Hello!
First of all let me explain in 2 words what I'm trying to do:
Using the maniacbug library and starting from the meshping example I'm having a central node (00) on an arduino 2009 with ethernet shield that collect informations from (actually) two other nodes.
The node 00 can send out messages too. In this way, node00 can collect these informations and, if I send a message via ethernet (web-browser), node00 can forward the msg via radio. On one of them a relayboard gives me the ability to power on/off whatever is connected (actually nothing, eheh).
I'm planning to have the leafes always connected on 220V (->5v), but I'm looking as well to create my own nodes following the documentation to create low power nodes:
Low Power node description @maniacbug's site:
Seems the life of those leafes should be great. The radio library has a sleep mode to place the module in standby.
But if you would like to power-down the arduino, having implemented a kind of bi-directional comunication, I could choose to send a message from node00 as well as power-down the radio if the leaf cannot reach the node00.
Option2 would be easier because when you send a message from the leaf to the node00 you have always a boolean return value if it was sent succesfully. Look at the meshping example:
// Normal nodes send a 'T' ping
if ( this_node > 00 || to == 00 )
ok = send_T(to);
// Base node sends the current active nodes out
else
ok = send_N(to);
// Notify us of the result
if (ok)
{
printf_P(PSTR("%lu: APP Send ok\n\r"),millis());
}
else
{
printf_P(PSTR("%lu: APP Send failed\n\r"),millis());
####
## YOU COULD INCREASE HERE A COUNTER. IF COUTER > MAX_FAIL, THEN SHUTDOWN.
####
// Try sending at a different time next time
last_time_sent -= 100;
}
Hope it helps!
Simon