So I am trying to figure out how to get better range and reliability off the connection. Right now it works, but it’s effective range is like 2-3m (good enough when you stand on the board but I would much prefer it to be like 100m to be safe).
Interesting, hope to get the new OLED’s tomorrow so I’ll be able to give this another try.
Mya pick he spektrum analyzer and see if any of the parts is making noise on the 2.4Ghz band.
Adding a 100uF cap to the 3.3v output on the Arduino seems to make things worse not better.
Trying to force it to channel 108 didn’t work at all, wouldn’t connect.
Dropping the transmission speed down to 250kbs seemed to make the most improvement. Range increased from maybe 2m to 5m or so when in direct line of sight.
Lastly, adding a cap to the reset and ground pins solved the booting up problem but prevents a new sketch from being uploaded. Had to desolder the cap to upload a new sketch.
I always thought the PA+LNA modules look sketchy but they seem to just be crazy sensitive in your case.
I use a module without the PA and while I don’t have power problems it’s range is pretty small for my comfort.
I’m actually considering on switching to the ESP32 or ESP8266. With ESP32 you get a Dual Core 32 bit processor+wifi+adc+dac+plenty of io for 4$
I made a project with ESP8266 and they have been rock solid for more than a year now.
i have some extra springs, micro switches, arduinos, dc dc booster, magnets, tp4056 board from earlier build and ordered what im missing from aliexpress im afraid they gonna take a while i dont want to salvage my current remote as it is working just fine also need different battery and switches in order to complete your version so theres no point.
just one question tho, is it not possible to use 5x5 magnets? what was the reason for switching to 5x8mm ones?
You can try with the 5mm ones first, mine were not strong enough so there was a lot of deadzone around the center. Swapping to 5mm stacked with 3mm worked for me.
Some retailers on AliExpress are terrible… 1.5 months after I ordered the magnets then they shipped. The springs just never came…
yea some orders take really long time, so annoying but cant complain price is really cheap. i just dont understand how this pcb shipping cost is so cheap. DHL is expensive but they charged me only 3 dollars for express shipping service
I ordered some NRF modules that have a uFL connector so that I can add a 2.4GHz antenna to it to try to increase the range… Will report back when I have the results…
So I built 2 remotes, and even though they are identical in theory, the sensitivity around the center is different. I suspect this is down to the slight differences in the strength of the magnets used… Not sure how best to get around this problem.
I returned from a trip with my version of the remote.
I went 22km+27km with no problems at all, no disconnections and no drops through both trips. The receiver was placed in the middle of two ESCs, but my ESC uses a linear regulator that delivers super clean 5V. The antennas were also pointing towards each-other.
I use just a simple NRF24L01+ without the PA. It seems to be enough range for this purpose and without all the power problems. I can only make it disconnect if I cover the remote with both my hands and my body, and hold it at weird angles.
About my remote:
I remixed ervinelin’s remote with custom changes in the model, schematic and code. I’m still actively working on the code, but if anyone is interested here’s the info:
Gotta do a order from them in the future and they have such short production time as well. I’ve been using Seeedstudio before, but sometimes the boards do take quite some time.
I’m new to EasyEDA and couldn’t find a clear answer to this.
For the PCB’s layouts above, is it possible in EasyEDA to change track width and track spacing without doing all routing back?
I’d like to give it a try and made in my CNC, but track width is a bit too small for it.
Thanks
i dont want to salvage my current remote as it is working just fine also need different battery and switches in order to complete your version so theres no point.
just one question tho, is it not possible to use 5x5 magnets? what was the reason for switching to 5x8mm ones?
