By now it starts to seem more feasible to make a sensor node with an ESP8266 or ESP32 "out of the spare box"; there are MQTT-libs and sensor libs that make this a Sunday afternoon's project... (ok, a Kube consumes less battery power)
Making one yourself, well - see https://github.com/flukso/kube
petur |
Yeah, that's what I did: I stopped waiting for the kubes and now have a whole bunch of ESP8266 monitoring nodes running, using the Flukso as MQTT broker.
ESP8266 are maybe too power-hungry to run on a battery for months, but in terms of power usage on AC they are still neglectable.
netweaver |
I made 2 of them, a prototype + a working one , and I have enough spares + pcb’s to make a few more.
Not every sensor worked but that’s more to do with my microsoldering skills at the time than the design for sure.
I also had to ask for the binary file for the kube firmware as I couldn’t compile it properly. Again my inexperience with micro controller firmware building + slight differences Mac-PC, NXP moving from LPCxpresso to new tooling versions etc.
But with the correct firmware it worked (mostly), I could register it with the hub and sensor readings got published to the Flukso hub internal Mosquito server.
Battery life was not as claimed but again that probably my poor assembly skills, I measured that the sensors were 100% of the time powered on, unlike the design idea. So I think I gaffed up the switched sensor driving circuit.
This was clearly a case for me of trying to run a marathon as a couch potato and after having been 6 weeks in a plaster cast... I should have taken on an easier task as my 1st micro controller project. Or 1st real electronics project after 26 years...
I didn’t have any proper equipment nor smd solder skills. I'm Even surprised I got so much working, with hindsight... but it was a great (albeit very frustrating at times) exercise from circuit to finished product, requiring me to have to learn so much new stuff.
Nothing in vain, the kube endeavour got me 200% back in the maker world, in all aspects. I Ended up doing microsoldering/replacing my iPhone Tristar chip, designing my own parts in fusion360 + printing and using few other 3d cad tools, doing laptop MB repairs... tinkering with Espressive MCUs. And I still consider myself only jack of all trades, master of none. My evenings in the hotels (for Work) are totally transformed
By now it starts to seem more feasible to make a sensor node with an ESP8266 or ESP32 "out of the spare box"; there are MQTT-libs and sensor libs that make this a Sunday afternoon's project... (ok, a Kube consumes less battery power)
Making one yourself, well - see https://github.com/flukso/kube
Yeah, that's what I did: I stopped waiting for the kubes and now have a whole bunch of ESP8266 monitoring nodes running, using the Flukso as MQTT broker.
ESP8266 are maybe too power-hungry to run on a battery for months, but in terms of power usage on AC they are still neglectable.
I made 2 of them, a prototype + a working one , and I have enough spares + pcb’s to make a few more.
Not every sensor worked but that’s more to do with my microsoldering skills at the time than the design for sure.
I also had to ask for the binary file for the kube firmware as I couldn’t compile it properly. Again my inexperience with micro controller firmware building + slight differences Mac-PC, NXP moving from LPCxpresso to new tooling versions etc.
But with the correct firmware it worked (mostly), I could register it with the hub and sensor readings got published to the Flukso hub internal Mosquito server.
Battery life was not as claimed but again that probably my poor assembly skills, I measured that the sensors were 100% of the time powered on, unlike the design idea. So I think I gaffed up the switched sensor driving circuit.
This was clearly a case for me of trying to run a marathon as a couch potato and after having been 6 weeks in a plaster cast... I should have taken on an easier task as my 1st micro controller project. Or 1st real electronics project after 26 years...
I didn’t have any proper equipment nor smd solder skills. I'm Even surprised I got so much working, with hindsight... but it was a great (albeit very frustrating at times) exercise from circuit to finished product, requiring me to have to learn so much new stuff.
Nothing in vain, the kube endeavour got me 200% back in the maker world, in all aspects. I Ended up doing microsoldering/replacing my iPhone Tristar chip, designing my own parts in fusion360 + printing and using few other 3d cad tools, doing laptop MB repairs... tinkering with Espressive MCUs. And I still consider myself only jack of all trades, master of none. My evenings in the hotels (for Work) are totally transformed