NRF24l01 broken or I'm just bad?

Projects General Guidance
1

So I have a OSEPP Uno R3 Plus and an Adafruit Pro Trinket 3v both hooked up to separate NRF24l01+ and they just don't seem to be communicating. I followed the Simple NRF24l01+ 2.4GHz transceiver demo by Robin2 and still could not get the things to do anything. So just for troubleshooting I also followed Robin2's CheckConnection.ino test and the Arduinos don't seem to be communicating with the NRF24l01+ and I'm hoping someone can shed some light on the issue. Seriously, I've tried almost everything for the past 4 days all with the same results and that seems like a lot to me.

Admittedly, I don't have the correct capacitor and power supply recommended in the tutorials and I'm totally open to this being the issue. However I figured I'd at least get a flicker from the COM if everything was hooked up right. I even "wiggled the wires" so to speak. But nothing seems to be happening.

Things I've tried:
1). trying different NRF24l01's but the results have all been the same

2). double and triple checking I have the correct pins wired.

3). checking my Arduino pins to see if they are outputting power or reading pins, they are.

4). I'm pretty sure my boards are good cause I was running a OLED on them with its library.

5). connecting speaker to the NRF24l01 pins while connected to the powered up Uno to
"hear activity." Result: lots of activity on the CSN pin of the Receiver and Transmitter boards
but no activity on the CE pin of either. Also MISO and MOSI pins mimic Transmitter's CSN
pattern but the Receiver's MOSI pin is the only one that mimics. The Receiver is also the one
reading out "Data Received" at a fast rate on the COM.

6). I've also tried the RF 433mhz transmitter and receivers with similar results.
(In this case the Receiver did receive signal from Transmitter but the arduino
didn't recognize it for some reason. An AnalogRead() read back various numbers however)

I'm starting to think Arduino just isn't my strong suit and just uninstall it and walk away.
However I also play Elden Ring so I keep coming back cause I like to fail I guess lol jk.

Thanks for your help in advance.

The capacitor I'm using, I have a bigger one. buts a 470uf 35v
Also in this case the capacitor has not made a noticeable difference.
Cap

This is the result of the NRF24l01 being externally powered by the Lithium cell.
The 2xAAA's seem to behave just like unplugging the NRF24l01 from the uno.

NRF24l01_ExternalPower
NRF24l01_ExternalPower2160×1960 457 KB

This is the result of the NRF24l01 being plugged into the Uno
Uploading: NRF24l01_plugged_in.png...

This is the result of the NRF24l01 not wired up to the Uno

NRF24l01_Unplugged
NRF24l01_Unplugged2160×1872 461 KB

The Lithium cell seems to do something verses the 2xAAA's
externalP

this is how I'm wiring the NRF24l01 to the Uno.
Uno_Hook_Up

2

Wouldn't be surprised if you have fried the board.
Some of those lithium can go to 4.2v.......spec says max. 3.6v and most use them at 3.3v.
Best to use the adaptor board with the onboard regulator.

3

I have always however used this GUIDE to test an nRF24L01 setup with great success on Arduino Nano, Arduino Leonard, Arduino Nano 33 IoT, & various ESP32's. Always use the device's 3.3v output pin.

Although, from what you said above & @bluejets has pointed out, I too concur that you may have fried the nRF24L01 boards!

So first off I would get a new pair of nRF24L01 boards & try out the suggested link above?

A few things to note when using the nRF24L01 modules - based on my personal experiences.

  1. It’s worth noting that power supply noise is one of the most common issues people experience when trying to make successful communication with the nRF24L01 modules. Generally, RF circuits or radiofrequency signals are sensitive to power supply noise. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to include a decoupling capacitor across the power supply line as close to the nRF24L01 module as possible. The capacitor can be anything from 10uF to 100uF. I used a 47uF :wink:

  2. I've also found adding the following settings in the nRF24L01 Setup on both the receiver & transmitter. This helped improve reliability considerably -

radio.setDataRate(RF24_2MBPS); // Set the speed of the transmission to the quickest available
radio.setChannel(124); // Use a channel unlikely to be used by Wifi, Microwave ovens etc
radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MAX); // Set radio Tx power to MAX

HTH?

4

Ok so I'm just ordering the parts to make the power regulator and a bigger capacitor, and I already have a bunch of untouched NRF24L01's. But is there something else I can try in the mean time? Maybe just to verify the Arduino IS communicating with the module? Because even with a new RF24 hooked up and using the onboard 3v3 regulator my Uno doesn't seem to believe something is plugged in. Or I'm reading the monitor wrong.

5

My NRF test always went well when I used two AA cells in series to power them. The - of the cells connected to the NRF and Arduino ground,

6

I also tried the AA's in series as well with the same result as before.

7

It could be that the standard 10MHz SPI bus speed is too high in your case. This depends on the board you are using, the NRF24L01 modules and the length of the connecting wires. It appears in your case that it did not accept the attempt in the test to change the data rate from 1MBPS to 250KBPS

You may try this constructor instead:

RF24 radio(CE_PIN, CSN_PIN, 2000000);  //2MHz

Otherwise see this post for other ideas:Failing to troubleshoot nrf24L01 issue - #5 by groundFungus

8

Hi, @fubixdragon
To add code please click this link;

Thanks Tom... :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

9

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