Published October 8, 2020 © MIT

Two Arduinos communicating at 3km distance

Simple communication system with lora E32 and Arduino, ideal for simple telemetry.

IntermediateProtip1 hour21,119

Two Arduinos communicating at 3km distance

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Lora E32 module

Arduino UNO

Digilent WS2812 Addressable LED Strip

Jumper wires (generic)

PCB Shield

Story

LoRa (Long Range) is a long-range, low-power wireless communication technology. These characteristics make LoRa an excellent technology for use in wireless IoT (Internet of Things) networks, and in this post we will use LoRa with Arduino, performing a basic communication between two boards using the LoRa 433MHz module.

LORA E32

Module LoRa 433MHz

The LoRa 433MHz module works through a serial interface with TX and RX pins. So we were able to easily integrate it with Arduino and use the Serial functions already well known by Arduino programmers.

The communication distance can reach up to 3 km depending on the antennas used, ambient conditions and radio and magnetic interference.

The supply can be 3.3V or 5V and the serial communication is TTL with a recommended level of 3.6V maximum. This means that a secure connection can be made with 3.3V cards such as ESP8266. We did a test connecting the module to the Arduino with 5V level communication and it also worked, but note that it is not recommended.

This module has 4 operating modes. The most basic mode for simple communication is Normal Mode. For this mode, pins M0 and M1 must be set to GND (level 0). In other posts we will explore other modes of operation such as Power Saving, Sleep and Wake-up Mode.

E32 Pins

Connection circuit (TX)

The connections with the Arduino are extremely simple, only two digital pins one for the TX of the module and the other for the RX.

Transmitter

Connection circuit (RX)

On the receiver side we follow the same idea but we add an LED strip to indicate when the receiver has received data, so whenever the LED strip flashes it means that the receiver is receiving some data packet.

Receiver

Bonus PCB Shield

I decided to go a little further and designed a simple shield to attach the Lora E32 module using an arduino for mini, the project is more compact and looks like a final product, you can download the Gerber file and produce it at https://jlcpcb.com/

gerber_file: https://bit.ly/3ntaEzh

1 / 2 • PCB Shield

Code

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h> // biblioteca para controle da fita de led

Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels(6, 5, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800); // numero de leds e pino de controle

SoftwareSerial loraSerial(2, 3); // TX, RX pinos digitais do lora e32


void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  loraSerial.begin(9600); // velocidade da porta serial do mdulo configurada antes
  pixels.begin();

}

void loop() {
  while (loraSerial.available()) {
    Serial.write(loraSerial.read());// mostra no monitor serial a mensagem recebida
    
    for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) { //liga todos os leds da fita
      pixels.setPixelColor(i, pixels.Color(0, 255, 0));
      pixels.show();
    }
  }
  pixels.clear(); // apaga os leds quando no h mensagens para ler
}

Credits

Klinsman Jorge

1 project • 7 followers

Two Arduinos communicating at 3km distance

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Story

Module LoRa 433MHz

Connection circuit (TX)

Connection circuit (RX)

Bonus PCB Shield

Schematics

TX

RX

Code

TX Code

RX Code

Credits

Klinsman Jorge

Comments

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Two Arduinos communicating at 3km distance

Two Arduinos communicating at 3km distance

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Story

Module LoRa 433MHz

Connection circuit (TX)

Connection circuit (RX)

Bonus PCB Shield

Schematics

TX

RX

Code

TX Code

RX Code

Credits

Klinsman Jorge

Comments

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