My next proof of concept uses a Weather click and nRF C click to upload temperature and humidity data to a Xively gateway running on a spare Netduino 2 Plus. I have a couple of Azure Event hub gateways (direct & queued) which require a Netduino 3 Wifi (for TLS/AMQPS support) and I’ll build a client for them in a coming post.

I initially purchased an nRF T click but something wasn’t quite right with its interrupt output. The interrupt line wasn’t getting pulled low at all so there were no send success/failure events. If I disabled the pull up resistor and strobed the interrupt pin on start-up the device would work for a while.

using (OutputPort Int = new OutputPort(socket.Int, true))
{
 Int.Write(true);
};

...

_irqPin = new InterruptPort(socket.Int, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled, Port.InterruptMode.InterruptEdgeLow);

The code sends a reading every 10 seconds and has been running for a couple of days. It strobes Led1 for each successful send and turns on Led2 when a send fails.

private static readonly byte[] deviceAddress = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Quail");
private static readonly byte[] gatewayAddress = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("12345");
private const byte gatewayChannel = 10;
private const NRFC.DataRate gatewayDataRate = NRFC.DataRate.DR1Mbps;
private const int XivelyUpdateDelay = 10000;
private const char XivelyGatewayChannelIdTemperature = 'J';
private const char XivelyGatewayChannelIdHumidity = 'K';

public static void Main()
{
   NRFC nRF24Click = new NRFC(Hardware.SocketFour);
   nRF24Click.Configure(deviceAddress, gatewayChannel, gatewayDataRate);
   nRF24Click.OnTransmitFailed += nRF24Click_OnTransmitFailed;
   nRF24Click.OnTransmitSuccess += nRF24Click_OnTransmitSuccess;
   nRF24Click.Enable();

   // Configure the weather click
   WeatherClick weatherClick = new WeatherClick(Hardware.SocketOne, WeatherClick.I2CAddresses.Address0);
   weatherClick.SetRecommendedMode(WeatherClick.RecommendedModes.WeatherMonitoring);

   Thread.Sleep(XivelyUpdateDelay);

   while (true)
   {
      string temperatureMessage = XivelyGatewayChannelIdTemperature + weatherClick.ReadTemperature().ToString("F1");
      Debug.Print(temperatureMessage);
      MBN.Hardware.Led1.Write(true);
      nRF24Click.SendTo(gatewayAddress, Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(temperatureMessage));

      Thread.Sleep(XivelyUpdateDelay);

      string humidityMessage = XivelyGatewayChannelIdHumidity + weatherClick.ReadHumidity().ToString("F1");
      Debug.Print(humidityMessage);
      MBN.Hardware.Led1.Write(true);
      nRF24Click.SendTo(gatewayAddress, Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(humidityMessage));

      Thread.Sleep(XivelyUpdateDelay);
   }
}

static void nRF24Click_OnTransmitSuccess()
{
   MBN.Hardware.Led1.Write(false);
   if (MBN.Hardware.Led2.Read())
   {
      MBN.Hardware.Led2.Write(false);
   }

   Debug.Print("nRF24Click_OnTransmitSuccess");
}

static void nRF24Click_OnTransmitFailed()
{
   MBN.Hardware.Led2.Write(true);

   Debug.Print("nRF24Click_OnTransmitFailed");
}

I need to have a look at interfacing some more sensors and soak testing the solution.

The MikroBus.Net team have done a great job with the number & quality of the drivers they have available.