HI All,
I am Absolutely Noob with good soldering and basic Electrical & Electronic and Linux skills. I am interested in building home automation projects using Moteino. I want to build remote controlled Home Thermostat and or Electric stove coils monitoring (whether some coil is turned off or not?).
Please advise what components to buy and where to start.
Thanks.
If you understand electronics you should be in good shape, I would recommend starting with some basic arduino projects. If you want to try wireless comm/moteinos, you can get started with getting a pair of moteinos with transiceivers (recommend 868/915mhz, RFM69W/HW). There are sample sketches and instructions how to get started with that here: lowpowerlab.com/programming
Also check out lowpowerlab.com/moteino for the moteino specs. The blog also documents some projects that have been shared in the past.
Thank you Felix for your quick reply!!
I have been reading this forum and Lowpowerlab.com. As per my understanding, I need the following hardware to start any project in moteino.
1. Raspberrypi (Ordered today from Amazon.com)
2. MoteinoMEGA or MoteinoUSB to connect to Raspberrypi
3. FTDI Adapter for programming
3. Second MoteinoMEGA or Moteino for projects
Apart from the above hardware list, what else i need for some basic Arduino projects? I would like to leverage these hardwares to work on my projects (Thermostat or Cooktop monitoring) in future.
Thanks.
Quote from: Vijay on January 07, 2015, 12:13:04 AM
Thank you Felix for your quick reply!!
I have been reading this forum and Lowpowerlab.com. As per my understanding, I need the following hardware to start any project in moteino.
1. Raspberrypi (Ordered today from Amazon.com)
2. MoteinoMEGA or MoteinoUSB to connect to Raspberrypi
3. FTDI Adapter for programming
3. Second MoteinoMEGA or Moteino for projects
Apart from the above hardware list, what else i need for some basic Arduino projects? I would like to leverage these hardwares to work on my projects (Thermostat or Cooktop monitoring) in future.
Thanks.
Vijay,
if you JUST want to learn about the Moteinos, you don't need (or probably want) a RaspberryPi (see my comment below about this statement). All you need is
- two Moteinos (so you can test the two wireless endpoints - one does you no good),
- one or two FTDI equivalent cables (they aren't that expensive and having two allows you to keep both attached at the same time)
- a desktop or laptop computer running an Arduino IDE supported OS (Mac, Windows, or Linux) to do code development/testing.
Regarding my comment about RaspberryPi: The Pi is a great little device but it is a totally different programming environment/paradigm than the Moteino. It's a great thing to learn, but do it separately from learning Moteino/Arduino because you'll only complicate your learning process by trying to learn EVERYTHING at once... Just my opinion ::)
Tom
By the way MoteinoMEGA and Moteino (including MoteinoUSB) can all talk to each other - if they all have the RFM69 transceiver.
If you're getting into thermostats and controlling relays then that's a whole subject that you probably need to do some reading, it's more than just buying a few parts and putting them together in an afternoon. Temperature measuring is not hard but I think the existing popular sensors are not that great. I am trying to produce a new Moteino shield that measures temperature/humidity/atm pressure with high accurancy and very low power, still in the works. To control relays you need to use transistors and also a "flyback diode" to protect your source from voltage kickbacks from the relay coil, see this (http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/100134/why-is-there-a-diode-connected-in-parallel-to-a-relay-coil).
I still want to make my own version of Moteino based thermostat for the home, no idea yet when that's going to materialize. This is a hard problem because most homes have only a 4 wire (common, fan, heat, cool), which means there's no way to get power unless you get smart about it like the NEST and other thermostats, or ... if you don't care - run wires from power adaptors all over the walls to power it, like we see in all the uber "cooool" thermostat projects around the web.
Thank you TomWS for you valuable suggestion!!
It makes sense to do one thing at a time, Moteino first!! Cancelled my order for Raspberry Pi from Amazon :D
Thank you Felix for your advise too. Placing order for Moteinos.
Quote from: Vijay on January 07, 2015, 12:58:09 PM
Thank you TomWS for you valuable suggestion!!
It makes sense to do one thing at a time, Moteino first!! Cancelled my order for Raspberry Pi from Amazon :D
Thank you Felix for your advise too. Placing order for Moteinos.
I didn't mean to discourage you from learning about RaspPi. It's just not necessary for you to learn about Moteinos...
Tom
Vijay,
Think of the Raspberry Pi as a full but low power computer. You run a full linux OS on it.
Think of Arduinos as user programmable infinite loop controllers.
You can just use the Arduino's to talk to each other and do simple stuff like beep, LED light etc. This is a good way to start with Moteino. Set up one as a sensor and the other as the receiver. The receiver can beep every time an inbound message comes in over RF.
You can use the Raspberry Pi for the home automation gateway since it is much more flexible and powerful than just the Moteino.
I feel your pain of being a noob as I still am. I have come a long ways, but still am.
I have looked at how to attack the lack of knowledge and I think its best to break it up.
1. Hardware, aka physically soldering and electronic knowledge of circuits
2. Programming, aka python, java, (the output from moteinos to do what you want them too)
3. OS knowledge, either windows/linux/mac
4. Moteinos themselves. since based off of arduino, if you use their kit that is larger and can use jumper boards it helps. also this teaches you how to program them and write code for them.
I suggest the kit below as this is the kit i bought to get started. It has all the basics to understand them, then you can understand the moteino since moteino slightly bigger animal than just an arduino.
Felix is super supportive on this forum and seems to respond quickly and helps where he can. He also has pointed me in a few directions. I don't know how he does it all, but thankful for what he has produced here.
http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Ultimate-Starter-Includes-Instruction/dp/B00HI0RYJK/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1421841162&sr=8-8&keywords=arduino (http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Ultimate-Starter-Includes-Instruction/dp/B00HI0RYJK/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1421841162&sr=8-8&keywords=arduino)
While you don't need a Rasperry Pi, its helpful as many things are built with its use. I have windows, mac, and Pi. I use the Pi as of lately for my gateway and Felix automation setup. BUT, its another thing you need to add to the learning list.