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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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Connecting the Tree to the Internet

ntewinkel
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Merry Boxes & LEDs

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I made some headway today, and was able to wire up one of the XMas trees to one of the Wemos boards.

 

Initial testing went well - it looks like the lights are properly controlled the way I had intended (hooray!).

However, the motion sensor is not doing the right thing yet, so I'll have to work on that.

edit: I think I might have found the issue (will test tomorrow) - line 77 sets the motion sensor input as "INPUT_PULLUP" like a regular button, but the PIR module should already handle that, so it probably should just be "INPUT". edit again: Sadly that wasn't the problem. I'll test it separately later.

 

I have the wires and the transistors just soldered together dead-bug style to keep things simple.

Once it all works I'll give the exposed bits a nice coat of... you guessed it... nail polish!

And then I need to somehow tuck the wires and board into a neat little finished package.

 

I made a little video showing my progress so far.

I'm using a Witty Wifi as the other tree. pressing the button simulates the motion detected, and the different LEDs simulate the tree.

 

Sorry about the video, I took it in portrait mode LIKE A BARBARIAN! (no offence intended to barbarians).

 

Here is a screenshot that shows the online MQTT client I also used for testing. It's super handy for this kind of thing!

You can see the debug info in the serial console too.

image

 

Since it looks like the software is ok for the most part (it may need a tweak for the motion detector), I've published it on GitHub, including the version that runs on the Witty for testing.

https://github.com/ntewinkel/electronics/tree/master/ConnectedXMasTrees

 

Cheers,

-Nico

 

Previous posts:

Connected Christmas Trees

Assembling the Trees

Finally! Two Trees Assembled

Two Trees by a Tree

 

Next posts:

Motion Sensor on Wemos

Trees! one with motion sickness...

Motion Sensor Issues, continued

The Connected Trees are Working!

Merry Boxes - A Project Within a Project

Connected Christmas Trees - Finished!

  • in reply to mcb1

    Hi Mark,

     

    It turned out that I needed an external 10k pull-down (to ground) resistor.  (edit: I think that's a Wemos/ESP8266 limitation, where a Uno might be ok with internal pull-down)

    That seems to make it work reliably enough, although it does appear to get the occasional false trigger still. So that might not be the right value of resistor, but it's good enough for now. False triggers add more festiveness!!

     

    I noticed that optional transistor spot, which some datasheets seem to recommend to use to directly control a load from the control pin, instead of having that transistor externally.

     

    -Nico

  • Not that the english is particularilyt good, but it looks like the output goes high when it is triggered.

    Many of them have an open collector so they go low when triggered.

     

    The PCB has the option to add a transistor, and they seem to have a zero ohm feeding the output instead.

     

    mark

  • in reply to genebren

    Hi Gene,

     

    >Is that a 'Seeed' sensor?  Hard to tell from the video, but that thing is pretty tiny.  I don't think that I have come across one quite that small.

     

    It's a no-name from AliExpress (about a dollar each). And yes, it's very small compared to the usual PIRs I've seen, which is why I bought them for this project. Like this one.

    I don't recall how I happened to stumble upon this type image

     

    -Nico

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Nico,

     

    Sorry to hear that the simple fix did not work.  Hopefully you will be able to figure it out.  I think that checking out the sensor in a stand-alone mode is a good idea.  Is that a 'Seeed' sensor?  Hard to tell from the video, but that thing is pretty tiny.  I don't think that I have come across one quite that small.

     

    Good luck!

    Gene

  • in reply to genebren

    Thanks Gene!

    >Hopefully your testing will find that you have solved your motion sensing problem.

    Unfortunately it wasn't the simple software fix I had hoped for. I'll have to try just the motion sensor by itself to see how it does things.

     

    -Nico