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Arduino wireless help

funinalaska

OK, I would like to begin doing some wireless communication projects using my Arduino boards.

I have had a few NRF24L01 Modules for a while now, but for the life of me I cannot get them to work using the demo and test sketches I have found online.

So I have decided to look for other options.

I have thought about the bluefruitle from adafruit but I want to be able to make a stand alone device I can mount somewhere to wirelessly communicate with another Arduino in another place in the house.

I ran across these modules:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/360890792167

And am wondering if these are a better choice for beginner wireless communication.

Well, they are only $1 so I may as well go ahead and order them and if nothing else I will use them as Christmas ornaments on my Christmas tree. LOL

 

Really all I want to do is learn how to program one Arduino to talk to another one and tell it "Hey, set that pin HIGH" or "Hey, Dim the backlight on your LCD, It's keeping me awake"

Eventually I would like to learn how to have multiple remotes that will talk to multiple receivers. Like setting up a smart home wirelessly.

 

Right now all I want is to be able to use a few buttons on one Arduino to control outputs on another Arduino

So what is the best (and easiest to understand for someone horrible at writing code) wireless communication method to use to send 8 different commands from one Arduino to toggle 8 outputs on another say for LEDs or Relays

Maybe something eventually to control a selections of different functions that control a Neopixel array or possibly send sensor data from a remote unit back to a base unit.

 

Right now I am just thinking but I want to learn a basic understanding of some sort of wireless communication and as of now I am just frustrated.

There is so much information out there, that to be honest when I start searching I get very overwhelmed very quickly.

 

Anyway, thanks for any advise in advance.

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  • in reply to Robert Peter Oakes

    Ya, that tutorial on Maniacbug was what I was trying to use to test the radios

    I never got a response o the round trip test only a timeout.

    I will have to play with them some more sometime.

    Right now I have everything packed up for my trip back to the lower 48

    Mostly what I want to learn to do (in the short term) is figure out how to have one arduino with buttons attached to send the button press signals to another to turn things on and off.

    There are other things I will want to do down the road, but that is where I would like to start.

    Sometime when I am feeling a bit more full of patience I will have to try with them again.

    I would love in the future to set up a mesh network, but I figure I need to make 2 of them communicate first. LOL

  • in reply to funinalaska

    Terry had a tutorial here with some other links

    http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/Nrf24L01-2.4GHz-HowTo

     

    I have some but haven't tried them yet.

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    I'll have to give that tutorial a go sometime.

    It will be a while as I am not taking the NRF radios back to civilization with me.

    I have a set of the 433MHz ones being shipped to me back there, so I will play with those if I can find a decent tutorial on how to use them.

    My understanding of them is that they are simplex communication that can directly hook up to one pin.

    I just need to figure out how to make it be able to have it do what I want.

    Basically I want to set up a toggle system.

    You have a bunch of buttons on the unit with the transmitter

    and when you press button one on that arduino

    A pin assigned to that button goes high

    the next time you press the same button that pin goes low

    I would like to set this up for a disabled friend to mount to his wheelchair and then use relays to control his lights.

    But I am a LONG way off from having the understanding necessary to actually attempt to implement the system

    Maybe eventually.

    First step is getting the hardware to be able to figure it out, I guess that I will have in a couple weeks.

    I ordered all kinds of toys to play with the other day to have when I am down there.

    I think I enjoy chopping for cool things to play with as much as I enjoy playing with them and building things.

    I just need to figure out what I am going to do with 20 595 shift registers and why I thought I would ever need that many, aside from the fact that I got them CHEAP. LOL

    Hmmm... 20 X 8 = A CRAPLOAD of LEDs

  • in reply to funinalaska

    Andrew

    I have a dual picaxe controller running the tows at Mt Lyford.

    I used a 3 number sequence to pass data from one picaxe to the next, and use a pulse to control the output in a fail to safe configuration.

    The 2nd picaxe reads the numbers and the first sequence is the input states where 255  = binary 11111111 which is 8 different outputs.

     

    If you have a play with the toggle function of a single button to sort out the inputs, you can even use two analogue inputs to give you 4 buttons.

    Then work on sending out what you want.

    There are many simple and many complicated ways to send the data, inc inverting the bits, sending the data two or more times.

     

     

    If you're wanting to control mains, there are the plugin devices that use RF from a remote control.

    http://www.wattsclever.com/products/easy-off-sockets

    (I can't get to the USA shop)

     

    Using the RCSwitch library you can use an Arduino to output the appropriate data stream to these with a 315/433 MHz transmitter.

    HowTo_Send - rc-switch - How to send codes to a device. - Arduino library to operate low cost 315 MHz / 433 MHz remot…

    rc-switch - Arduino library to operate low cost 315 MHz / 433 MHz remote control devices - Google Project Hosting

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    That is a really cool idea, and maybe for him that would be perfect.

    I do still want to figure out the Arduino - Arduino communication thing.

    I will have to play with the example sketches I have seen mostly for things like wireless thermometers and such and see if I can figure out how to get it to do something different over virtualwire

  • in reply to funinalaska

    Andrew

    Like any large project, tackle it in small chunks thinking that you need to consider xyz.

    Sort out input detection and toggle function ...plenty of examples around to adapt.

     

    Then look at sending something out.

     

    Play with the examples and tutorials, get a feel for what you're doing first, keeping in mind "could I use this", "could I adapt it"

     

    mark