$5 for 5 PCBs at ALLPCB. $5 Coupon: www.allpcb.com/?code=yt40 Seeed Wio-E5: www.seeedstudio.com/LoRa-E5-Wireless-Module-p-4745.html Picoscope 5000 Series: www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/5000/flexible-resolution-oscilloscope Support the Channel with Patreon: www.patreon.com/sdgelectronics
Not a wireless solution but in out last house we ran some 5 core cable around the house - 3 cores were used as a permanent power supply and there was a single dusk/dawn sensor on the wall with the fourth core as its output. We then had a series of PIR sensors dotted around which were powered from the fourth core and the fifth core was used for the PIR outputs - It was broken up into "zones" where each zone had one or more PIR sensors driving it. We then tapped into this fifth core for the various lights. It meant that we could have a single dusk/dawn sensor in a sensible location and could divide the lighting into different areas each with their own sensors, all with off-the-shelf equipment.
That's an interesting way to go about your problem. Got my mind racing all the possibilities what other sensors may be useful in the garden, like a weather station.
This seems like a great use case for ESP32 and the ESP-NOW protocol. It allows two ESP32 boards to talk with each other with at least some security. I have used it on one project and it was pretty easy to setup and you can program with the Arduino IDE which has sample code.
I assume it's been fixed in the newer microcontroller models, but certainly on the early STM32 parts it was possible to circumvent the firmware read protection, which would allow the stock firmware to be extracted and reflashed at will.
Nice project and just in time. Looking forward to the custom firmware. I'm also trying to design board with this chip to control some water pumps. 1km away
An idea for simple protection would be to use the same random seed on both devices. Then the transmitting device would include a random number in its packet, and the receiving device would check the value against its current random number.
Lora can have a very long range >10km. It's probably overkill for this application, but very good to see you can bypass the Lorawan side I've been wanting to do that for a project ~1-2km away which this might work for if I can't find a "proper" way of doing. Zigbee/Thread is probably better suited to your application as you have security and shorter range. You can share the keys at flashing so can avoid a pairing step. I've used MGM12P module with a range of 1km line of sight, but generally you'll get a few hundred meters in cities (much further than wifi, but an order of magnitude less than Lora). The NRF52840 is less powerful (8dbm vs 19dbm), but still probably overkill and you can get it as a £10 dongle for testing which can be soldered into a design which is cheaper than most other modules. If I remember the both the SiLabs and Nordic examples have a toggle Zigbee and Thread example.
I didn't know the Nordic chip had a stack for Zigbee. I've always designed it in BLE devices but this is interesting, especially as I have many of them from projects
Great video Steve. Love the project (something a little different). I enjoy coding, always trying to find new ways of doing things. Looking forward to the next one, thanks for sharing.
Great application of the test mode, seems to be working like a full function. I guess there's a slight worry long term if you try to deploy another in the future and the firmware has changed......and so has the test mode.
Had something like this running for a while using Texas CC1101 radios. Ebyte make nice modules. Cheaper than LoRa, not as good range but more than adequate to cover a house and garden. They are fairly easy to use as well, especially if all your data fits into the 64 byte FIFO. Power consumption is a lot better than all the LoRa modules I've seen too.
@@sdgelectronics It was the home automation method of choice in the US before Wi-Fi took over. Been a long time since I’ve looked at it, but i seem to remember it sent the codes during the crossover point in the mains. So i don’t expect it’s high bandwidth / high speed data just address and data so i dont see it emitting much RF. But for controlling the lights on a mains circuit around the garden you could make up your own system based on X10 H/W designs.
Hey, have you been able to program the Wio-E5 directly? I haven't had any luck with it. Can't even get it to send something which i could see on my SDR. If you got it to do someting i would be interested in that! 😃
Nice application of lora. I'm responsible for around 60+ public gateways in mid Wales on TTN. I noticed you started with a SF of 12, did you drop this down at all? SF12 uses the most airtime of all the SF's and in your application with minimal distance between units I'm sure it could be dropped to SF7 with the advantage of faster Comms and a reduced load on the spectrum and airtime usage.
@@sdgelectronics Looking forward to a cheap part sucker, also a paste dispenser would be great. Will it do the little puff of air to place the component on release of the button? Also need a nice hot plate design. I was thinking of a 6” square ali plate with heater cartridges placed around it to spread the heat. A PID controller and display to finish it off would be great. Not sure if to go 12V, 24V or mains for the cartridge heaters, based on the higher the voltage the lower the required current will be and so the thinner the wires can be. Maybe i can be you test victim (sorry subscriber) on a project like this, would be a fun and useful project.
@@TradieTrev X10 maybe old school, but if you have a simple mains powered system you already have the communications medium in place. It’s ideal for low speed signalling like on and off commands.
They also offer 868mhz for which I think is your band. I wrote code for these PIC18f67k22 and they work well. it’s programmable all through the UART. I got good results @ 1000ft
Those modules have so much potential but I am scared to flash it with custom firmware. If these could be flash with arduino it would be so simple for everyone. My code is for helium network so custom code would be lots of work.
Good Grief ! what absolutely dreadful code, my goodness I've never seen such rubbish before, you should be ashamed of yourself ! Great video 🤣...cheers.
$5 for 5 PCBs at ALLPCB. $5 Coupon: www.allpcb.com/?code=yt40
Seeed Wio-E5: www.seeedstudio.com/LoRa-E5-Wireless-Module-p-4745.html
Picoscope 5000 Series: www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/5000/flexible-resolution-oscilloscope
Support the Channel with Patreon: www.patreon.com/sdgelectronics
Not a wireless solution but in out last house we ran some 5 core cable around the house - 3 cores were used as a permanent power supply and there was a single dusk/dawn sensor on the wall with the fourth core as its output. We then had a series of PIR sensors dotted around which were powered from the fourth core and the fifth core was used for the PIR outputs - It was broken up into "zones" where each zone had one or more PIR sensors driving it. We then tapped into this fifth core for the various lights.
It meant that we could have a single dusk/dawn sensor in a sensible location and could divide the lighting into different areas each with their own sensors, all with off-the-shelf equipment.
I recently developed some LoRa products with a very cheap radio from LCSC RA-01SC. Works great to at least 3Km
That's an interesting way to go about your problem. Got my mind racing all the possibilities what other sensors may be useful in the garden, like a weather station.
This seems like a great use case for ESP32 and the ESP-NOW protocol. It allows two ESP32 boards to talk with each other with at least some security. I have used it on one project and it was pretty easy to setup and you can program with the Arduino IDE which has sample code.
But can it send to multiple receivers?
I assume it's been fixed in the newer microcontroller models, but certainly on the early STM32 parts it was possible to circumvent the firmware read protection, which would allow the stock firmware to be extracted and reflashed at will.
that's good to know but pretty sure seeedstudio didn't figure it out.
Nice project and just in time. Looking forward to the custom firmware. I'm also trying to design board with this chip to control some water pumps. 1km away
An idea for simple protection would be to use the same random seed on both devices. Then the transmitting device would include a random number in its packet, and the receiving device would check the value against its current random number.
Lora can have a very long range >10km. It's probably overkill for this application, but very good to see you can bypass the Lorawan side I've been wanting to do that for a project ~1-2km away which this might work for if I can't find a "proper" way of doing. Zigbee/Thread is probably better suited to your application as you have security and shorter range. You can share the keys at flashing so can avoid a pairing step. I've used MGM12P module with a range of 1km line of sight, but generally you'll get a few hundred meters in cities (much further than wifi, but an order of magnitude less than Lora). The NRF52840 is less powerful (8dbm vs 19dbm), but still probably overkill and you can get it as a £10 dongle for testing which can be soldered into a design which is cheaper than most other modules. If I remember the both the SiLabs and Nordic examples have a toggle Zigbee and Thread example.
I didn't know the Nordic chip had a stack for Zigbee. I've always designed it in BLE devices but this is interesting, especially as I have many of them from projects
Great video Steve. Love the project (something a little different). I enjoy coding, always trying to find new ways of doing things. Looking forward to the next one, thanks for sharing.
Great application of the test mode, seems to be working like a full function. I guess there's a slight worry long term if you try to deploy another in the future and the firmware has changed......and so has the test mode.
I think it should work no matter what, but I could be wrong. From what I can tell, test mode is supposed to be somewhat standard on these
I'm surprised there isn't a way to dump the existing code as a hex file as a backup.
Had something like this running for a while using Texas CC1101 radios. Ebyte make nice modules. Cheaper than LoRa, not as good range but more than adequate to cover a house and garden. They are fairly easy to use as well, especially if all your data fits into the 64 byte FIFO. Power consumption is a lot better than all the LoRa modules I've seen too.
Have you looked at zigbee? If you use the router version of the software, you can extend the network further away from the coordinator.
As the lights are all mains, why not go the 10x route, it's even more secure as the data in on the mains cable?
I've actually not come across X10. Does it annoy radio people as much as those powerline ethernet devices?
@@sdgelectronics It was the home automation method of choice in the US before Wi-Fi took over. Been a long time since I’ve looked at it, but i seem to remember it sent the codes during the crossover point in the mains. So i don’t expect it’s high bandwidth / high speed data just address and data so i dont see it emitting much RF. But for controlling the lights on a mains circuit around the garden you could make up your own system based on X10 H/W designs.
Capacitive divider charging a bulk (super)cap should power the TX with such a low duty cycle.
Hey, have you been able to program the Wio-E5 directly? I haven't had any luck with it. Can't even get it to send something which i could see on my SDR. If you got it to do someting i would be interested in that! 😃
Nice application of lora. I'm responsible for around 60+ public gateways in mid Wales on TTN. I noticed you started with a SF of 12, did you drop this down at all? SF12 uses the most airtime of all the SF's and in your application with minimal distance between units I'm sure it could be dropped to SF7 with the advantage of faster Comms and a reduced load on the spectrum and airtime usage.
It worked fine at SF7 👍
Did you ever get anywhere with writing some native code to skip the AT interface?
What's the "solder feeder tip" you used on the through-hole header pins? Don't remember seeing it in previous videos ...
Ok, I just played it again and did hear the brief name-check you gave it!
Check my recent videos #276 and #282
Which tools do you use to place SMD parts? Some kind of suction thingy, but how are they called, what do they cost and where to get them cheap?
It was a project a while back on my channel. I will do a new project to make a better and cheaper one. It's next on my list
@@sdgelectronics Looking forward to a cheap part sucker, also a paste dispenser would be great.
Will it do the little puff of air to place the component on release of the button?
Also need a nice hot plate design. I was thinking of a 6” square ali plate with heater cartridges placed around it to spread the heat. A PID controller and display to finish it off would be great. Not sure if to go 12V, 24V or mains for the cartridge heaters, based on the higher the voltage the lower the required current will be and so the thinner the wires can be.
Maybe i can be you test victim (sorry subscriber) on a project like this, would be a fun and useful project.
Nice project. Did you never consider using X10 mains borne signalling. It could do what you are wanting very simply and cheaply.
It's not something I've actually come across. I'll look into it.
X10 is old school! The gear I've played around with has some limitations compared to LoRa from my experience.
@@TradieTrev X10 maybe old school, but if you have a simple mains powered system you already have the communications medium in place. It’s ideal for low speed signalling like on and off commands.
HUM-900-PRO is also a good radio. good bandwidth and 900mhz keeps you out of crowded frequencies.
USA only frequency?
They also offer 868mhz for which I think is your band. I wrote code for these PIC18f67k22 and they work well. it’s programmable all through the UART. I got good results @ 1000ft
Placing components is nice but the payoff is watching the solder reflow! Don't sell us short, Steve.
Got a new oven that should help with this in the future
@@sdgelectronics My first ever reply from an internet celebrity! :D
great looking pcb
Those modules have so much potential but I am scared to flash it with custom firmware. If these could be flash with arduino it would be so simple for everyone. My code is for helium network so custom code would be lots of work.
I'll see how I get on with the custom firmware. It's a shame you can't get the original back on there once you erase the chip.
Maybe a couple of esp8266's using esp-now would be easier and cheaper..
I'll look into it, thanks for the suggestion. I have mixed luck with using Eclipse for ESP development and it always seems to randomly break
@@sdgelectronics i just use the IDF and notepad++ a lot of the time, all Eclipse does is replace "Make flash" with an icon.
Good Grief ! what absolutely dreadful code, my goodness I've never seen such rubbish before, you should be ashamed of yourself ! Great video 🤣...cheers.
Boy Mr Squeak, and you tell me to go easy on Ralph 🙂
Omg, your voice is like someone talk from a pipe 😳
Flu season here in the UK as usual in the winter months 🤧