Hi all. For months, your answers to other's problems have come up in my searches and been indispensable. But now, I'm forced to ask my specific question.
The project is a home-made version of a BlazePod. In brief, a master unit sends commands to slave units, which then light up. The units respond with the number of ms they were lit up for before they were 'hit'.
I'm in the early stages of development: I've got as far as a master/slave pair that perform this basic functionality using an UNO, and an nRF24.
Thanks. It does seem to be the modules that are the fault, doesn't it? Once they're in the bin, what would you do? Would you try a different 'rfnano' from a different supplier?
Or, does the rfnano just not have as good a range as the 'seperate arduino and NRF24 module' solution?
Both devices use (or at least pretend to) the same RF device.
So whilst you might expect a 3dB or a maybe a little more difference in actual radiated signal due to differences in design of the component layout and PCB antenna, your reporting maybe 25dB difference, which just does not sound right to me.
You could wire up a Pro Mini and a LoRa module (or other) for around the same size as the 'rfnano', distance problem solved. Although with the ground based BlazePods being only a few cm off the ground you might be limited to a kilometer or so due to curvature of the Earth issues (no the Earth is not flat!) .
With any RF application such as this, its essential that you try out the distances and approximate data rates you need (slower normally means further) in an actual simulated situation.
I've built something quite similar to the original set-up, but using Nano instead of Uno. Great range. So... If the new RFNanos (when they arrive) are just as bad as the 'TSTAR TECH' ones, I've got a fallback option.
So... let's get rid of the breadboard entirely:
