Computing stuff tied to the physical world


The JeeNode v2 works

In AVR, Hardware on Mar 23, 2009 at 00:01

The PCB’s arrived and again it looks like everything is working as intended. Here is the bare board:

JeeNode v2

Changes are really minor. But at least now this thing has a name on it, and all connectors have (tiny) texts next to them so it’s easier to remember what goes where and in which orientation.

Even with just two versions in existence so far, I’m already starting to get confused about pinouts, header orientation, etc. so I’ve started documenting this latest JeeNode board here (PDF).

The next steps will be to decide on a useful sensor setup, to decide on how to best power these units, and to distribute lots of them all over the house as part of my own DIY “Home WSN“. This is going to be fun!

(I’ve got a few extra boards and parts this time – let me know if you’re interested in tinkering with this stuff)

  1. Do you happen to know the power usage of these boards? I’m planning on building a WSN also, and these boards look very nice :)

    Wouter 26 March 2009 at 4pm

  2. I measured about 20 mA while the RFM12B is receiving. Haven’t gone into low-power issues yet, my first sensor nodes will all use a small wall-plug adapter for power. Since the ePIR motion sensor I’m using draws several milliamps, there’s not much chance of running that on battery power. The JeeNode itself is just the ATmega and the RFM12B, both of them support power-saving modes.

    jcw 26 March 2009 at 5pm

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