile time check, and also implemented the first unit tests of the code.

Please note that the mysencdec node has now been removed.. If you still use it, then you should remove it before upgrading the package, or node-red might stop the flows, as it is missing nodes.

Please use the issue tracker on github, if you find some undocumented "features"

It's been a while since my latest update, but I am moving closer to production of this gateway.

I have received the first production samples from Itead

I have done hardware verification of the board. Everything seems to be ok, so we are very near the goal.

I can't say anything about pricing yet, as Itead haven't given us a price yet. But I hope that we will be able to announce that very soon (tm)

Finally a picture with all the connectors added as well

Not working on hardware at the moment, but I am still "building" things with mysensors.. Recently I have been moving all my homeautomation to docker containers, and also moving stuff towards using MQTT as a backbone transport.

Right now I have moved automation rules from domoticz to nodered, after which I have "killed" domoticz (the only reason why I had been keeping it alive, was because it handled some of my automation rules for turning tv / amplifier on when chromecast was active etc).

Together with my chromecast "surveilance python service" I get notifications on MQTT when any of my two chromecasts starts an app / pause/ play etc. The python program also has a MQTT listener, so I can send pause/play etc. to my chromecasts over mqtt. And even throw a stream to it over mqtt.

Today I made a universal control endpoint, so I can send pause/play etc. to a single mqtt topic, and then nodered directs it to the active chromecast, or to my dvd player if that is the active in the current scene.

In the end everything should play together with a dashboard that I have made in angular5 (rewriting it at the moment to use MQTT instead of various http calls)

The plan is that the dashboard is on a wallmounted tablet, acting as a simple dashboard / weather station, where one can control basic things in the livingroom (start streaming of specific Radio / TV channels among other things).

The nodered project can be found here, if anyone would like to have a look..

And now we are online in the Arduino Library manager..

So people can "easily" update to the latest and greatest MySensors release..

And ethernet is up!

I think this calls for a couple of pictures of the "thing"

first with ethernet / usb (power) connected.

and without ethernet shield

Not at all mysensors related, but I have been busy building a bartop mame cabinet the last week or so.. Still mis a couple of details, but it is in a "playable" state right now.

The setup is using an old 19" lcd monitor that I had in surplus with a RPI-3B on the back, a couple of cheap Chinese arcade controllers, a partly homebuild audio hat for the rpi (adafruit i2s 3W amplifiers), and a switchmode capable of 5V @8A (if I remember right), and 12V @3A. So I have power for the marque lighting as well..

Only game available right now is Bubble Bobble, and the kids loves it (as seen in the video linked to below).

Retro arcade first game – 00:29
— Thomas Bowman Mørch

Even though I have been around Mysensors for quite some time now, I have mainly used it as a means of collecting environmental data from the house / outside.

But finally I have come to the point that I am beginning to get a bit of LED lights implemented as well, with control from domoticz. First one was behind my TV, been running for awhile now, turning on a backlight after sunset. It even dims up/down upon activity from our chromecast

The latest addition is a shelf behind the couch, with built in LED lights, with touch based interaction. Made up of an mpr121 breakout board, an arduino with nrf24 radio, and a couple of FETs.

a video of the thing in operation is on youtube (And yes, it's recorded today, the kids are having fun with some youtube music channels on the tv with Christmas songs..)

It's all tied in to domoticz, so I can make the same light settings behind the couch, as behind the TV.

some pictures from the build process:

@Peter-Loeffler

I'm not sure how to address your statement. But beeing one of the core group members myself, I feel that it's a bit harsh. We all have a life, and fulltime job, besides mysensors! This means that we can't spend every minute of our (spare) time on mysensors all the time. Some of us have scaled down on activities for a period, due to children, work, house renovations etc.

Maybe we (the core group) say no to some new features in the project, but that is because we are uncertain about the following support / bugfixing of that particular feature. Specially in the light of the above, with limited spare time for the projects.

For my part, I've had a couple of rough years, that took the steam out of my envolvement in a lot of projects, including MySensors. But I'm slowly re-emerging from the deep dark now. So I hope that I get more time to do new fun sensors / hardware again. But things take time, and do not want to rush things, that could send me back into the dark again.

So almost finished the first two boards of the new revision..

I changed the footprint of all the SMD capacitors, and resistors, to footprints recomended by the manufacturer we are in dialog with for the mass production. Only problem is, that it's a nightmare soldering the 0402 smd components now, because the footprints are much smaller than what was used on the first revision.

Anyway, only missing decoupling capacitors now, so I'm going to power it up, just to see if everything works like it should.

The two first is also with atsha204 mounted! Hope that everything is connected as it should be

First powerup seems to be ok. no excessive power ussage, and bootloader is successfully dumped into the first board. So it seems like a success sofar. (Even LED lights up during bootloader startup.. So that's also a success :))

Also ATSHA204 is confirmed working on the first prototype!

We are happy to announce that we now have made it possible to use "arduino board manager" to download board packages for MySensors specific boards.

Currently this comprises of SenseBender micro, and the upcomming gateway device, and you can find the board packages at https://github.com/mysensors/ArduinoBoards.

This is mostly for persons using development branch (2.0.0) as the hardware definitions are now moved from that branch, and separated into it's own git repositories.

@sundberg84 you could have all the rpi's running on the pc hardware, and save a couple of pennies on the electricity bill..

I exchanged my HA rpi with an atom based machine, as it had 4Gb ram. Now I'm using docker to containerize the different parts of my setup (influxdb, grafana, domoticz, nodered, moquitto, etc.). Ok, it uses a bit more power, but not that much compared to the flexibility that I have now. So now I have a lot of "machines" for handling the different parts.. I can even spin up an experimental domoticz in seconds (I'm playing with mqtt for backbone in my HA setup, instead of mysensors serial protocol, and a lot of http calls to different parts of my system.

We now have a small video collage up on youtube from the faire.

MySensors at Eindhoven Maker Faire 2017 – 03:57
— MySensors

Received a new prototype from dirtypcbs the other day

I have only come to the point where the SD Card reader is mounted, as I wanted to try the mechanics out

Currently I'm lacking time for finishing it within the next 2-3 weeks.. If someone knows how to slow down time around you, without being slowed down yourself, please tell me how to achieve it (Too many high priority tasks at the moment..)

things are beginning to take form..

First arduino sketch are running on the GW

Proof is here

just grabbed a quick image of the secret den here

and yes, it does need a bit of cleanup, so I have a space for my laptop there, but I have a couple of other higher priority projects.. So cleaning must come later (at least I have space for building pcb's whenever I have time for it..).

The following tools are in use:

• Weller dual digital soldering station
• Old digital multimeter (had it for 15+ years)
• Tektronix 60Mhz oscilloscope
• 30V/5A power supply
• Homemade vices for holding pcb's.

A small Christmas progress update.

I got external eeprom, and w5100 module running now.

That means I have a working ethernet GW running with nrf24 running on SAMD.

I'm waiting for rfm69 modules from China before I can verify that this part also works as expected.

An ethernet GW with hw signing is using 35.988 bytes, or 13% of the available flash size, which is 256kbyte. So we have "plenty" of room to do other fun stuff on the GW

and of course a small video of the in action

Chicken gate – 00:39
— Thomas Bowman Mørch

Just made a fun (and useful) sensor / device, using a arduino pro-micro (atmega32u4), and VL53L01 TOF distance sensor.

It's an auto lock device for my pc, I have mounted the VL53L01 to the bottom of my center monitor, and then have it measure the distance to my body, whenever it exceeds 1m (or is out of range), I increase a counter. When the counter reaches 20 (seconds) I send keypress GUI+L, to lock the screen (works equally well on ubuntu and windows).

When I return to the desk again, it is detected by the arduino (distance is now under 1m again). And it then sends CTRL+ALT+DEL to start login procedure.

The arduino sketch is available on https://gist.github.com/tbowmo/7e9934796d47566dc09e7b3bc5b2f208

next project should probably be to find a better enclosure, and build one for when I return to the office in a month or two, when the corona lockdown is lifted more

@alexsh1

we have looked at a couple of other manufacturers in China / Hong Kong area.. But found (back then) that Itead was the best solution, as they would handle manufacturing, stock, and shipment for us, and pay us a commission of the sale which makes it extremely easy for us to handle product launches

With the other manufacturers we had to buy 100/200 units, and handle stock / shipment ourselves, and with the limited time for the project (as most of us have families and daytime jobs to take care of, besides of bringing new products into the world), this is not a feasible solution..

My contact person at Itead, promised that she would get the quotation guy to answer me today. So let's see what happens

So, now that my first pcb is going into production soon, I have to have something else to play around with in my schematics editor

I have been talking a bit with @hek and @axillent about a gateway, which could bridge between wifi and mysensors network.

Current design ideas is as follows, specs are subject to changes

• Powered by standard USB wallwart
• USB onboard ATSAM MCU
• ATSAM D21J (32 bit ARM Cortex M0 MCU)
• atsha204 onboard
• external SPI flash (Will probably be exchanged for a SD Card reader)
• NRF24 connector (should support version with lna/pa)
• RFM69W connector
• Wifi module connector (esp8266) (As we have ported mysensors to this core, it's not that necessary any more)
• Ethernet module connector (W5100)
• Surplus GPIOs available on pinheaders. (MYSX common pinheader between other projects)
• Various LED's for status, communication, error, inclusion mode etc.
• A couple of buttons, in order to go into specific modes during operation (like inclusion)
• Battery backup for onboard RTC? (Not decided yet)

My initial thoughts are that the module should not be multi radio node (that is, both RFM69, and NRF24 at the same time). It's up to the end user to decide which radio to equip the unit with. The same about network connectivity, either choose wifi, or cable.

Please note this is still just a thought in my head (Initially planted by @hek ;))

Would anyone be interested in such a thing?

Documentation (this will always point to the latest files on github)
Kicad project files : https://github.com/tbowmo/MySensorGW
Schematics in PDF : https://github.com/tbowmo/MySensorGW/blob/master/MySensorsGW-schematic.pdf

Hmm. .think I need to install this on all the mobiles in the household..

It could bring an end to "Dad, I can't remember where my phone is, could you please call it?" only to find out that it's on silent mode..

Today the production files have been sent off to China, for the first batch of 5 prototypes build by them. We then need to verify them, and if they are found OK, we start a larger production run.

Feeling like Christmas is comming up

Finally I finished my chicken coop door opening thingie A build that has taken way to much time to complete, and a few different directions.

Just as I was ready to install the thing, I discovered that the DC motor that I had bought for this, couldn't lift the gate. So I had to go scrap hunting, to find a larger motor for it.. Luckily I had a 24V motor from a broken garageport opener which chould be used at 12V.

Control box above the door, includes a PIR sensor in the lid.

the gate, a sheet of 3mm black acrylic "glass". I had a couple of reed relays in the parts bin, so I use those to detect positions of the gate.

The motor on is placed on the inside of the wall.

Field update of the firmware.. Should probably reflash the bootloader, to mysboot, so I can do it OTA..

A small update before I hit the bed tonight..

I've got radio up and running on the SAMD, and got the first message from one of my sensebender micros through to my pc.

It's still in debug mode, using a serial port on the samd as output (And my logic analyzer to decode the serial stream). So no ethernet / wifi or the like up yet.

The next step will be to have it use USB instead of the serial port..

"funny" thing, that you first find all bugs after a more advanced node is deployed.. But after a couple of days debugging, with frequent firmware updates (opening the box, plugging in cables, and sitting with a laptop between all the chickens). I think that it is done now..

Firmware is here (if anyone is curios) https://github.com/tbowmo/chickenCoopFirmware

a new small update..

Got it working as a serial GW.. Receiving the first messages from one of my sensebenders..

Also got the ethernet going, this is not integrated with the mysensors parts though, as I have to refactor nrf / ethernet libraries a bit, in order to support multiple (HW) SPI interfaces..

@AndErn

the chosen GW transport is handled internally by the mysensors library, so if you choose W5100 (wired ethernet) the library itself handles W5100 communication.

And the same is actually true, when defining it with MY_GATEWAY_SERIAL, then the mysensors library itself handles the serial port, transmitting data, and receiving the data from the serial port, according to the the MySensors serial protocol

An example is usually meant to be able to run without modifications at all as a starter, and then people can start tinkering with it, and adjust different parameters in order to figure out how the example is working. And so, it should have started chatting along the serialport, if you just started the bare example up without modifications.

I admit that there may be some lacks in documentation.. But you are welcome to pitch in, and give a helping hand if you feel something is missing.

Btw. please remember that we are all here on a voluntary basis, using our free / spare time to develop this library. So we can't keep a track on all posts on the forum 24/7, because there comes so many new posts all the time. So we do miss a post here and there, we are only humans..

I have worked on the node-red modules for mysensors. And have now released version 1.0.2

It now have the possibility to encode into mysensors compatible mqtt topics, the mysdecenc is also split into two separate nodes now called encode / decode. The old mysdecenc is kept for now, for compatibility reasons, but it will be removed in the future.

Also thanks to @gn0st1c for a couple of pull requests, updating the sensor value list to mysensors 2.x, among other things

the nodes can as always be found here https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-red-contrib-mysensors / https://github.com/tbowmo/node-red-contrib-mysensors

@Dwalt

It acts as a serial device on the USB port. I have a GW running with atsamd21J (bigger brother to the one @scalz are using). Been using both USB and ethernet to connect to the device.

The nice thing of an embedded USB controller, versus an external usb to serial device, is that you can make your device act as whatever usb device you want. For example make it a mass memory device, or a mouse / keyboard (HID). The sky is the limit

@ahmedadelhosni

running at 32Khz oscillator (which is lower than 1Mhz) can reduce the power consumption even more. It can also be used to have an accurate timer, as a normal watch crystal is 32768Hz, which is easily divided into a 1 second clock.

When we sleep the arduino, we are using the watchdog to wake initiate an interrupt so we wake up again. This watchdog has it's own RC oscillator in the atmega. This RC oscillator is not that accurate. This means that you can not use it if you want to wake up each 60th second precisely. That is why I mention 60 and 73 seconds, as the watchdog timer might cause you to wake up every 73 seconds instead of every 60 seconds.

The schematics has a pullup on the CS pin, this is to ensure that the radio is disabled when we are downloading new firmware. @blacey had some problems downloading firmware via ISP , when doing the initial validation of the Sensebender Micro hardrware. After some trials, we found that it could be that the atmega had left the CS pin floating, and so we could (in some situations) have the radio start pulling the SPI pins on the atmega, which is also used for ISP programming.

@wahid

As an example, I have 4 sensebender micros, which has been deployed since june 2015, I have not changed batteries in them yet, and they still report temperature / humidity (that's more than 4 years battery life!). The batteries are cheap AA alkaline types (2 pieces)..

I'm not doing anything special (hardware wise) to power off the radio, or any other peripherals on the board. Only using standard software powerdown where available.

Been playing with a small setup the last couple of days, where I have injected node-red between my serial GW, and domoticz.

I've made my own node, that deocdes / encodes mysensors serial protocol, only debugging things so far.

I have created a set of dummy serial ports (ToDomoticz) with socat, domoticz is attached to the other end of the socat "pipe". And receives the messages that comes in through node-red.

My goal (right now) is a proof of concept, where I can inject special sensor nodes (non mysensor stuff) as mysensors nodes.

Another goal I have thought about, was to have both domoticz and pidome running side by side, with the same sensor network (Why? because I can! and want to tinker with the system). Only one of them will be handing out node-id's though.

I am looking at publishing the mysensors node through npm, so others can install it easily in their setup.

@Fabien

I found the problem.. github.com/influxdb is renamed to github.com/influxdata, and all guides that I have followed pointed to influxdb. Tried to go with the influxdata instead. And I got it to build..

So the recipe that I followed is the following (Taken from the French site that you mentioned above, and modified with my findings)

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer
$ chmod +x gvm-installer 
$ ./gvm-installer
Cloning from https://github.com/moovweb/gvm.git to /home/pi/.gvm
No existing Go versions detected
Installed GVM v1.0.22
Please restart your terminal session or to get started right away run
 `source /home/pi/.gvm/scripts/gvm`
$ source /home/pi/.gvm/scripts/gvm
# Install Go 1.4 before Go 1.5 : https://github.com/moovweb/gvm/issues/155
$ gvm install go1.4.2
Downloading Go source...
Installing go1.4.2...
 * Compiling...
$ gvm use go1.4.2 --default
Now using version go1.4.2
$ gvm install go1.5.3
Updating Go source... 
Installing go1.5.3... 
* Compiling... 
$ gvm use go1.5.3 --default
Now using version go1.5.3
$ sudo apt-get install bison 
$ sudo apt-get install ruby-dev gcc
$ sudo gem install fpm # Cf https://github.com/influxdb/influxdb/issues/3557
$ gvm pkgset create influxdb
$ gvm pkgset use influxdb
Now using version go1.5.3@influxdb
$ go get github.com/tools/godep
$ go get -t -d github.com/influxdata/influxdb
$ cd .gvm/pkgsets/go1.5.2/influxdb/src/github.com/influxdata/influxdb
# Update to use go1.5.3 instead of 1.4.3
$ sed -i -- 's/go1.4.3/go1.5.3/g' package.sh
$ ./package.sh -t deb -p 0.9.6
$ sudo dpkg -i influxdb_0.9.6_armhf.deb
$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/influxdb
$ sudo chown influxdb. /var/lib/influxdb
$ sudo mkdir /var/log/influxdb
$ sudo chown influxdb. /var/lib/influxdb
$ sudo systemctl enable influxdb
$ sudo systemctl start influxdb
$ /opt/influxdb/influx
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 0.9.6
InfluxDB shell 0.9.6

1xch created this issue in moovweb/gvm

closed Error with go1.5 install #155

cobyism created this issue in influxdb/influxdb

closed InfluxDB package for armhf architecture #3557

Finally got around to mount the motor unit, after heavy modifications. Which also cut the standby power to under a 10th of the original unit.

I ended up implementing my own 5v supply, that powers the logic in the original unit and my mysensor node, I then have a solid state relay, enabling / disabling the 38v rail for the engine part. This drops the standby from 7W to under 0.5W.

I had to go a couple of loopholes to get it working, as the motor unit wouldn't respond to the remote when the 38v rail was missing. I then tapped into the remote signal, so when the remote is detected I power up the thing, I then need to press the button one more time to activate the opener. When the original unit switches of the light, I also power down the 38v rail.

I can activate the port from domoticz, also the lights can be activated by domoticz. There are some small quirks, as the port is reported as open when the port actually is closed. I will have a look at the software for the next port that I have to modify

And last a small demo video.

From the outside with both ports in action (only the right port is mysensored for now)
Garage port from outside – 00:46
— Thomas Bowman Mørch

@NeverDie

There are some contradictions here, you want things fast, to have top quality, and won't pay for it..

http://fastgood.cheap/

That aside, as others have pointed out.. Look at dirtypcbs.. perhaps even panelizing things, there is an excellent tool available for assembling multiple gerbers into one production file http://blog.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/projects/pcb-panelizer/

I'm thinking about spinning up the good old eagle cad program again, and start creating sensor boards (Like so many others here :))

Only thing is, that unlike (almost) everyone else, that are using normal arduino micro boards, I'm thinking about skipping that part, and create my "own" arduino board, thinking about the following:

1. use atmega 328 tqfp (That's doable for home soldering :))
2. pads for a 32Khz crystal, for timing purposes
3. Standard atmel programming header.
4. ftdi header like on arduino mini, so could use arduino bootloader (could be some details about the baudrate though, as it's running off internal RC oscillator)
5. Using Si7021 integrated humidity / temperature sensor, footprint for bmp180 barometric sensor
6. skip power converters, run everything off a battery directly (disable brownout detection in atmel)
7. SPI flash / e2prom onboard. Using same connections as moteino from lowpowerlabs, so should be able to use same bootloader for updates to firmware
8. pinheader for connecting radio module
9. Pinheader for D3-D7 on one side, and SDA/SCL + A0/A1 and power on the other side
10. Formfactor is 30x17.5mm (almost same size as the NRF24 module).
11. ATSHA204A sot23 footprint on board (Connected to A3). Can be used for SHA256 key exchange and verification
12. status LED (on A2)

Any thoughts about this? Or should I wait for the all in one mysensors battery sensor board? (When will that be available?)

/ Thomas

(Spec updated January 28th, 2015)

Depending on soldering skills, there is also the sensebender platform, where minimal soldering is required

Gateway: https://www.mysensors.org/hardware/sensebender-gateway
Sensor node: https://www.mysensors.org/hardware/micro

And the first prototypes have just arrived

Next step is ordering components. so I can get the thing up and running..

It's going to be a fun christmas

@bjacobse

I have been using influxdb/grafana for the last year or so, for logging data and presenting it, so no need to use domoticz for that. Over a year ago I injected nodered into the stream, so it sits between mysensors and domoticz, and was used to route things around (And make some fake sensors for domoticz).

For the dashboard part I have been developing my own solution. First it was running within domoticz as a customized dashboard, but I moved it to Angular instead, with a strong dependency towards domoticz, as I could query that to get sensor values. Lately I had moved on to use MQTT for the dashboard (and internal node-red data routing). There I can get persistent data (retain) that keeps the latest data on a given topic. Then my need for domoticz went away there..

The last thing I then used domoticz for, was the automation rules for turning on / off my tv when the chromecast was activated, and control a couple of LED strips according to the state of the chromecast (playing / paused etc). With that moved to nodered, then domoticz could be turned off.

The complete software stack is a bit larger, than with domoticz for everything, but it is much more flexible, than what I could achieve with domoticz.

also it brought in a couple of needed updates for my node-red mysensors nodes, so that was a "bonus" as well

Bugger.. DHL tried to deliver the package with PCB's from dirtypcbs, while I was at work today. So they only left me a note, that they couldn't deliver it. Have to wait untill monday, before they will try to deliver it again.. :s

Anyway, I now know that the boards are in DK somewhere

The other day I also have received 3 pcs of ATSHA204A (samples). so I can verify that part of the HW design.

And last but not least. I have a uCurrent waiting at the post office, that I can pick up later today.. So I can also start measuring supply currents to the device! Hope that I'll get some time to look at that part during the weekend

This forum is about sharing ideas, and open source software / hardware.

So that is the reason people ask you to put your questions out in the open here. So all can collaborate, and enjoy the teamspirit

WUUUHUU! What a great sunday

Just verified bootloader is working with external flash! Verified with dumping a small sketch to the external flash (By use of another sketch).

So external flash is verified as functional, for the bootloader part...

Here in DK, we started with closing down all public schools, and educational institutions 2 weeks ago. For my part, I have been working at my home office for the last 2½ weeks.

The government is taking a more and more strict approach to the current situation, limiting the freedom of movement, the latest is that (unless you'r a family living together) you are only allowed to be 2 persons in the same area (taking a walk etc.). And the schools etc. are closed at least until 14th of april (after the Easter holidays in denmark)

Luckily I live in the countryside, so we have lot's of space around us, with forrests etc. So we can get out in the fresh spring air, almost without meeting other people, or if we do meet other people, we can keep a safety distance of 2m. This also means that our local grocery store is not overly crowded with people, when we do shopping, as opposed to the shops in bigger cities.

As a kind of bonus, I get the opportunity to order some gadgets for my home office, now that I work full time here. "But honey, this thing will unclutter my desktop / make it easier for me to switch between work and hobby".."

Aahh.. I'm back in the man-cave. Been too long since I had a chance to power up the soldering irons..

Anyways, I've mounted the first of the second prototype spin, so next up is getting firmware written, and tested..

resurrecting this old thread

I got thrown out of my old mancave, and in to a small corner in the main building (the oldest son, aged 21, needed a place to stay, as his 19 year old sister didn't want to share room with him)

Anyways, I have moved from a 240x60cm desk to a 120x80 desk, and no storage space around me, other than a small office cabinet on wheels. Which means that I have to constrain myself, and find some alternative setups. As I have to work from home these days due to corona, I treated myself with a monitor mount for my 3 screens.
As a bonus, I can now use the space below the monitors for my tools (power supply and soldering iron,and probably the oscilloscope as well, when I get to it). I'm re-arranging stuff every other day, to figure out the best setup, and remove cable clutter (which isn't easy).

@Soloam
Could you please try to push the reset switch two times? This should get the device into bootloader mode, and get it to enumerate on the USB

Almost ready for a last roll of prototype.. I've updated github with latest changes, if anyone cares to have a look at it, and give me some feedback on it, then it is now! during Easter, I will (hopefully) do the last prototype spin!

@Mihai

I have fixed this today on development, so could you try updating from github (The stuff I made last night, had some build errors on ESP platform, so that's why it first came in tonight)

I'm already looking at different routes.. Both train, and car, and also via Gothenburg, and Varberg to Malmö :). Seems that the cheapest one could be to go to Gothenburg (If I'm not going on the night ferry to Varberg).

Btw. she already gave "permission" for it

And pcb's are ordered.. Again, using dirtypcbs.com, for the order..

I have used a panelizer tool from http://blog.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/ to panelize the boards this time, so it should be easier to depanelize it when they get here..

@scalz

I talked briefly with @Anticimex the other day about reset in the mysx connector.. But we decided that it wouldn't make sense to bump the revision with this right now. Also, won't be useful in my current board, as it haven't got the boardspace for a full MysX (I'm going with MysX1.2 / 1.3). So I decided that manual reset should be enough for this particular one.

And yes, daughter boards will probably vary in size and formfactor, and so will the mainboards. But they should still be compatible in some way, even though their outlines doesn't match perfectly. (both add-on boards that I have created is smaller than the main boards that I have created so far). I do not see this as a limiting factor

@samuel235
I'm going to use the MysX for programming, because adding an extra programming ftdi header would mean too much board space going to be "wasted" You have the serial accessible there anyways, so why add extra headers. And yes, the reset needs to be handled manually, but that is manageable..

We recommend to upgrade everything to 2.0, when that's said, a 2.0 GW can work with 1.5 nodes.

2.0 nodes require a 2.0 GW though

@hek

Isn't that for just turning off the TV? (Must build one at some point in time, and take it to one of the electronics mega stores.. Just watching the staff going nuts when all their demo TV's are switching off..

Good news..

On a saturday evening, where nothing is on TV, but a danish pre- european song contest program, I decided that I should have a look at the bootloader (amongst other stuff)

I actually succeeded in getting the bootloader into the device, and I can reprogram using serial now. Next step is to verify that I can use the spi flash to reload the unit.

I have thought of a strategy for testing the flash for reprogramming. It involves making a very basic sketch that I could compile and put into another sketch, which writes the first one to the flash, and reboots the device, and thus reprograms itself with the first sketch :). But it's going to take a while for that to happen (if anyone have a better idea, then please let me know :))

I also have tried the uCurrent, and tried to do some measurements on current consumption. When it's a sleep, it uses arround 60uA, and while awake it's up to 22mA for 60m seconds.

It should have enough juice in the regulator to support an pa/lna enabled nrf24l01. I havent got one myself, so it's not "validated" yet.

The idea with the battery, is that it is only to keep the rtc alive in the atsam, and if you look at the schematics, then it's only the cpu that can be powered by battery. A coin cell battery should be enough. (I couldn't make room for a battery holder so that's why it just became a 2 pin header

The atsha204 is validated on the board, so it's working If you look at the schematic, SDA pin on the atsha204 is labeled "SECURITY", pin 20 on the cpu is also labeled SECURITY, so these are connected.

@foad62
There is nothing that can prevent a neighbour from sniffing in on your traffic, but there are some options to make it harder.

One possibility is to use another frequency for your own sensor network, than the default.

If you are switching sensitive things (like door locks) Then you should use signing, as it is then only you who knows the secret key. The neighbour can still see your traffic though (If he is on the right frequency / channel)

There are also possibilities for encryption, but encryption != signing. They could be combined, with both encryption and signing in one.

look over at this page for more info on security / signing aspects https://www.mysensors.org/about/signing

Just found out that influxdata, is now making builds for armhf platform, from version 0.11..

So no need to compile stuff yourself for that part..

News are on their blog here https://influxdata.com/blog/announcing-influxdb-0-11-ga-kapacitor-telegraf/

And install instructions for ubuntu / debian is here https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v0.9/introduction/installation/#ubuntu-debian

forgot an update last week, I received rev2 boards last monday (9/2). but was on vacation with the family (They have priority above "nerd" projects ;))

Will see if I can get a couple of pictures of the new boards when I get home from daytime job today.

And hopefully, I'll get a couple of boards mounted during this week, so I can get it verified, and we can start preparing for "production to the masses"

@sundberg84

If you come to the meetup in Malmö, you can see a working prototype

@foad62

You could try sharing the SPI bus.. In most cases it will work, only W5100 ethernet module is special, in that way it doesn't tri-state the MISO line when it's not deselected with the normal CS line..

Just pick a separate pin for CS for the display, than the one for the NRF module, and configure your TFT library accordingly.

@fets

Tried it briefly the other day, and after some tinkering, it could tell me if I was in the living room, or in the bedroom 80% of the times (they are only 4 meters apart).. This was only after 10 minutes playing with it..

My initial fiddlings with schematics, I have already included a footprint for a JEDEC compatible spi eeprom/flash It's the same footprint, regardless if it's 512Kbit (as the one in my other board) or it's 4Mbit..

Regarding populating connectors or not, during assembly. I think that we only have the footprint for the different modules/radio technologies, that is no connectors are mounted! We could ship them in a kit, so the users have to solder them in by them self. This will allow the end user to assemble the connectors that they want to use for the specific application.

Another thought.. I propose that we add a standard micro usb connector, which can be used for power. People can then use a leftover phone charger wallwart to power the device. We could add a FTDI chip on board as well, and use the same USB connector for configuration. this of course depends on costs of the ftdi chip. (FTDI could also be a prolific usb <-> serial device, I am not locking us down to ftdi).

About the atsha204, the price is low, so I would add it. We are going to mounting it on the Micro sensor, so people can start using it. So why not on the gw?

I haven't looked at prices for different subsystems yet (like the usb to serial chip etc.) but might throw some hours at it tonight, trying to get an indication on stuff..

@gloob

ESP can be programmed via arduino studio directly, and so you don't need an extra application processor to run mysensors. That is why I dropped support for ESP early on in the project (I had it in there in the first drafts of the schematics)

@frazzle

If it's essential for your project to read out RSSI, then I suggest to use rfm69(h)w for radio, as they have an RSSI register that you can read.

For the security, if you implement signing it will add a bit of latency in the loop, as the nodes has to exchange nonces before sending the actual data.

RFM69 has a hardware encryption engine, so it can encrypt things on the fly (this is not the same as signing though, and can be subjectable to record / playback of transmissions)

If you want to go with a "no hazzle" hardware solution with an external gateway, there is also the sensebender gateway.

Right now it's arduino based. We are thinking about possibilities to separate us from that build environment, because it's so weird..

The only problem is that arduino is so popular with newcomers to programming and hardware, and for them it's relatively easy to use. It's only the more seasoned developers that knows something better is out there, that complains

I still use the arduino environment for the basic sketches, as it kind of works, and atom for core hacking. I've got a set of bash scripts to help me along, and use gdb for debugging in target (samd hw)

I think there are some platform.io integrations as well, but haven't had the time to look into that. We want to reach out to as many as possible, and that's with arduino at the moment.

The first pcb's have arrived today.

They came a bit faster from dirtypcbs.com, than I had expected. So haven't even sourced the components yet.

So need to look into that the next couple of days.

with W5100 / NRF module "mounted" :

@TheoL

I think that they just returned from holiday. I was at least in contact with itead the other dah, where I received a couple of mails from my contact person. Just need the quotation guy to wake up from his hibernation mode

@chuckconnors

if you look at the "examples" repository, it both examples folder, and libraries that should work with the enclosed examples. Copy the library, that you want to use, to Arduino/libraries/... and the example to Arduino/... and try to compile them.

@frenchclem

Just a thought that popped up in my head.. Have you thought about FCC / CE certifications? If you create a transmitter, that you want to distribute to others, you better have the certificates ready (Even for hobbyists)

Found this thread http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/161885/fcc-certification-for-nrf24l01

It might be that nrf modules from China is lacking the FCC certifications, but then "it's not your problem" as a hardware developer, when you let users buy the radio module separately (They can probably buy fcc certified modules from some suppliers..)

According to this, by using ready modules, you can skip FCC certification on transmitters
https://www.lsr.com/white-papers/fcc-guidance-on-transmitter-modules

I'm not saying that this isn't a good idea, it's a great idea! But producing a pcb (with transmitters) isn't just about BOM prices.. There is a lot of other things that you have to take into the equation as well.. And I fear that you haven't investigated all the details fully, and end up facing huge problems later on.

@kalina

Thanks for the tip.. I took heavy inspiration from the arduino zero, which only has 100nF capacitors for decoupling.

I haven't seen any problems with stability on the prototype GW's that I have build, we also have 5 production sample GW's out in the wild, at a couple of the core group members, and I have not heard any problems from them either.

Anyways, I have noted it, and will take it into consideration if I/we decide to do a new revision of the schematic / layout.

I think you have missed a couple of details @Reza

When mysensors started out, the cheapest / best approach was to use the nRF24L01, rfm69hw was not available. So the project evolved around this radio. The RFM69 came in at a later time.

Unfortunately a lot of Chinese saw easy money, with counterfeit chips, and started to create less than optimal fake versions. That will probably also happen to rfm69hw (and are probably already there).

So we keep nrf, as it is there in the core.. It's up to you and other hackers, to decide what you want to use

@TD22057

Instead of the hassle of renaming the project etc. You can use git to version your work. Add a tag to your commit everytime you make an order, and mark your board so you can see what version you got back from the board house.

@zboblamont

Sorry about that, it sneaked through the reviews.. I have updated the page, so others don't fall into the same pitfall..

@gohan

It does contain serial interfaces, and more than one.. In many aspects, cortex m0, m3 etc, are way superior compared to the atmega 328...

@TheoL

I2C eeproms are not supported by DualOptiboot bootloader, for this you need an SPI flash instead. In theory it should be possible to make a bootloader using I2C eeproms for temporary sketch storage, until it's completed transfer..

One option is to wait for the GW device that are "comming very soon". It has 256Kb flash onboard for program, and 32kb ram. I can't tell when it's coming, but sometime between now and summer/fall.. (I've been hit more heavily by other workloads, than I had anticipated when starting out on that project).

I'm waiting for (hopefully) the last prototype PCB's to arrive, which then needs assembly and verification before I give a go for production in China.

@ben999

Something like this: https://hackaday.io/project/9461-lifepo4weredpi ??

@TheoL

Yes, it will contain atsha204 onboard, and be ready for wired ethernet if you add a W5100 module, and can be configured with both RFM69 and NRF24 radios (Library has a limit of 1 radio at a time though)

Unfortunately I'm on the voting comity for the contest, so I can't participate

We should also be careful not to spread out the butter in a too thin layer, people have to keep track of multiple platforms, newcomers don't know where stuff is etc.

In my opinion, the only advantage nrf24 has, is that it's cheap..

That said.. A lot of clones exists of the nrf24 chip, that sometimes make it a hit and miss if it works.. Also, it operates at 2.4Ghz, and RF penetration on that frequency band is not as good as on lower frequencies of rfm69.

RFM69 operates below 1Ghz, which are better at penetrating walls etc. rfm69 also have encryption build in, that you could use.. Only detail is that it's a bit more expensive to buy, but the coverage of the network should (in theory) be much better, and can be made more secure

I started out with NRF24, but consider switching to rfm69 radios for all my sensors, when I come around to it

dirtypcbs support mousebites to separate pcb's, without extra fees..

It seems that the tool from thisisnotrocketscience is tested primarily with dirtypcbs

I've had a RPI-2 running for about a year now, without problems.. I've had a small tmpfs, where I store logs and a couple of other frequently written files (Like the counter from my electricity meter blink sketch), for backup it copies this specific file (counter info) to the sdcard every 15 or 30 minutes..

I have thought about adding an external usb disk (I have some 2.5" disks from old laptops laying around) and use that for /var, specially after I've started using influxdb to collect sensor data. Just need to get a enclosure for that disk..

a 555 and a couple of resistors / capacitors..

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/91102/555-temperature-controlled-pwm

But then again, I recon that most of us might have more atmega328 based boards, than 555's in the parts bin

about the RC for PWM, it was meant as a hint for others that might fight problems with a fan that they couldn't control properly with PWM..

@Patrik-Söderström

Depends, on how extensive you will make your automation setup.

Do you want to have a single node that you can communicate with from domoticz? or a network of sensors? Do you have the possibility to connect a gateway directly to the computer running domoticz? Or do you require wifi/ethernet between gateway and computer?

If you want multiple nodes connected to domoticz, I would recomend getting either NRF24L01, or RFM69 radio modules for your HA network. RFM69 is sub-GHz, so it has a sligthly better coverage than NRF24, on the other hand NRF24 is cheaper compared to RFM69

If you have the possibility to attach the GW directly to your computer, then go for a arduino nano, with radio attached above. Otherwise go for ESP8266.

Hope that this can help you out a little bit?

@sundberg84
With a little bit of nodered injected in the stream, you could have domoticz running without ever noticing that influx etc is getting the data as well

@alexsh1

If you can't intercept the "serial" data before it enters USB (that is, there is no ft232, CH340 etc) then you have to use a device capable of acting like an USB host. That can in theory be implemented on a SAMD21, as it has host capabilities, but you need to write a device driver for it.

On the other hand, you can connect it to a computer (raspberrypi, or the likes), which has a USB stack already, now you can get the data on a serial port (like you have already). Install node-red and have it listen on the serial data from the USB device, and then have node-red decode, and perhaps re-encode into mysensors serial protocol messages.

I have done this with my utility meter sensor, which just counts pulses from the utility meter. It then reports the counts to my raspberry pi, which is running node-red. Node-red is also talking to domoticz on the other side, where domoticz thinks it's a mysensors serial gateway it talks to. I then inject messages from the utilitymeter into the datastream comming from the real mysensors gateway, and domoticz never knows what hit it.. :d

In my setup it's only partly mysensorized, and only with the help of node-red.. (node-red is acting like a mysensors node)

I bought a Geeetech I3 pro a couple of years ago, and after some upgrades, mainly to the z-axis, then it prints decently. I am considering building a core-xy from scratch, like the hypercube evolution, but will probably not be before 2019, I get around to that project

When I bought the Geeetech it was kind of a trend, and 4-5 of the members in my local "nerdclub" bought it. They have all bought a CR10 later on, and are trying to convince me, that I should buy one as well, as they think that it's much better in quality (also it's considerably easier to assemble.. 30 minutes from unboxing and you are able to print).

Currently the geeetech does it for me.

I would remove the regulator, as it's not needed.

I have had a node running for the last 6 months based on a Sensebender Micro and a bmp180 (if I remember correctly).

Batteries have been used by the Sensebender alone in the 12 months prior to the addition of the bmp180, and the node still reports about 66% battery left (that's 18 months of service time, where the last 6 is with bmp180)

@gohan

I didn't know how to work with docker 2 months ago.. If I can learn it, others can do it too It's not that complicated after all

@Viktor-Zeman

Before you change the operating frequency, you need to find out if the sensornode will be sleeping most of the time, or if it will be active..

If it's a sleeping node that will wake up once in a while, collect sensor data, and perhaps send it back to your controller, then it will not make that much difference if you run it at 1Mhz or at 8Mhz..

If we look at the datasheet for atmega328 pages 336 and 337, there are a couple of graphs, showing the approximate active current, given at different frequencies / voltages..

with a voltage of 2.7V, running at 1Mhz, the consumption is around 0.4mA, while running at 8Mhz, it's around 2mA. This seems to be a large difference, but let's take into account that the microprocessor is 8 times slower at running the same code when running at 1Mhz, than at 8Mhz, then in theory it is awake 8 times as long, when running at the lower frequency..

If we then do a rough calculation, saying that a loop takes 1 second @8Mhz, it will take 8 seconds @1Mhz. if we "transform" this to mAh, it will give a rough data like
running @1Mhz : (0.4 * 8 ) = 3.2
running @8Mhz : 2.0 * 1 = 2

And from this, we can see that running at 1Mhz, will (in theory) actually consume more power than running on 8Mhz, because the "high" current consumption will last longer at 1Mhz, than it will on 8Mhz.

When that's said.. If you want to run at 1Mhz, you can use avrdude, and a avr ISP programming dongle to program fuses. Check out this tutorial

@sergio-rius

there can be certain things preventing one disclosing projects.. Most of it is probably the fear of getting swarmed by requests about progress of the project, since it is so awesome that people just can't wait for it

Do remember, that we are all here using our (limited) sparetime, and have a lot of other activities going on as side projects as well.. For my part, I have about 1 hour a day during the evening, that I can devote to "Me time", that is for mysensors and all the other projects that I work on. And also trying to learn new skills, that could be useful for my daytime job :). And I do have way too many projects rolling at the moment.. And I know that @scalz is not on the lazy side as well, when it comes to fun projects that take up his time..

@mfalkvidd @NeverDie

The AS3930 is designed to be used with inductive coupled antennas, as in RF-ID devices, where it can feed on the energy generated in the magnetic loop..

It's stated on page 12 in the datasheet (detailed description)

The AS3930 is capable of detecting the presence of an inductive coupled carrier and extract the envelope of the ON-OFF-Keying (OOK) modulated carrier

So unless you want to make a gigantic coil, covering the whole house, it's not usable for waking up low power (my)sensors devices.

@bjacobse something is wrong, it's way to organized

@clio75

Are you by any chance compiling for an 8Mhz variant, and uploading into an 16Mhz variant? That could explain that you need to use double the baudrate.

That also means that timing etc. is way off..

So please verify crystal on board, and you arduino board selection..

@parachutesj

#define MY_REPEATERFEATURE is for 2.0.0 branch, as all the c++ and classes stuff has been stripped out, to reduce overall size of the core library

That means, for 1.5 you need to use gw.begin(..) to enable repeater mode, and for 2.0 you add the #define..

Finally I am starting to do a little electronics again.. First thing is a prototype assembly of RASLE (Rpi Arcade Sound and Light Extension). It's a custom made arduino "coprocessor" for a raspberry pi, built into retropie arcade cabinets. It's a joint project with a couple of friends that are building arcade cabinets (I built mine a couple of years ago, I think that there is pictures earlier in this thread).

Features:

• stereo 3W class-d amplifier
• atmega328p
  • 3 pwm channels for LED strips
  • a port for WS2812 type led strips
  • pwm channel for fan
  • output for a relay to control mains input for the box (let the rpi shutdown cleanly, before disconnecting power)
  • 5 button inputs (shared between rpi and atmega)

@HarrySteff said in SensebenderMicro with two additional DS18b20:

Try and remove the following lines from your sketch:

 #ifndef MY_OTA_FIRMWARE_FEATURE
   if ((measureCount == 5) && highfreq) 
   {
     clock_prescale_set(clock_div_8); // Switch to 1Mhz for the reminder of the sketch, save power.
     highfreq = false;
   } 
 #endif

This switches to a lower frequency after approximately 5 minutes, this messes up the timing, which I normally don't care about with the Si7021 temperature sensor, but the DS1820 needs "precise" timing, to communicate, as it uses bit banging..

I admit that I have been pretty silent the last couple of years on the forum. But daytime work have drained my energy reserves. I have however just picked up mysensors again, and started jumping into platform Io for arduino. And converted one of my old mysensors sketches.

I hope that I can return to the community again, still have some fun hardware projects planned, but also need to constrain myself, so I do not have to many projects at the same time, otherwise my energy is depleted completely

/ Thomas

@kimot
So MQTT is not a common protocol? Or serial? What would the benefit be of a http request, over any of the other transport options, when the controller doesn't transmit when changed?

In my opinion then http requests aren't that usable as a transport in a home automation setup. MQTT is much better for this, if you really want to go over tcp/ip.