Github Wiki page
Tomas Kopal
after failing to find some recent summary of OpenHR resources, I have created initial wiki page on github with some intro and links.
Please feel free to improve, expand, and fix :-).
Tomas
emgab
Where can i find the Wiki pages you mentioned.
Kind regards, Mike
emgab
since i'm not sure, where to get the quickest response and to conform to the current messsage structure, i've copied my message from embdev to this place as well:
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Re: OpenHR20: Firmware for Honeywell Rondostat HR20E
Author: Mike Gab (Company: Self) (michael_ma)
Posted on: 2015-02-21 00:30
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@Tomas Kopal
Thanks Tomas for your headsup und information and sorry for spoiling the
thread recently...
Piontecs mumble's great documentation proposes the process of using
Linux for the make process...
Unfortunatly, Since i am not very familiar with Linux anymore, i cannot
use It for the make process.
I started using Atmelstudio with JTAGICE some month ago and find it
quite usefull and handy to do devs in a timely manner..
Initially Started with Arduino IDE but for coding more than a few lines
this is not very suitable...
So i would love to do the dev process in AS6.2.
Maybe there is a chance for me to get this started to transfer the files
of the project from Linux make files to As6.2 with some help from you or
other mates. I have seen AS6.2 allows for external makefiles, but i
havent found much info how to use it.
As i already mentioned i'd love to contribute to the project as much as
i can in regards to things i can do - like testing, and once i got some
experience in compiling the sources and documentation the sources and
processes. I have also quite some experience with RF circuitry as i'm a
licensed Radio Amateur - currently just playing around with some newer
RFM modules from Hope.
You mentioned a wiki, which you setup on Github for this project, but i
found no link to it - i'd love to create some info pages there as well.
Kind regards, Mike
Tomas Kopal
sorry for the delay in answering, I have very limited access to internet
at this moment (business trip).
The wiki page I was mentioning is at github, at the new project repo:
https://github.com/OpenHR20/OpenHR20. If you click wiki on the right,
you are there :-).
Regarding compiling OpenHR, that is also possible on windows, you just
need to install winavr (http://winavr.sourceforge.net/), that should
give you all you need to build the software using existing makefiles.
There is even sh.exe included, so you may be able to use the shell
scripts after some tweaking (not sure how much bash-isms they contain),
but you can build without them just fine.
I do not think converting OpenHR20 to AS is a good idea, as that would
make it windows-specific. Makefiles are pretty universal. No one will
stop you doing that of course :-), but makefiles will most probably
stay, and maintaining both would be quite time consuming. If you can
convince AS to use the makefiles, that would be probably the best. Or
use AS for editing and flashing, and makefiles for compilling :-)
(that's what I was doing while in windows, but I use linux mostly).
Your RF experience sounds interesting, I am just wondering about best
compact antenna design for the regulator, for 433MHz, so I may have some
quiestions as well :-) (once I have some time).
Hope this helps. If not, just let me know and will try better :-).
Tomas
emgab
and thanks for your quick reply - great info concerning WinAVR - i'll try it and will see to make it going without AS6.2.
But for my first tests i found an older archive from 2011 with precompiled files, which i can upload to my regulator - these files are for the HR20 regulator only - so, once i'm succesfull with that, i will try to compile the project with WinAVR and move on from there.
In parallel i will contact the AVRfreaks forum to learn how to port the makefiles from WinÁVR to AS6.2.
Regarding your information about the 433 MHz antenna design, i
've just created an initial draft page in the wiki, which shows some info about well known and very small helical antennas, which can be made very easy. Maybe this answers some of the questions you already have.
kind regards, Mike
p.s. and if everything with my compile and error tries does not work in a short time, maybe you can send me the precompiled files for the HR25 and internal RFM12b module to get my testing started quickly.
Tomas Kopal
of course I can send my binaries, but I hope you will have no trouble
compiling with WinAVR. The only thing which I can think of which could
go wrong is if you by mistake mix PATH settings pointing to both AS and
WinAVR, so incorrect binaries gets used. Other than that, it should
hopefully work.
Thanks for the antenna info. I hope we can gather more information like
this to make the wiki really usable...
The described design is basically what I am playing with at this moment.
I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but if I remember
correctly, I have seen big difference in signal strength when I used the
antenna just sticking up on the PCB hanging in the air, and when I
aligned the antenna with the PCB and put everything back in the
regulator casing. I suppose there may be a problem with the antenna
being so close to the PCB, motor or batteries. But it may also be that
there is basically no ground plane for the antenna. Also I was wondering
if we may need some extra circuitry for the antenna, as it for sure has
different parameters than plain wire suggested for RFM units. But I have
no equipment to measure antenna resonance on these frequencies :-(.
So when you succeed with SW building and flashing, it could be great if
you could spend some time playing with your unit trying to tune the
antenna and find the best way to put the antenna inside of the regulator
to get the best signal...
Regards
Tomas
emgab
just want to give you an short headsup about what i found out concerning the antenna placement and physical dimensions.
Well, i must admit my active radio amateur days are some time ago (80s) so it took me a while to deep dive in the material. But finally i found some good information at ti.com and silabs.com regarding Antenna design.
After consulting TI's comprehensive antenna design application notes, as well as the design notes from Silicon Labs it seems to be impossible to get a good working solution by placing an 433 MHz helical Antenna in such a small housing so close to a dc motor housing. The Batteries and the Motor housing introduce significant damping of the RF signal, no matter how the Anttena is build and placed.
There are various commercial regulators on the market, but most of them are using 868 MHz, some 2.4 GHz transceivers where an Antenna design could be done based on PCB traces.
I have a few options, which can be considered usable for future changes:
1.) For 433 MHz within the housing a lambda/4 Wire Antenna of 17cm hanging out of the housing should give the best results. if a Helical Antenna is placed inside the regulator, the polarisation will by seriously disturbed by the DC motor housing and the Batteries.
2.) (my favorite) Use of an external housing with a short (<20cm) 10 connector ribbon cable to place the transceiver out of the regulator.
A small interface board can be designed to carry the transceiver (RFM22b or better RFM69). This board with an helical Antenna could then be placed int the external housing. The housing can be mounted vertically behind the regulator. The Frequency of the transceiver could be 433 MHz, but much better be 868 MHz.
3.) Additional use of a wireless Gateway adapter, which is located within the range of the regulators and connected to a USB power supply. This Gateway could route the 433/868 MHz packets transparently to a Wlan network for greater distances. For this gateway, the new ESP8266 wireless to serial module (<5€) could be a good solution.
About the testing.. i did not progress too much, as our AV-Receiver broke down and was not controllable by the IR remote anymore.. could fix it by replacing the IR receiver.
Did install WinAVR last week, but still need to find the newest source location - can you send me a link to the most recent version with newest RFsrc files - i will then do my best to get the make process running without AS.
Thanks for your help,
kind regards, Mike