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Gill

Senior Member

Joined: 11/11/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 669

Posted: 11:05am 14 Jan 2008

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G'day all,
I have over the last few weeks been playing with those little transmitter and receiver units sold by Oatley Electronics. I did not have a lot of success with them at first but now have a satisfactory performance. Now that's satisfactory... not perfect.

They do not suit programming where perfection is essential, but they are fine for logging data as we would use on our wind mills. In particular I have a need for logging masthead data such as: Wind Speed, Gen RPM, and Gen Phase Mode as am building a mill with a masthead phase controller. (old style star~delta, series~parallel switching)

I think for anyone experimenting with the unbalanced configuration, this would be great for changing settings without lowering the mill. A huge advantage.
Sitting on the back veranda keying into a laptop and seeing the response to the changes in the returned logging figures is my kind of fun.

$20 for the TX & RX modules is something even I can afford. A Picaxe 08m for the PC Receiver plus whatever Picaxe suits your masthead relay control. It won't reprogram but it will change variables on the up link, and on the down link, back comes data for logging performance.

Here's some pics of my anemometer test units.

Anemometer with TX Module

PC Receiver with RX Module ..............................Antenna, coax n socket

and here's 2008-01-14_205428_Anemometer__remote_logging.zip of the codes and circuits used.

I have not presented a finished project here, just a peek at part of an on-going one. A work still in progress.

Hope it's of interest.

was working fine... til the smoke got out.
Cheers Gill _Cairns, FNQ

Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5019

Posted: 12:09pm 14 Jan 2008

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Excellent work Gill as always.

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ

sPuDd

Senior Member

Joined: 10/07/2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 251

Posted: 01:52pm 14 Jan 2008

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G'day Gill,

I've been looking at those Oatley 433Mhz modules and
wondering what they would be like. What was the problems
you had with them? Range? Drift? Speed?

I have a pair of older 433Mhz modules from Oatley which
are no longer available. I should have bought a dozen of
them even at $30ea. They have good range and are a breeze
to interface to PICAXE. I'm putting them into my wireless
weather station at the moment.

Ahh wireless, when will the fun stop

EDIT:
I just noticed, they seem to be one way modules. The
ones I bought some time ago from Oatley were transceiver
units (ie; Tx & Rx in one). Now I know why I was skippy
about the new ones. That WOULD be a bit of a pain to setup.

sPuDd.. Edited by sPuDd 2008-01-15

It should work ...in theory

Gill

Senior Member

Joined: 11/11/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 669

Posted: 11:13am 15 Jan 2008

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Glenn, thanks for the comments, always appreciated.

sPuDd, I'm liking this idea of remote wireless data logging the more I play with it. I did have difficulties setting up the software at first (see TX code_oddities.txt in the .zip download), but all sorted and going like a rocket now that I'm an expert ..cough..cough..
Transceiver modules eh? Hold on to those.

I connected up the more expensive K122 transmitter and RX-14 receiver today and with the now correct software they are firring like a dragon too.

As a 'why not' experiment I ran the TX434A transmitter into the RX-14 receiver and was very surprised to find I was logging data. About 3/4 got through which is more than I'd have thought possible.

Finding that a surprise, I just had to connect the TX434A transmitter with the PVJ6WC ( GD-V6C ) receiver. Even more surprised, it worked perfectly. Walked all around the camp up to 150 meters and even with building obstructions it never faltered logging correctly. So most impressed with it all. Well within my intended range of use for sure.

For those not aware of the Oatley Electronics items, there are 2 units, each consisting of a Rx and a TX module.

The most expensive is the DIY kit K122 transmitter and a pre assembled receiver module, the RX-14. They sell at about $50 to $60 if I remember rightly. Has a range of 150 meters, a data rate of up to 2 KHz using ASK into a SuperHet receiver. TX _ 2v - 12v @ ??ma. RX _ 5v @ 2.25ma. I don't like the K122 antenna as I prefer the flexibility of coax extension to an antenna mounted elsewhere.

The cheaper unit is the TX434A transmitter with the PVJ6WC receiver ( receiver labeled GD-V6C). The pair sells for under $20, range 1.5km LOS (line of sight) @ 12v, using AM . TX _ 3v to 12v @ 15ma. RX _ 5v @ 10ma. This has to be the pick of them.

I like power requirements of all units; Two or three series diodes off the supply to the slip rings for the transmitter, and tap 5v off the USB or PS2 sockets on the laptop for the receiver. Beautiful.

[Oatley, your 'unsolicited comments' payment into my usual account thanks]
EDIT:-{Aussie Media joke for the overseas readers}

Here's the unit I got working today:

Anemometer & K122 with TX434A close by

PC Receiver using RX-14

stripboard layout

Graph of Anemometer readout using Gizmo's PicLog.exe

I like charting the 'line count' (shown as volts) as it is very easy to see if data has failed to get through but I get a perfect sawtooth every time.

Gizmo, Can we decrease the graphing interval below 10 seconds on this software?Edited by Gill 2008-01-16

was working fine... til the smoke got out.
Cheers Gill _Cairns, FNQ

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