Mailbox Notifier Question

[roflcopter123]

Hi all,

I was intrigued by the mailbox notifier project, as I wanted to do something similar to this a while back. However, my mailbox situation is slightly different. I live at an apartment complex and reside ~200m from the mailbox's location.

The main difference between mine and yours is that my mailbox sits with many other mailboxes all attached in a metal enclosure. When the postman opens up the door, he opens everyone's door at once in order to deliver the mail. Therefore, triggering of the door open / door close does not do me much good. Similar to the current setup, how should I tweak this to fit my needs?

Thanks!

[Felix]

Hey, welcome to the forum!
Guess what, I am thinking of coming up with another solution to these types of situations, looks like a lot of people have something similar.
I have a prototype of Mailbox notifier with a PIR sensor. The down side is you don't get the separate OPEN and CLOSED events. But you don't care right? You just care that there was motion in YOUR box. Same thing.
If you're 200m away though ... and lots of buildings in between, even the HW might not get through.
Also if the antenna cannot be exposed outside the metal body of the case it might act as a faraday cage for the RF...
But it's worth a try.
Maybe lowering the bitrate significantly and perhaps some other settings will help with the propagation.
I will post this new project as soon as I get some time. Hoping soon... stay tuned to the blog!

[roflcopter123]

My thoughts exactly with lowering of the bit rate, especially since it will be purely a binary response. And you're right, the antenna unfortunately cannot stick out of the cage.

I will be sure to catch it when you post it on your blog!

[Felix]

It's basically ready to go, I have the enclosures laser cut, the source code is essentially the same as the MotionMote (which is also waiting to be blogged about). Parts ready, just need to find some time to put it in a nice writeup, maybe a video.

[Dean]

I am new to this type of project.  I would like to try the Mailbox Notifier as my first project.  I have read your blogs but I am concerned about ordering the correct parts.  Is there anywhere I can find a parts list for this project?