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All things pertaining to wireless and RF links
By brendanh
#192949
Hello! I hope this is the correct forum since this seems to be a radio issue

I'm running into some kind of (interference? Grounding? Antenna?) problem when I try to use the Sparkfun EL sequencer, a nRF24L01+ transceiver, and the 12 volt EL inverter. These are all Sparkfun branded versions though originally I was using a non-Sparkfun version of the NRF24l01+ (Links to the product pages are provided at the bottom of this post)

I have an Arduino Uno with a NRF24l01+ attached and it's running a very basic ping out program (one of the examples from the NRF24l01+ library)
The EL sequencer has the pong back code running.

Without the inverter, it's functional pretty consistently, with expected range in both high and low power transmit modes.

When I hook up and power up the inverter I have very spotty success even when the Arduino Uno and the EL sequencer are in close proximity. This happens with both the Sparkfun NRF24l01+ breakout board and a 3rd party transceiver module.
If I set the inverter to its "flash mode" I get successful transmission during the "off" parts of the flash...sort of.

Here are the wrinkles (and please forgive my likely deep ignorance):
-I've checked my soldering job and re-soldered the connections between the breakout board and the sequencer, and I'm not seeing any lifted pads.
-If I put my finger on the CE pin (which is adjacent to the VCC pin) on the transceiver I get a much better success rate. This is consistent when the inverter is on or off, and when the transceiver is set to high or low broadcast modes. I guess my body (being a big bag of salt water) is either acting as a better ground or as a better antenna/(attenuation?) but I'm not sure.
--This is consistent between both sparkfun branded transceiver and the other brand
--The range of this finger based "fix" is consistent with performance when the sequencer is not connected to the inverter (That is, I get success at the same distances)
-When I power the transceiver from an OSEPP FTDI (that is, USB power) I get slightly improved performance but still touching that CE pin still has the greatest improvement
---I thought that since it functions better when on USB power that it might be a power supply issue. I tried using better batteries to power the sequencer (LiPo) and it only gave a marginal improvement



Thanks for reading all of this, and any help or advice is appreciated!



https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10469 inverter
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12781 sequencer
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/691 breakout board