An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 12:41:10 GMT

Ok I am 90% done and I am putting this project on hold to get back to my quadcop_project

I am not going to get it done before my trip so I am going old fashioned for now. However I still need the harness for my short trips so I will be back on this very soon.

I leave Sunday and given its Wed I need to attend to other matters of the trip. Stay tuned and thanks to everyone for helping me!

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 03:31:12 GMT

Well small wrench in the plans. I was going to make this for both my towing vehicles but my Kia Sorento has an interesting thing. The brake lights and running lights are the same. The running lights are just dimmed...

So how the heck would I read that? Looks like I would need a ADC? I suppose it puts out 6V and 12V or something to that effect... Maybe a diode that saturates at 12V?

For now I will just build this for my Jeep and got a wired connection for the sorento. I way behind on this and because I don't have proper tools and parts on hand its taking a lot longer than it should! I tow it with my jeep 90% of the time and only will take sorento on long trips.

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 05:26:36 GMT

99% of my code is working. I am attempting to have a "heartbeat" go back and forth so I can monitor things however it is causing issues. If the receiver (trailer part) never tries to send data back, it work 100% perfect! As soon as I have it trying to send back things go crazy and I have issues.

I will be making a video shortly. If someone wants to inspect my code who knows how to use the nrf24l01 I would appreciate it.

Also, I tested my new LED lights. Before the running lights used about .5A (500 mA) each and the brake lights used 2A (2000 mA) each. For a total of 5A when all lights are on.

The leds pull .1A (100 mA) and .15A (150 mA) each.

The savings for the running lights is 500%. The brake lights even more but I don't count them too much since they aren't used for long periods of times. However 300mA compared to 4A is crazy.

So to revisit my "run time"

Battery Capacity: 5 Ah

Running lights: .1A

Arduino: .08A

Total: .18A

Running time in hours = 5/.18 ~ 27 hours

The little charger I have puts out 24V at 1.5W ~ .06A

There will be some additional power pull from the relay switch etc.. but I think it will be negligible.

Keep in mind my 5Ah battery is very small, and I can easily use a 18Ah battery for 100 hours runtime if I assume the running lights are on all the time, which they are only on at night.

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 20:04:03 GMT

A quick update, its working! I found this fork of the code in this post from someone with the same issue:

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=230681.0

I also killed one of my arduino pro minis (clone) when the ground wired came loose and swiped across the AVR pins, heard a nice sizzle sound. I took the capacitors off the board and put them on the +/- pins of the power on the transceiver. It made a huge difference. So once I get my mount boards I think I will be ok with any noise from the car's electrical system. I plan to put filter caps on any 12V sources coming from the car.

[embed:dc8ab71f-3b98-42d9-b0f6-e21e02a0f8e2:3ef06e6b-9b7d-4651-b12d-db8be7f5e991:type=c_cpp&text=]

[embed:dc8ab71f-3b98-42d9-b0f6-e21e02a0f8e2:3ef06e6b-9b7d-4651-b12d-db8be7f5e991:type=c_cpp&text=void+nb_sleep%28int+d%29%0A%7B%0A++++++++long+s+%3D+millis%28%29%3B%0A++++++++while%28millis%28%29+-+s+%3C+d%29%3B%0A%7D]

For the record, I do not plan to have a delay or sleep in the code. I just wanted to test the code with long delay of no transmissions. I do plan to use a timer though to send a "heartbeat" pulse like I am dong for my QuadCop project.

In theory, I could go down the highway for hours and not need to send any changes to the trailer because I am not using brakes or flashers etc..

Now the link is stable, time to write my handshake and command protocol. I will be using the same one I used for my I2C connection I am using on my QuadCOP project.

GOOD PROGRESS!!!

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 05:49:11 GMT

Well guys not to be a negative nancy BUT...

The RF24 library has some serious issues. Its not very easy to use.

Using the examples provided, I did get the code to work using a UNO and a Nano. I am having much less luck with the pro minis and powering with a 3.3V regulator. I have some .1 uF CAPS coming tomorrow but that wont solve 2 major issues:

There is no way to detect the status of the radio, the examples themselves think that they are receiving and transmitting data successfully even when the radio is not even attached. Therefore its impossible to tell what the heck is ever going on. I am not familiar with SPI yet so maybe there is hope.

Another issue is I was sending incremental numbers in a loop (1,2,3 etc) which worked great.

Then I added a delay statement to only send every 1 second. It breaks.

SO I added a non blocking non interrupt delay using micros(), same issue.

SO I decided to only send data when the counter is at 1000,2000 etc.. Same issue.

What I found is that I MUST keep sending data nonstop. If I stop, the radio link dies. What this means that as fast as possible I have to send zeros or something with non meaning.

If you google RF24 and delay you will see many people have this issue. I thought it may be an interrupt or timer conflict but nope [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f7569db0-fa11-4e2e-b89f-7576e10fe5a2/3731.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16] It seems if the data stops for more than 10 milliseconds things go wrong.

SO one other admission of mine is that nrf24l01 I bought are directly from CHINA. They cost .50 cents USD each. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f7569db0-fa11-4e2e-b89f-7576e10fe5a2/3731.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

Can anyone recommend a wireless system that works and has good drivers for arduino? XBEE?

I don't have much more time to work on this and I cannot spend a lot of time getting buggy stuff to work because I have my own bugs to fix. I understand the RF24 is free but it needs serious work IMO before it is truly useful for anything other than example youtube videos. I did find a guy who wrote SPI code himself I am looking into that next.

Sorry I am negative, its late here and I have been working hard on this with little results. I may just choose to use two UNOs since they appear to work ok short of the 10 millisecond issue.

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 13:11:21 GMT

Been messing around with the RF24 library and not having much luck yet. The problem with this library is that I can not even have the wireless device hooked up and it will think it is sending things or receiving things at times! it doesn't seem to have good error handling and there is no way to test if the device is present and working. I may have an old version I will check it out and have to go through the code. It is just using SPI to communicate with the device.

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 13:37:55 GMT

Please see my related poll to this project, I need your input!!

http://www.element14.com/community/polls/2131

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 04:51:00 GMT

One thing I forgot is I ned enclosure boxes, guess I'll head over the old readio shack and buy some ugly over priced ones. Or I guess I could make some out of basswood.

I really need a 3d printer!

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 04:40:23 GMT

Here's where I am at. The car and trailer portions are nearly completed. I just need my 3.3v regulators tomorrow and I can begin testing the wireless protocol. If that goes will I will be removing my old wiring box from my Jeep tomorrow.

My LED lights get there Friday so I am eager to see how many amps they will pull!

Special thanks to [mention:8fb233e8974445138ef0af2b63b49f94:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] for his help with this crazy relay system.

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RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 03:04:35 GMT

I bought this relay system and it doesn't work [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f7569db0-fa11-4e2e-b89f-7576e10fe5a2/contentimage_5F00_2.png:16:16]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/231573073495?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Its a 12V relay system so I have to use 12V into the VCC and the input pins are driven by 5V. So I connect 5V in, the relays trip. The code is simple, digital high and low with a 1 second delay. Pins are output.

The little LEDS turn off and on as expected but the relays do not trip. I don't have a load on them but should not matter. If I use 12V as required into the VCC, the leds only turn on, then go dimmer, never off.

I have a common ground between the arduino and relay board as well.

What is going on?

I went ahead and 2nd day aired a 5v version, I will just run it off the same regulator as the arduino. Anybody have any experience with these?

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 17:53:27 GMT

When reading higher voltages with a MCU, what is the standard way to do that? I assumed a regulator would be needed. What do you do if you need to know if a device turned on, in which the MCU did not turn on itself?

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

clem57 — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 17:07:47 GMT

Totally amazed is the word today. Plus a tropical depression has taken over here. LOL[View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f7569db0-fa11-4e2e-b89f-7576e10fe5a2/contentimage_5F00_2516.png:16:16]

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 16:53:27 GMT

Well I posted my prototype wireless transmitter and it went quiet in here... So either you are amazed and speechless or you have grave concerns and are keeping quiet...

[View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f7569db0-fa11-4e2e-b89f-7576e10fe5a2/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 01:58:04 GMT

Who wants to let me hook this to their car?

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RE: An Arduino/Raspberry Pi Based Wireless Light Harness

screamingtiger — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 01:55:22 GMT

Well I set aside this evening to work and my soldering iron DIED. All I had was a big butane powered soldering iron, that is actually meant to be a butane torch. So my solder is not perfect but its not worse than the Chinese nrf24lr01 stuff I am using.

This is the unit that connects to the car. The wires coming out (under my fingers) attach to the input side of the 5V regulators, and the arduino reads the output from the regulator. These wires will connect to a plug that connects to my lights which is already wired. The current draw should be in micro amps so I hope it is enough to turn on the regulator. Thoughts?

The wireless adapter is connected to the arduino as well.

All I am missing is my 3.3V regulators which will be here tomorrow. The wireless adapter needs 3.3.

Question: EDIT: Answered my own question, I have added a 5V regulator for the arduino to run off of too.

I am open to criticism, I do not have fancy tools yet to build things. This is the 2nd "circuit" I have ever made. This is a 20 cent perf board and it is very low quality. The main pads on the end are not connected to the underneath pads. I hate that.

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x465/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-f7569db0-fa11-4e2e-b89f-7576e10fe5a2/6378.contentimage_5F00_182687.jpg:620:465]

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