Wiring a Nordic nRF24L01+ module to a ChipworkX devboard 1.5

NETMF & Gadgeteer
21

Now back to the capacitor problems… Here are a few snapshots I took with my DSO; that’s about the max I can get with this little toy, but there is clearly a difference between a larger, a smaller and no capacitor at all.

I don’t have neither the need nor the energy to dig more into this, and my feeling is that there no more to it than what Brett pointed out.

Well, lesson learned ! Thank you all for your messages.

1 Like
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@ stefanu the detective. Great conclusion to the thread.

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Small complement to my previous post, since the filenames were stripped off upon uploading

image 1 : Vcc on devboard, no capacitor
image 2 : Vcc on module, no capacitor
image 3 : Vcc on devboard, 1uF capacitor on module
image 4 : Vcc on module, 1uF capacitor
image 5 : Vcc on devboard, 470uF capacitor on module
image 6 : Vcc on module, 470uF capacitor

The effect of a larger capacitor is clearly visible in image #6.

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Thanks. Too bad it took so long to figure out; I almost gave up on the project.
But lesson learned, and better late than never ;D

1 Like
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Thanks Stefanu for sharing this info. This makes me think now that I should retry with my modules on the Cerberus as well. I have had good success with these modules on a Medusa Mini, but simply could not get it to work on the Cerberus previously. Maybe I also just had a supply issue.

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Hi guys,
Since the topic has grown beyond any new users ability to follow up, I would like to suggest those of you who are planning on testing the provided solution to create an entry in Codeshare with picture of how the cap is soldered and so on to help any new beginner get right to the point…

thank you guys for all the useful info.

Cheers,

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Okiday. Will do. I’ll start with my data; hopefully others can confirm and provide more info.

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Codeshare entry created here : https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/codeshare/entry/848

More images will follow shortly.

29

great Thanks for sharing…
I also noticed that you used this to talk to an Arduino Powered board and you had to do some bit shifting/conversion to make them talk, it would be nice to share that bit of info code :slight_smile:

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I cannot take credit for that piece of code.

In fact I started from the example from this page : Using the nRF24L01 wireless module « insideGadgets

My goal was to create the sensor network in three steps :

  1. make a sensor node, and make it “talk” to an arduino board
  2. once everything is ok, switch from the arduino to the ChipworkX
  3. once everything is ok once again, go back to the sensor node and start tinkering with it.

This is why I started at the page I was taling about earlier; it provided a working sample of an ATTiny node talking to an arduino board.

The final approach was, due to the problems with the ChipworkX :

  1. make a sensor node, and make it “talk” to an arduino board
  2. tinker around with the sensor node and the arduino to create a mesh-like network; my goal was for a sensor node to “talk” to the arduino board even if it’s not in range, but other nodes are
  3. switch to the ChipworkX (this is what this post is all about)
  4. improve everything.

My modifications to the original code from insideGadgets on the ATTiny side are minimal, and involve mostly the parts needed for the mesh-like network (using interrupts instead of polling, not using auto-ack, etc.)

My original attempt was to use an existing library for the nRF24L01+s, but I ended up porting what I did on the arduino to C#.

Well, that’s about it.

If I can help with specific details on any part of it, just let me know.