Hello everyone,
I request your help for my project since after searching everywhere on the internet I did not manage to find any solution for my problem. In a nutshell, I’m trying to implement a LoRa radio protocol between two “Maduino boards” from the manufacturer “Makerfabs”.
/Maduino Lora Radio (868M)_1-1000x750.JPG)
These board are basically arduino pro mini with an already wired up RFM95w LoRa radio module. I’ve recieved them a few days ago and immediately tried to test them with a basic example I’ve found on the boards wiki :
I’ve followed every steps very carefully and modified the example code to just send a test string between the two modules, and here came the problems. Here is my program :
// LoRa 9x_TX
// -*- mode: C++ -*-
// Example sketch showing how to create a simple messaging client (transmitter)
// with the RH_RF95 class. RH_RF95 class does not provide for addressing or
// reliability, so you should only use RH_RF95 if you do not need the higher
// level messaging abilities.
// It is designed to work with the other example LoRa9x_RX
//Function:Transmit DHT11 to Lora
//Author: Charlin
//Date:2019/12/11
#include <SPI.h>
#include "RH_RF95.h"
#define RFM95_CS 10
#define RFM95_RST 9
#define RFM95_INT 2
// Change to 434.0 or other frequency, must match RX's freq!
#define RF95_FREQ 868.0
// Singleton instance of the radio driver
RH_RF95 rf95(RFM95_CS, RFM95_INT);
void setup()
{
pinMode(RFM95_RST, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(RFM95_RST, HIGH);
while (!Serial);
Serial.begin(9600);
delay(100);
Serial.println("Marduino LoRa TX Test!");
// manual reset
digitalWrite(RFM95_RST, LOW);
delay(10);
digitalWrite(RFM95_RST, HIGH);
delay(10);
while (!rf95.init()) {
Serial.println("LoRa radio init failed");
while (1);
}
Serial.println("LoRa radio init OK!");
// Defaults after init are 434.0MHz, modulation GFSK_Rb250Fd250, +13dbM
if (!rf95.setFrequency(RF95_FREQ)) {
Serial.println("setFrequency failed");
while (1);
}
Serial.print("Set Freq to: "); Serial.println(RF95_FREQ);
// Defaults after init are 434.0MHz, 13dBm, Bw = 125 kHz, Cr = 4/5, Sf = 128chips/symbol, CRC on
// The default transmitter power is 13dBm, using PA_BOOST.
// If you are using RFM95/96/97/98 modules which uses the PA_BOOST transmitter pin, then
// you can set transmitter powers from 5 to 23 dBm:
rf95.setTxPower(23, false);
}
int16_t packetnum = 0; // packet counter, we increment per xmission
void loop()
{
String message = "#"+(String)packetnum+"test";
Serial.println(message);
packetnum++;
Serial.println("Transmit: Sending to rf95_server");
// Send a message to rf95_server
uint8_t radioPacket[message.length()+1];
message.toCharArray(radioPacket, message.length()+1);
radioPacket[message.length()+1]= '\0';
Serial.println("Sending..."); delay(10);
rf95.send((uint8_t *)radioPacket, message.length()+1);
Serial.println("Waiting for packet to complete..."); delay(10);
rf95.waitPacketSent();
// Now wait for a reply
uint8_t buf[RH_RF95_MAX_MESSAGE_LEN];
uint8_t len = sizeof(buf);
Serial.println("Waiting for reply..."); delay(10);
if (rf95.waitAvailableTimeout(1000))
{
// Should be a reply message for us now
if (rf95.recv(buf, &len))
{
Serial.print("Got reply: ");
Serial.println((char*)buf);
Serial.print("RSSI: ");
Serial.println(rf95.lastRssi(), DEC);
}
else
{
Serial.println("Receive failed");
}
}
else
{
Serial.println("No reply, is there a listener around?");
}
delay(1000);
}
First, even before uploading the code to the board, I had a compiling issue basically saying :
exit status 1
no matching function for call to 'RH_RF95::RH_RF95(int, int)'
This seemed strange to me since every example code I’ve found out there used this typo. Anyway, after looking into the RH_RF95 library, I noticed that this constructor needed a software serial parameter. So I just change the begining of my code with :
#include <SPI.h>
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include "RH_RF95.h"
#define RFM95_CS 10
#define RFM95_RST 9
#define RFM95_INT 2
// Change to 434.0 or other frequency, must match RX's freq!
#define RF95_FREQ 868.0
// Singleton instance of the radio driver
SoftwareSerial ss(RFM95_CS, RFM95_INT);
RH_RF95 rf95(ss);
Then, I was able to upload my program on the board without any problems. Unfortunately, a look at the serial monitor made me sad as the RFM95w module was not able to initialize itself, and my program returning :
09:37:40.493 -> Arduino LoRa TX Test!
09:37:46.535 -> 0
09:37:46.535 -> LoRa radio init failed
I then tried everything I could think of to make this module initialize itself :
- I changed my program in every way possible by commenting some part of it
- I modified the RFM95_CS and RFM95_INT pins
- I checked the wiring on the board with a multimeter (everything was connected as expected and the 3.3V input was indeed at 3.3v)
- I upload using different computers and cables
- I checked my two Maduino boards to see if one of them was faulty, but I had the same problem on both
- I upload programs I’ve found on Github, Youtube or Arduino from other peoples who had some init issues but none of them worked
Here’s my final program :
// LoRa 9x_TX
// -*- mode: C++ -*-
// Example sketch showing how to create a simple messaging client (transmitter)
// with the RH_RF95 class. RH_RF95 class does not provide for addressing or
// reliability, so you should only use RH_RF95 if you do not need the higher
// level messaging abilities.
// It is designed to work with the other example LoRa9x_RX
//Function:Transmit DHT11 to Lora
//Author: Charlin
//Date:2019/12/11
#include <SPI.h>
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include "RH_RF95.h"
#define RFM95_CS 10
#define RFM95_RST 9
#define RFM95_INT 2
// Change to 434.0 or other frequency, must match RX's freq!
#define RF95_FREQ 868.0
// Singleton instance of the radio driver
SoftwareSerial ss(RFM95_CS, RFM95_INT);
RH_RF95 rf95(ss);
void setup()
{
pinMode(RFM95_RST, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(RFM95_RST, HIGH);
while (!Serial);
Serial.begin(9600);
delay(100);
Serial.println("Marduino LoRa TX Test!");
// manual reset
digitalWrite(RFM95_RST, LOW);
delay(10);
digitalWrite(RFM95_RST, HIGH);
delay(10);
while (!rf95.init()) {
Serial.println("LoRa radio init failed");
while (1);
}
Serial.println("LoRa radio init OK!");
// Defaults after init are 434.0MHz, modulation GFSK_Rb250Fd250, +13dbM
if (!rf95.setFrequency(RF95_FREQ)) {
Serial.println("setFrequency failed");
while (1);
}
Serial.print("Set Freq to: "); Serial.println(RF95_FREQ);
// Defaults after init are 434.0MHz, 13dBm, Bw = 125 kHz, Cr = 4/5, Sf = 128chips/symbol, CRC on
// The default transmitter power is 13dBm, using PA_BOOST.
// If you are using RFM95/96/97/98 modules which uses the PA_BOOST transmitter pin, then
// you can set transmitter powers from 5 to 23 dBm:
rf95.setTxPower(23, false);
}
int16_t packetnum = 0; // packet counter, we increment per xmission
void loop()
{
String message = "#"+(String)packetnum+"test";
Serial.println(message);
packetnum++;
Serial.println("Transmit: Sending to rf95_server");
// Send a message to rf95_server
uint8_t radioPacket[message.length()+1];
message.toCharArray(radioPacket, message.length()+1);
radioPacket[message.length()+1]= '\0';
Serial.println("Sending..."); delay(10);
rf95.send((uint8_t *)radioPacket, message.length()+1);
Serial.println("Waiting for packet to complete..."); delay(10);
rf95.waitPacketSent();
// Now wait for a reply
uint8_t buf[RH_RF95_MAX_MESSAGE_LEN];
uint8_t len = sizeof(buf);
Serial.println("Waiting for reply..."); delay(10);
if (rf95.waitAvailableTimeout(1000))
{
// Should be a reply message for us now
if (rf95.recv(buf, &len))
{
Serial.print("Got reply: ");
Serial.println((char*)buf);
Serial.print("RSSI: ");
Serial.println(rf95.lastRssi(), DEC);
}
else
{
Serial.println("Receive failed");
}
}
else
{
Serial.println("No reply, is there a listener around?");
}
delay(1000);
}
So now I’m basically out of ideas, so if any of you have had any issues like this one, I’d be very happy to hear about how you solved it !
