i've hooked up a standard nRF24L01+ with a printed antenna to my Arduino and tried to ping-pong the signal with my Raspberry. It worked fine during the first tests but after i hooked up some more components to the Arduino i can no longer send signals from it (i can receive the ping but the pong does not reach the Raspberry).
Well, this is as long as i don't touch anything on the module with my finger...
I'm powering the RF module with a linear voltage regulator (7333). I already have 470 uF capacitor for smoothing but adding another 10 uF one does not help. The regulator is directly hooked up to the power supply, switching it to a battery did nothing. I also double checked the soldering points.
They are about 3 meters apart from each other, putting them closer does not help.
Do you guys have any ideas? I know this is a common problem but i haven't found a solution. I'm thinking of upgrading to a module with a didicated antenna.
An ultrasonic sensor, some LEDs and another sensor. I unplugged it all for testing.
I tried my PC, a high power USB wall plug and a lithium cell (well, it's an 5V Pro Mini...)
Basically this:Click, but the power is supplied by the voltage regulator. I could send you a photo but... how do i put it... i was very space efficient.
Yeah well... somebody from China accidentally sent 5 of them to me
Fact is that they work... but why the one on the Arduino suddenly has trouble sending is the question.
I switched to a 10 uF capacitor and put it further away from the antenna but that did not help. Then i put my smallest one (3.3 uF) in parallel but still no success. Without a capacitor the module does not work at all.
Tomorrow i'll try to power the Arduino via RAW and use the build in 3,3V voltage regulator so i can skip the linear voltage regulator. I avoided this because my programmer supplies 5V to the VCC directly. Also i did not think enough about this.
Well, supplying the RAW pin with 5 V and the module with VCC and a 10 nF capacitor parallel did not solve the problem. It's till the same issue even without the additional voltage regulator out of the picture
Raw pin is for higher voltages (6-12V), apply 5v to vcc instead.
What library are you using for the nrf24? The best one I found was the 'tmrh' library, it has many enhancements.
If I were you, I'd get the ping pong working first with no attachments, then add things one at a time until it fails and go from there.
At each stage measure the voltage on the promini and the nrf just to be sure what is happening.....Little steps, but better then going round in circles...... This way you have a path to follow until you hit the problem.
Also, check the wiring. Is there a good ground from the promini to the radio (and the linear regulator)?
Get the wireless communication working reliably before you start adding other features and then add the extra features one by one so you can immediately see if something causes a problem.
