OT: Sensor networks... (motes)

[Nick]

OT, I know, but anyone here got much experience with building motes, especially low power (and cheap) ones?

Ta

Nick

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth Nick at 2013-12-03 00:44 ...

> OT, I know, but anyone here got much experience with building motes,
> especially low power (and cheap) ones?

Here's a possible platform:

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/home_head.html?DCMP=Value_Line&HQS=launchpad

The MSP430 Launchpad is (very) cheap, low-power. TI's toolchain free for
use with parts that size.

--
Matthew Smith

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[John Rehwinkel]

>> OT, I know, but anyone here got much experience with building motes,
>> especially low power (and cheap) ones?
>
> Here's a possible platform:
>
> http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/home_head.html?DCMP=Value_Line&HQS=launchpad
>
> The MSP430 Launchpad is (very) cheap, low-power. TI's toolchain free for use with parts that size.

I was going to mention the Electric Imp, but the MSP430 + C110L is even cheaper.

- John

[zac]

The MSP430 is also programmable with a piece of software that is almost entirely comparable with the Arduino IDE, if you are familliar with that at all. It is called Enigma, it is exactly as easy to work with as the arduino platform.

[Jon D.]

 

Did you mean "Energia" instead of "Enigma"?

[zac]

On Tuesday, December 10, 2013 11:15:20 AM UTC-7, Jon D. wrote:

 

Did you mean "Energia" instead of "Enigma"?

I did. I have a board that i purchased when the product first came out, but I have only fired it up maybe twice, for small hello-world type runs. Might use it for the clock I am planning. Nixie of course.

[Nick]

I've ben thinking about the MSP430 series and their SoC/ wireless chips (mostly 802.15.4 based) - very nice suite of devices....
Trouble is I've always been an Atmel guy, so it's a big switch though I suspect that the learning curve is not too bad...

Perhaps its time to change. ..

[Jan Rychter]

I'd really recommend taking a look at the MSP430 devices. To keep this on topic, I use the MSP430 in my nixie clocks. It's straightforward to program, *very* well documented, inexpensive, and runs for weeks on a single oily electron. The low-power modes are really easy to use. Average current consumption for my CPU module when running on battery backup is down to single microamps.

My clocks usually use the MSP430G2553, mostly because I'm lazy — I could fit into a smaller part. For designs that are very price- or size- sensitive, and where I don't need the ADC, I use the MSP430G2412 in a QFN-16 package. It's tiny, it's really cheap, and needs only two external components (a pullup on the reset pin and a decoupling cap). Oh, all MSP430 chips are 16-bit. And it's easy to get started with the launchpad boards.

I recently started looking at Freescale Kinetis devices, and I will be migrating to those in most of my designs. I'd recommend taking a look — pricing for the low-end KL05 chips is comparable to the MSP430, and the architecture is nicer (32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ core). For bigger devices I'll be using the KL25 and K20.

One thing I noticed already is that Texas Instruments really has top-notch documentation, which means the learning curve isn't bad at all. Freescale's is harder to understand, isn't always complete, I have found mistakes, and is overall harder to use.

As an aside, I don't really understand why Atmel microcontrollers are so popular in hobbyist circles.

--J.

[Jan Rychter]

On 11 gru 2013, at 12:52, Jan Rychter <jryc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11 gru 2013, at 05:31, Nick <ni...@desmith.net> wrote:
>
>> I've ben thinking about the MSP430 series and their SoC/ wireless chips (mostly 802.15.4 based) - very nice suite of devices....
>> Trouble is I've always been an Atmel guy, so it's a big switch though I suspect that the learning curve is not too bad...
>>
>> Perhaps its time to change. ..

[replying to myself, as there is one more thing I forgot to mention]

If you don't specifically need 802.15.4 for compatibility reasons and if you aren't extremely size-constrained, you might find that it is much cheaper to go with an MSP430 and a nRF24L01+ module. This is what I'm doing in a project right now: an MSP430G2412IRSA16T (about $1) and a Chinese nRF24L01+ module (complete module, with a PCB trace antenna, for about $1.15). The Nordic chips work fairly well and are suitable for many applications. And getting a complete radio-networked microcontroller solution for $2.15 is really hard to beat.

To keep this on topic, I've been considering using those radio modules in a home automation system, to light up clocks whenever someone is present in the room :-)

--J.

[Nick]

On Wednesday, 11 December 2013 12:38:52 UTC, Jan Rychter wrote:

If you don't specifically need 802.15.4 for compatibility reasons and if you aren't extremely size-constrained, you might find that it is much cheaper to go with an MSP430 and a nRF24L01+ module. This is what I'm doing in a project right now: an MSP430G2412IRSA16T (about $1) and a Chinese nRF24L01+ module (complete module, with a PCB trace antenna, for about $1.15). The Nordic chips work fairly well and are suitable for many applications. And getting a complete radio-networked microcontroller solution for $2.15 is really hard to beat.

To keep this on topic, I've been considering using those radio modules in a home automation system, to light up clocks whenever someone is present in the room :-)

Oddly, I've been looking at exactly those modules - the  nRF24L01+ modules are astonishingly good value for money - I just bought a bunch from http://imall.iteadstudio.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=NRF24L01+ - 2 of each type - my application may need the longer range of the LNA/PA version, but for that sort of money I just bought a pair to try out.

The Nordic stuff is excellent and longer range generally than the 802.15.4/ZigBee stuff, though I;ve noticed that TI do SoCs with inbuilt wireless but normally with an ARM core - the MSP430 variants are <1GHz.

So many extraordinarily cheap neat devices out there...

[Jan Rychter]

On 11 gru 2013, at 14:41, Nick <ni...@desmith.net> wrote:

>> On Wednesday, 11 December 2013 12:38:52 UTC, Jan Rychter wrote:
>> If you don't specifically need 802.15.4 for compatibility reasons and if you aren't extremely size-constrained, you might find that it is much cheaper to go with an MSP430 and a nRF24L01+ module. This is what I'm doing in a project right now: an MSP430G2412IRSA16T (about $1) and a Chinese nRF24L01+ module (complete module, with a PCB trace antenna, for about $1.15). The Nordic chips work fairly well and are suitable for many applications. And getting a complete radio-networked microcontroller solution for $2.15 is really hard to beat.
>>
>> To keep this on topic, I've been considering using those radio modules in a home automation system, to light up clocks whenever someone is present in the room :-)
>>
> Oddly, I've been looking at exactly those modules - the nRF24L01+ modules are astonishingly good value for money - I just bought a bunch from http://imall.iteadstudio.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=NRF24L01+ - 2 of each type - my application may need the longer range of the LNA/PA version, but for that sort of money I just bought a pair to try out.

If you decide they are right for you, I'd look for larger quantities on aliexpress.com — this is where I get my modules at $1.15 - $1.30 a piece.

> The Nordic stuff is excellent and longer range generally than the 802.15.4/ZigBee stuff, though I;ve noticed that TI do SoCs with inbuilt wireless but normally with an ARM core - the MSP430 variants are <1GHz.
>
> So many extraordinarily cheap neat devices out there...

You might want to keep an eye on the upcoming Freescale Kinetis W series, which is comparable, but with a 32-bit ARM core: http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.jsp?code=KINETIS_W_SERIES

However, I decided these kinds of devices are not for me. First, you need to know at least a little bit about RF design, which at 2.4GHz isn't obvious. Second, last I checked the components were not easily to obtain: neither the wireless chips themselves, nor the surrounding elements (such as tiny inductors that you need for the balun). Given the price of complete working assembled modules it just didn't seem worth the effort.

--J.