Author Topic: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround  (Read 53295 times)

ChemE

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #15 on: December 30, 2016, 04:17:58 PM »
Just a moment, Gonzales.  I meant this to be merely a shield for the Moteino to try out this exotic RTC, not as a replacement for the Moteino.

My apologies.  I misunderstood what you meant when you said platform.

--Gonzales

WhiteHare

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #16 on: December 30, 2016, 06:08:37 PM »
No worries.  Maybe Felix will do one like you said.  I guess time will tell.

For now, I think a quick and dirty test board will be a good way to see how easy/hard the AB18x5 is to solder to a PCB before investing too much time into it.  I know Joe and Tom seem comfortable with soldering it, but it looks challenging to me.  If I hadn't had some recent success soldering the BQ25504, I might have waited longer before attempting the AB18x5.

BTW, is Chip Quik a good brand for T5 paste?  http://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/c/chip-quik/type5-solder-paste
Or maybe I should just ask: what is a good brand for T5 paste?
« Last Edit: December 30, 2016, 06:17:59 PM by WhiteHare »

WhiteHare

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #17 on: January 08, 2017, 01:45:13 PM »
I started a new thread topic for the AB18x5 breakout board:  https://lowpowerlab.com/forum/projects/ab18x5-breakout-board/

Jim

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #18 on: May 03, 2020, 04:28:35 PM »
Hi with joy and excitment I read this thread.
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Keeping fingers crossed that we'll actually end 2016 with a stable way to deal with listen mode.
I'm also looking for a RX solution, battery powered and a fast response time of approx 2ms.
Would you mind sharing your code how you tackled the issue with listen mode and a very low power consumption?  That would be awesome. Thanks a lot!!

Felix

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #19 on: May 03, 2020, 08:56:03 PM »
Jim,
FYI joelucid has been inactive for the past few years.
The native ListenMode in RFM69 has been declared buggy and not adopted, although there are remnants of code in the forum as well as the RFM69 library.
I recommend just implementing your own "listen mode" on top of the regular sleep/transmit/ack stack. It's reliable and you have full control. You won't get a 2ms response back in any case, it takes at least that long to send a very fast packet  ;)
But just keeping the scheme simple will get you farther IMO.

TomWS

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #20 on: May 04, 2020, 09:46:30 PM »
I'm also looking for a RX solution, battery powered and a fast response time of approx 2ms.
So, what do you mean "fast response time of approx 2ms"?   I don't know of a fully powered solution using RFM69 & ATMega328P that has this (depending on what you mean).

From my limited experience, using RFM69 & ATmega328P, you can easily get over two years of battery operation without too much difficulty - if you design your logic to deal with the realities of the HW & SW.  Or, you can try to squeeze more out of it and, if you never have a failure or any other devices within RF range, you might get more.  However, if you're within a 'noisy' RF environment (ie, there is more than one transmitting node within your network), your best bet is to structure your network to be 'node' driven - ie, the node determines when and if it exchanges data with the GW and, given this, design in whatever 'hooks' you might want to add for OTA SW updates, overriding commands, reconfiguration, etc. 

FWIW, Listen Mode on the RFM69 is good for one thing - providing a very reliable, lower power wakeup timer than the 328P WDT.  It is worse than useless for long term power savings due to the risks of hangups that drain your battery.   Once I learned this, I've switched to low power HW watchdog timers and use Listen Mode as a short term timer as needed. 


Jim

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2020, 08:57:29 AM »
Hi Felix and Tom,

>So, what do you mean "fast response time of approx 2ms"

I mean the time between a packet is send and the packet is received/decoded.
I want to build a camera flash transmitter/receiver. The commercial one's I measured has a response time of 1.8ms between pressing the button on the transmitter and receiving the signal and triggering the light on the other side. 2ms delay would be great, maximum would be around 5ms if it's technically possible

> you can easily get over two years of battery operation without too much difficulty

are you speaking of the RX part?? I couldn find any working code that demonstrate that unfortunately.

TomWS

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #22 on: May 16, 2020, 05:13:50 PM »
>So, what do you mean "fast response time of approx 2ms"

I mean the time between a packet is send and the packet is received/decoded.
I want to build a camera flash transmitter/receiver. The commercial one's I measured has a response time of 1.8ms between pressing the button on the transmitter and receiving the signal and triggering the light on the other side. 2ms delay would be great, maximum would be around 5ms if it's technically possible
Unfortunately, I don't have any data for this kind of application, but, ISTM, if you can take a hybrid approach, you can use something like Listen Mode to 'wake' up your Camera shutter system, use OOK to trigger the shutter as much as you want, and then either command or program your device to go back to sleep if it's idle for some period of time.

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> you can easily get over two years of battery operation without too much difficulty

are you speaking of the RX part?? I couldn find any working code that demonstrate that unfortunately.
No, other than the attempts to get Listen Mode working there are no LP (ie two year battery life) RX solutions that I know of.

It may be if your camera is in the 'wild' where there is very little RF noise, you might be able to get a reliable Listen Mode working.  However, even Listen Mode wake up would be a lot slower than your sub-2mS goal, but it would work with the hybrid approach.

Jim

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #23 on: May 17, 2020, 12:10:18 PM »
Hi Tom,

thanks for your idea, I think it's possible to use such a hybrid approach as long as the first delay is not that much maybe around 100-200ms and the final trigger can be quick so that if used more flashes all get triggered at the same time.
What would you suggest me how to start? Do you know of any reliable working code examples for listening mode of the rfm69 or rfm95?

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From my limited experience, using RFM69 & ATmega328P, you can easily get over two years of battery operation without too much difficulty

That gives me a little hope again after all the different chips/modules I tried and bought

PS: I even bought the TPL5010 which you suggested in a thread here

TomWS

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #24 on: May 18, 2020, 10:01:36 AM »
I think it's possible to use such a hybrid approach as long as the first delay is not that much maybe around 100-200ms and the final trigger can be quick so that if used more flashes all get triggered at the same time.
What would you suggest me how to start?
Look at the RFM69 library Listen Mode functions and see how the burst wake wakes up the node.  Since you want faster response times, you'll have to adjust the Listen Mode parameters to get a much shorter Listen Mode cycle time.  The current code was optimized for the lowest possible duty cycle timer (giving long term battery life), but the result is that the interval between RX operation could be almost 3 seconds - not good for your use case.  This was a long time ago and I haven't looked at it for a long long time.  Joe Lucid was the expert who came up with the method, but, as Felix has said, Joe is off doing other things now...
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PS: I even bought the TPL5010 which you suggested in a thread here
LOL, that device probably won't help in this case, although it would be a good watchdog to catch the case where Listen Mode hangs.  I currently have a project where I'm on track to yield over a 1.5 year life on a ESP8266 running on a single CR123a.  That uses the TPL5110 timer.

Jim

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Re: Stuck in listen mode - Listen Mode bug with workaround
« Reply #25 on: May 18, 2020, 03:00:02 PM »
Ok, I will try to understand that - I guess you mean the lib https://github.com/LowPowerLab/RFM69 ?
Is there an example included to start with? I'm soldering an adapter for my two RF69CW modules now

EDIT:
In the meanwhile I tried using the listenmode https://github.com/LowPowerLab/RFM69/tree/ListenMode but constantly failing to send a wake up message. My sdr shows activity but the receiver example doesn't wake up.
The power supply is stable and the units are working with an example sketch from the radiohead rf69 library. There I can send and receive an ack.

(Attachment shows the transmission when selecting "burst")
« Last Edit: May 20, 2020, 07:22:49 AM by Jim »