Getting Started with the Prototype (Part 3)

Getting Started with the Prototype (Part 3)

Send & Receive 443~Mhz Transmissions

Getting IR working is probably the most standard and well investigated side of this project. Now we’re starting to step off the beaten track, and while by no means a novel or undocumented step. Things are starting to get less straight forward.

Adding the ability for my Amazon Echo to control ‘dumb’ appliances was the main goal. I’d come across the Energenie products already, and the Pi-Mote shield looked good; but it seemed a waste of a board. If I’m using a Raspberry Pi – I don’t want it limited to one form of IO.

So while my own board is cheaper in cost, if you’re looking for a more ‘out of the box’ solution. I’d have a serious look at what’s out there already.

Anyway, if you’re intent on continuing, or are following this building off my schematics here we go:

The easiest way to do this is to clone the repo I’ve setup on git. But to do that we’ll need to install git.

We’re going to setup in /usr/local/bin as we’re working on locally compiled software so:

The 433 Radio relies on WiringPi, so lets get that setup first:

Follow: https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/wiringpi/download-and-install/

Have to use this behind proxy (not the official but should work for our needs)

Hopefully you should then end up with the following output:

once that’s complete, change back to /usr/local/bin and check out the tailored versions of rf_pi and openmilight

To get the 433 transmitter / receiver pair running without root, there’s a few steps to follow. I’d suggest reading the full rf_pi README.md by n8henrie, however, for brevity and continuity’s sake I’ll post here too.

Make sure you have a gpio group, and whatever users will run the scripts (e.g. pi, n8henrie, gpio, www-data, etc.) are gpio members:

On the Pi 3 Raspbian Jessie image I’m using, scheduling priority is already enabled, however just to be on the safe side I’d recommend checking with:

Configuring and Building

As of 2017-03-31 the pin numbering for the prototype board isn’t represented in the git repo yet!

On my prototype the 433Mhz Transmitter is connected to Physical Pin 18 (BCM 24) and the Receiver to Physical Pin 12 (BCM 18)

Edit the /usr/local/bin/automation_pi_hat/rf_pi/send.cpp file and ensure that the pin is set to 24:

Edit /usr/local/bin/automation_pi_hat/rf_pi/RFSniffer.cpp and ensure the pin is set to 18

Finally make with:

 

** That should be all up and running. ** Add more info on testing later