[TriEmbed] anarduino update

Alex Davis alexd at matrixwide.com
Mon Jul 18 09:33:42 CDT 2016


I'm trying out some RFM69HW transceiver modules with the Anarduino
board. So far, it's a nice combo. There an RTC on-board which has the
alarm pin connected to a hardware interrupt pin, so you can sleep for
long periods of time (based on the RTC alarm) and not have to use the
WDT. The RadioHead library works well - use the 'reliable datagram'
functions, so I know if a packet has been received or not.

I'll be using the Anarduino to measure the following:
- humidity and temp via an HTU21D
- stream height via an ultrasonic 'ping' sensor (will be controlling
power to this via a pfet)

I'm getting about 500' range through the woods using a 163 mm piece of
wire as an antenna. It's marginal at this range. I think I have enough
PVC molding left over and enough copper ground buss wire to make a pair
of 433 Mhz yagis. I can tell the RadioHead library to retry on ack
failure, but I think it'd be better to fix the signal quality.

I bought a 'LED Flag Light' from Home Depot to try as a power source.
It's a relatively decent solar cell connected to an 800 ma lithium iron
phosphate battery. The charging circuit is dumb, just a diode, but the
on-off portion is easily hackable to you can disable turning off during
daylight. I have a feeling this is going to need truly direct sunlight,
which is going to be hard to come by in the woods, but I'll give it a
shot. If it doesn't work, a good 6v d-cell lantern battery will probably
provide years of service.

Alex
-- 
"The theater of noise is proof of our potential."
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