Whisper Node and RFM95 DIOs

[eivholt (Eivind Holt)]

Thanks for the confirmation. I have done this successfully on two nodes so far. Is it possible to give any general comparison on using the supplied pcb-antenna as apposed to the SMA whip antenna with respect to energy consumption. This is probably a many faceted problem to answer but taken the scenario: I have my lora gateway (TTN GW) in my house and I want nodes no further than 15 meters from this point. I want my nodes to run on 3V coin cells. Are these two antennas even anything I should consider when optimizing energy consumption? I take it a “larger” antenna requires more energy to resonate, but at what order of magnitude? Downlink is not in use in this example. Snowy and wet scandinavian weather is a consideration as the antenna will be exposed.
I would appreciate any insight that could help me make the nodes last as long as possible. I am awaiting an oscilloscope and will perform some tests with the different antenna configurations but I suspect someone with deeper knowledge has already done this.

[LoRaTracker]

@eivholt

I take it a “larger” antenna requires more energy to resonate, but at what order of magnitude? Downlink is not in use in this example. Snowy and wet scandinavian weather is a consideration as the antenna will be exposed.

I would appreciate any insight that could help me make the nodes last as long as possible.

Its the opposite.

In general, the larger the antenna, the better it radiates, and thus you require less transmit power (and less battery current) to cover a given distance.

Those small ceramic antennas are not very efficient, compared say to a simple bit of wire, although the wire would be bigger of course.

You need to be careful with coin cells, you may find their voltage drops, perhaps significantly, when the node is transmitting. A scope is useful for checking this, a multimeter may not capture the change for short duration packets…

[waynemcl]

Thanks for your posts @MoebiusL, @eivholt. Great to hear it works, I’m interested in this configuration too.

Were you using the RocketScream low power library? Some have had trouble with the combination: http://talk2forum.wisen.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=93&p=366#p366

[juhlmann]

Also, I’m interested in such a setup: lmic+whispernode+lowpowerlib on ttn. Anybody here who has acompished this (and likes to share)? Thanks!

[bombix]

Hi,
Im i got a lora whisper node but i cant seem to find a example of how to send and receive information to the lora nertwork.

Can anyone help me?
Thanks in advance

[BoRRoZ]

@bombix

Im i got a lora whisper node but i cant seem to find a example

typical friday afternoon post imho … I will be following this

expect a lot off copy/paste code

[LoRaTracker]

@bombix

lora whisper node

Its supposed to be powered by an ATMEGA328P and is ‘Arduino compatible’ so as long as you adjust the pin numbers to match any code for the Arduino UNO ought to work.

A Google search on ‘Arduino TTN node’ ought to find something.

[bombix]

Hi,

I searched and found some examples.
I manage to make one compile and run in the whisper node but i didn’t got anything on the TTN console.
The output in the serial didn’t show any errors and it was:

Starting
RXMODE_RSSI
230: engineUpdate, opmode=0x808
259: Uplink data pending
298: Airtime available at 258 (channel duty limit)
464: Ready for uplink
1034: TXMODE, freq=920000000, len=27, SF=7, BW=125, CR=4/5, IH=0
Packet queued
5158: irq: dio: 0x0 flags: 0x8
5196: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x3f0 ASAP
5235: Running job 0x285, cb 0x3f0, deadline 0
5450: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x418 at 67555
67557: Running job 0x285, cb 0x418, deadline 67555
67683: RXMODE_SINGLE, freq=923300000, SF=7, BW=500, CR=4/5, IH=0

I checked and everything looks ok, but im not that shur about the pins, the configuration for the pins i use was:

// Pin mapping
const lmic_pinmap lmic_pins = {
  .nss = 10,
  .rxtx = LMIC_UNUSED_PIN,
  .rst = 7,
  .dio = {2, A2, LMIC_UNUSED_PIN},
};

Are they ok? In the beginning of the post you mention you need to solder one of the jumpers, do i need to do it?
Any sugestions?
Thanks in advance

[BoRRoZ]

did you solder that jumper

[bombix]

Hi,
I just soldered the header pins.
I didnt solder any jumper.
Shouln’t ir work withaut the jumper?
Thanks inglês advance

[BoRRoZ]

try solder jp15

[bombix]

Hi,

Soldering that small thing wasn’t easy, i ended up making a bridge with solder. (its the same thing i quess)
Clearly it made a diference since i see in the serial monitor the node trying to send something:

5301482: Running job 0x266, cb 0x14d0, deadline 5301481
5301537: engineUpdate, opmode=0x908
5301634: Uplink data pending
5301788: Airtime available at 5301633 (channel duty limit)
5302101: Ready for uplink
5302693: TXMODE, freq=921400000, len=27, SF=7, BW=125, CR=4/5, IH=0
Packet queued
5306817: irq: dio: 0x0 flags: 0x8
5306858: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x3f0 ASAP
5306902: Running job 0x285, cb 0x3f0, deadline 0
5307159: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x418 at 5369214
5369216: Running job 0x285, cb 0x418, deadline 5369214
5369342: RXMODE_SINGLE, freq=927500000, SF=7, BW=500, CR=4/5, IH=0
5369293: irq: dio: 0x1 flags: 0x80
5369484: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x8f1 ASAP
5369713: Running job 0x285, cb 0x8f1, deadline 0
5369974: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x449 at 5432074
5432076: Running job 0x285, cb 0x449, deadline 5432074
5432202: RXMODE_SINGLE, freq=923300000, SF=9, BW=125, CR=4/5, IH=0
5433245: irq: dio: 0x1 flags: 0x80
5433288: Scheduled job 0x285, cb 0x908 ASAP
5433331: Running job 0x285, cb 0x908, deadline 0
5433592: EV_TXCOMPLETE (includes waiting for RX windows)
5433900: Scheduled job 0x266, cb 0x14d0 at 6058897
5434169: engineUpdate, opmode=0x900

The thing is i still didn’t get anything in in TTN console.
Any ideas of the problem?

Thanks in advance

[bombix]

Hi,

I just tryed the lmic example ttn-abp.
Still no luck…

Any help please?

Thanks in advance

[bombix]

Hi,

I checked lmic radio type and its set to sx1276 so that should be ok.
I tryed both msb and lsb format in the keys.
But i still didn’t get any msg in the console.
I runned out of ideas…
Any sugestions?

Thanks in advance

[bombix]

Hi again,

I managed to get some msg in OTAA but nothing in ABP.
Could anyone help me?

Thanks in advance

[BoRRoZ]

you think other members can help you with the information you supplied ?

[bombix]

Hi,

You told be i shoudn’t post my code so i don’t know what else i can do…
Thanks in advance.

[BoRRoZ]

@bombix

You told be i shoudn’t post my code

Hi,

No I didn’t

But if you need to post code to explain your problem (if its 'borrowed code then we prefer a github link) please follow this

How do I format my forum post? [HowTo]

The TTN forum is using Discourse, which supports several ways to format your post: Markdown BBCode HTML Any combination of the above Quite often you’ll need an empty line above specific formatting to make it work. You’ll also have to type blank lines to create proper paragraphs; just pressing Return once and then typing a new block of text right below a previous block only creates a so-called line break, which might be harder to read. Leaving one blank line between two blocks of texts nicely…

so the forum is readable from a phone …

Thanks in advance.

[bombix]

The pins im using are:

// Pin mapping
const lmic_pinmap lmic_pins = {
.nss = 10,
.rxtx = LMIC_UNUSED_PIN,
.rst = 7,
.dio = {2, A2, LMIC_UNUSED_PIN},
};

and im using lmic abd example.
I think i have tryed avery combination of keys format (the mbr… ) whats the right format for the NWKSKEY[16], APPSKEY[16] and u4_t DEVADDR?

Another question i have, is i want to get more information about how to transmit and receive ttn packages in a node.
Is it any place to get started?
Thanks in advance

[everhamme]

Have the whole sketch and library links?