Scargill

Posts Tagged ‘La weekend’

Two very successful days in a techie kind of way… and sorry, this one is just for techies…

One of my big bug-bears with the Ethernet/radio interface for the home controller has always been the cheap short range radios as you know if you’ve followed my blogs. The NRF24L01 boards are just crap – ok, they work but only short range – and the RF24NETWORK network is great for what it is – but it’s not a true net and there is no chance of making into a true network – you have to have a master and spider-type network with hopping nodes. Their numbers have to be predefined as the hopping sequence is limited. In addition the radios can’t send and receive at the same time so the master really has to keep control at all times of the communication sequence… AND THAT’s FINE – I have it off to an art – but if only there was something better.

Well there is – the Atmel chip range include a pair with radio built in and they’ve developed a lightweight network – but a true network where any node can step in as a relay. Problems? Getting the things, having the software, defining the interface. Well getting them was the first thing we solved, thanks to my pal buying an oven to solder the chips to the boards (impossible with a soldering iron as the pads are underneath the chip), the software we now have working, due to a sensible approach… and the interface is now cracked.

You can get samples out of Atmel and that’s just what my pal Aidan did – well both of us, allowing him to make a series of test boards up. Until this weekend that’s about as far as it went – but yesterday we managed to get the network demos up and running and there is no doubt about it, the extendable network WORKS – we made the mistake of starting with on-board chip aerials which are pretty useless but we know from the demo boards that Atmel produce that they CAN have a decent range with the right stub aerial.

We have SCOURED the web and it is full of failed projects and promises due to people going down the wrong path either hardware or software wise in producing low cost radio networks. One set of guys in Canada thought they had the solution, a little radio board with USB on it – they needed 20k funding – and only got 6k – the project stopped this time last year and even their website has disappeared. WHY? Heaven knows but I suspect the USB interface – why would you want to fasten these to your PC when you already have WIFI…. surely a simple low cost interface for hardware projects using PIC, ATMEL or other chips is the answer, something compatible with he many cheap radio boards out there but considerably better? Well we solved that one today – the SPI interface – after a several blind alleys – we got it working. Making a stand-alone radio board avoids the hurdles of making the boards work with a particular chip. The final hurdle – antenna – the chip antenna designs are useless – few feet range – so we’re going to make 2 boards, one with on-board antenna and the other with a short stub aerial – either way we expect up to 30metres range. With 2 boards you have 60 metre range etc. etc… a true network.

We tested the network by having two boards talk to each other and moving them further and further apart until they were out of range. Merely introducing a third, arbitrarily numbered board in between the two, re-instated the link – we went up to 4 boards two of which simply sat there on the floor of a large house, battery powered and we managed to triple the working distance of our boards.

Nothing more will happen before June as we need some boards with proper aerials to test and I have holidays but we’ve cracked the back of this one. An excellent way to spend the weekend.

I don’t remember such a frantic week. From Wark I went off to Blackpool, then to Birmingham and then to Manchester, in the process taking something like 120 photos of staff, solving technical issues, chairing a talk on social media, seeing the results of a pretty awful accident and enjoying (sometimes not enjoying) the best weather in living memory in the UK.

Bellingham was wonderful over last weekend and Maureen and I spent some time there working on the cottage. It’s fully occupied now so that’s our work done for now.

Throughout my travels this week, seeing the car thermometer top out at 30c or more has been the norm – amazing and we’re not even talking the bottom end of the country. 

It’s not going to last of course, it never does and Hexham is due for rain most of next week albeit with temperatures in the lower 20s hitting 25c in the rain on Wednesday… can’t imagine that being much fun.

The week began in Blackpool with a meeting about hard disks – all pretty boring but essential stuff and a reminder that disks don’t last forever. The day ended with David Miles and I enjoying sitting outside of JAVA restaurant in Lytham enjoying the weather and a glass or who of wine followed the next morning by a fellow giving us a talk on social media and SEO – very enlightening – and confirming the idea that it is no longer ok to think of the web and social media as distinct..

That afternoon I headed off down the M6 only to be greeted by a large amount of smoke and a several mile tailback. Turns out someone’s car had either exploded or something like it judging by the state of the front of the car.

That evening after much driving back and forth, I ended up in the Midlands Hotel in Manchester – a fabulous and very large hotel apparently favoured by politicians. After enjoying a quiet night out in the Chinese quarter of Manchester, I spent much of Friday in a meeting at the “Manchester Central” venue where the FSB will next year have it’s annual conference.

Got home last night to check out the new circuit boards for my holiday project only to find that one of the chips is not something I have handy and not that easily available – not at short notice anyway and it doesn’t get any shorter than this being Saturday and we’re leaving on Monday.

So nice weather for the week, a pretty mixed bag otherwise.

For now, if you want to keep up with our hols – head on over to www.bedrock.es