RFM69W Solder Methods

[roflcopter123]

Hey all,

I read through a few posts, but wanted a bit of clarification regarding soldering the RFM69W module. I attempted to solder wires directly to the board, but it failed to initialize when I attached it to my arduino. Soldering is not my strong suit, so I very well may have botched that up. Are there more breadboard-friendly ways of attaching this module? Or are my only options to solder the wires on directly, or getting a breakout board for the module (again, soldering 2mm pins are not fun for me).

Thanks in advance!

[JohnO]

You could take a look at http://www.digitalsmarties.net/products/rfm-board it provides standard breadboard layout pins for the RFM69CW module which is the same from a software perspective.

[Felix]

Hey all,

I read through a few posts, but wanted a bit of clarification regarding soldering the RFM69W module. I attempted to solder wires directly to the board, but it failed to initialize when I attached it to my arduino. Soldering is not my strong suit, so I very well may have botched that up. Are there more breadboard-friendly ways of attaching this module? Or are my only options to solder the wires on directly, or getting a breakout board for the module (again, soldering 2mm pins are not fun for me).

Thanks in advance!

You will need to make sure you dont feed more than 3.6V into the data lines of the RFM radios. If you connected the RFM directly to a 5V arduino that's an issue.
You can solder wires directly if you do it right, but also need to be careful about wiring it so it matches what the library expects.

[roflcopter123]

Hey all,

I read through a few posts, but wanted a bit of clarification regarding soldering the RFM69W module. I attempted to solder wires directly to the board, but it failed to initialize when I attached it to my arduino. Soldering is not my strong suit, so I very well may have botched that up. Are there more breadboard-friendly ways of attaching this module? Or are my only options to solder the wires on directly, or getting a breakout board for the module (again, soldering 2mm pins are not fun for me).

Thanks in advance!

You will need to make sure you dont feed more than 3.6V into the data lines of the RFM radios. If you connected the RFM directly to a 5V arduino that's an issue.
You can solder wires directly if you do it right, but also need to be careful about wiring it so it matches what the library expects.

I thought that if I wire it up to the 3.3v pin that this would be okay for the RFM69W? Is it not?

I ordered pro mini 3.3v arduinos for the more complete version of the project. I also ordered the OSHPark breakout board just in case if I couldn't come up with another solution.

[Felix]

Yes it needs 3.3V power AND 3.3V signals, not 5V signals. You should be good with a ProMini 3.3V version.

[roflcopter123]

Does that mess up the device itself? Hopefully it is not borked.

For future reference, could I throw some resistors in so that the digital pins match to 3.3v? I remember having to do this with my GPS module when I wanted to power it at 3.3v, but run it on the 5v digital pins. I think that I used a 4.5k and a 10k ohm resistor in between a data and a ground pin.

Thanks for your help s far!

[Felix]

Yes, you can use a resistor voltage divider to do that.