EdVoncken.NET

After many years I’ve re-discovered electronics as a hobby, thanks to the JeeLabs and Arduino communities.

I’m setting up a small electronics lab with some basic equipment like the Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope (approx. 300 Euros; I “upgraded” mine to the DS1102E firmware to increase the scope’s bandwidth to 100MHz).

One of my first projects is building a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to measure humidity, temperature, brightness and motion in several locations at home. The necessary hardware is depicted on the right.

I’ve added a simple resistor ladder network to one of the analog inputs, allowing me to measure battery voltage; these units are [...]

Continue reading Experimenting with the JeeLabs Room Node

JeeLabs offers a low-power, Arduino-compatible board called the “JeeNode“. These are ideally suited for building your own Wireless Sensor Network, for example in combination with the Room Board.

There are several ways to plug a Room Board into the JeeNode. The pictures below should help you verify the correct “Port” settings for each configuration:

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I recently ordered a couple of JeeNode v6 boards. These boards are mostly Arduino-compatible (standard shields won’t fit) and optionally contain an RF12 radio module. They are ideal for creating wireless sensors.

Download and install the Arduino IDE
Set your serial port and speed correctly (57600 baud)
Download and install the Ports library and RF12 library (see below)

On Mac OS X, the Arduino IDE stores your sketches in your home directory, under ~/Documents/Arduino. Open a Terminal window and type the following commands:

cd ~/Documents/Arduino
mkdir libraries
cd libraries
svn co svn://svn.jeelabs.org/jeelabs/trunk/libraries/Ports
svn co svn://svn.jeelabs.org/jeelabs/trunk/libraries/RF12

Done! The RF12 library is now installed. Do not forget the Ports library, or you [...]

Continue reading Getting started with the RF12 wireless module on a JeeNode