Help with how to design a live auctioneer system using Arduino and 433mhz transmitters - new to design and programming - getting started

[jake2901837373]

What if I were to poll each transmitter in sequential order as Robin2 suggests in the discussion post linked below? Except I don't necessarily care who clicked first so I don't need a universal time for all slaves. If I poll each slave in regular intervals of say 25ms then every 300ms each clicker would have a chance to buzz in and bid. Would this work for my application and avoid the interference problem? Would the fact that other participants might also be pushing their buttons still interfere with the others signal? If each slave has a unique ID can the receiver be instructed to ignore the other slaves until it is their turn to be polled?

@Robin2

If I was doing that project I would have the Master poll each of the slaves in turn at regular intervals - maybe 10 times per second. That avoids transmission collisions.

The master could include its own millis() value in each message and the slave can use that to get a near universal time for all slaves. Then the slave records the time (with correction) when its own button was pressed and sends that to the master when next requested. The master can then review all the messages and decide which button was pressed first.

Wireless project using 8 transmitters and 1 receiver, simultaneous communication

mauried: Alternatively another way to do this is to have accurate clocks in each box and when the button is pressed, the time it was pressed is sent to the receiver. This way , the actual time it takes for the transmissions to be received is not relevant any more, but you then Radio transmissions are never going to be 100% reliable, some 'button presses' will not be received. Therefore there needs to be a send and acknowledge protocol, to ensure button presses are not missed due to interfer…