Pre-Shipment Setup?

[SoLongSidekick]

Hey all!

Brand new to the community, just got my Mote's in the mail today! So stoked! Anyways, mine came labeled differently than shown on the webpage. On the main page a yellow label on the chip designates a receiver and a grey dot indicates a gateway. As my picture shows, only one Mote is marked and my guess would be that it is the gateway and the receiver label fell off. I just wanted to make sure as not only am I a day-one Mote user but also am not very experienced with Arduino either.



Also, I received two antennae with my order; one with white insulation and one with clear insulation. I was not able to find any info on if it matters if the receiver/gateway gets a specific one or either antennae can be used with either mode.

And since I have you guys, I also purchased an FTDI adapter and wanted to make sure the way it was configured (5V power, 3V logic, RTS) out of the box was the best setup for Moteinos.

Thanks in advance for helping a newbie out!

[Felix]

Hey!
So .. i started using a metallic marker because it's easier than cutting small labels. It's the same thing, it just means the unit is preloaded with a receiver sketch. Other than that it's identical to the other units and you can load any sketch you want on it.
I think I might even drop doing this in the future, since all I care is that the unit can both transmit and receive. So I might just preload with the sender to ensure RF functionality and leave it like that.

The antennas come from a cat3 cable which is twisted pairs, I precut it to length but I don't untwist them. So the color doesn't matter, it's just a simple solid core wire. Strip a small section on one end and solder to the "ANT" pin hole.

Yes FTDI works out of the box as you mentioned and that config is pretty much standard with all other USB-serial FTDI adapters out there. You can of course switch the DTR/RTS function if you want with the backside jumpers.

[A]

It was cool to be able to plug my units in and see data transfer on day 1 without loading any programming. Perhaps keep it as an option for first time orders. Or standardize on all Moteino-USBs ship with the receiver sketch and all normal Moteinos ship with the sender sketch. I'm sure lots of first timers will order at least one of each.

Or perhaps a two-in-one sketch that does a transmit and receive on a semi-random timer. I'll see what I can clobber together when I've got some time, that sounds like a fun project.

[Felix]

Yeah I see your point and that was my original intent. But believe it or not ... there's people that just plug in 1 Moteino and then call me or send me emails saying "it doesn't work", they see the packages being sent and then for the ACK all they see is "nothing"s. After several emails back and forth with me running out of ideas it just turns out the receiver was never even plugged in ... go figure ...

[SoLongSidekick]

Awesome thanks for the clarification! I guess remembering which wire I use on both can help me visually keep track of which is sender or receiver. After looking at these things under magnification I have to say I am seriously impressed. I respect what you have done here: making wireless projects both (relatively) easy and cheap. Thanks a ton, for the product and the amazing support!

[Felix]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll keep doing it as long as I can. I hope to bring an array of automation products and kits for people to be able to implement their own automation on the cheap at home and around their property. That's what I plan to do on my own property.

[sketchy]

The antennas come from a cat3 cable which is twisted pairs, I precut it to length but I don't untwist them. So the color doesn't matter, it's just a simple solid core wire. Strip a small section on one end and solder to the "ANT" pin hole.

(I want to make sure I don't screw up putting on the ant).
My antenna consists of two wires: 1 white/1 green (you note color doesn't matter.  So that my colors are different than the originator of this ? is based on what you had on hand).
The antenna length is 6.5 "

To get the best reception given this antenna:
1) untwist the wires
2) strip the covering off one end  so that the wire can be soldered to the ant pin hole
3) solder wire to ant pin hole
4) keep ant at 90 degrees

I realize the above sounds obvious.  I am surprised at how many times I mess up so at this point I'm into verifying before doing.
(Thank you!)

[Felix]

I think you are spot on. The antenna is not always going to be perpendicular to the PCB, in which case you will loose a few signal dB. But that's ok, it's just a compromise. The 915/868 radios have shorter antennas because of the physics of their frequencies.