No, that looks like a 2.4 GHz RF module that uses something like the Nordic transceiver chips. Look at how the Flex Asgard bluetooth flashlight failed They tried to cobble a simple antenna onto it (bypassing the PC board antenna) and could not get signals in/out of the flashlight… also had lots of problems with their interface ap
Due to the short range of the link, you might be able to get by with a simple wire. But you are also trying to get the signal into a metal light housing…
My Asgard driver retrofit into a D cell Mag works fine, AR lens but plastic reflector (stock Mag LED part). It's reliable up to about 10 feet, as if you'd ever need to use it like that.
There is no picture showing the length of its wire whip antenna or its chip. How does it look like 2.4GHz ?
Plus, http://www.daylightrf.com/index.php?_m=mod_product&_a=view&p_id=1364
Yeah it should be fine texas. I used to build yagis. Think of it like bunny ears on a tv set. You can adjust them in and out, doesn’t have to perfectly match. A reciever at those ranges will work. No use in adjusting for impedance because it doesn’t matter. On the transmitter yeah, I’d agree you want a swr as close to 1 as possible (for little loss in tx power)
Or if it was a 2 way street where the button needed confirmation from the receiver. Or like wifi both ways. Then you’d have to try and equal the button end. These are omnidirectional too.
What’s cool about having a optimized directional antennae is you can communicate with a little device say running bluetooth meant for little range, and it looks to the little device you are standing right next to it, when in reality you could be 3 blocks away xd Only downside is directional is hard to optimize in the 2.4 and 5 ghz range. Most of the antennaes I found from China are so far out of spec, it’s almost laughable.
edit for comments below
Aye just read your stuff, It’s only black magic because you haven’t built antennas. The elements get smaller as you go up in the band, but that doesn’t mean it’s much different. I found in antenna building, just bending the wave around the dipole could decrease latency, but that was on the top levels of optimizing output, it wasn’t black magic. Far as this application goes, bet you could probably have no antennae and it would work!
When you see antennas etched into a circuit board, they are almost always for microwave radios. They tend to not be very effective at lower freqs (and not all that good at microwaves). Those 300-400 Mhz radios really like to see 18” or so antennas.
Antenna SWR and matching is just as important for the receiver as the transmitter… except with a bad SWR in the receiver antenna, you don’t risk exploding the receiver due to all that power being reflected back into the device… you just lose a lot of signal strength.
BTW, when I went to college I was a co-op engineer in the Microwave Product Development group of Collins Radio… and microwaves is still jiu-jiu and black magic to me.
If you want to replace everything with your own electronics, these radio modules are simple on/off signal:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/433Mhz-RF-transmitter-and-receiver-link-kit-for-Arduino-ARM-MCU-WL-/140719918135?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c38f8c37
They don’t include any data handling, just modulation and demodulation. On the transmitter you put the pin high/low and an output pin on the receiver goes high/low
I think the limiting factor here may be the size of the TX housing. That’s why I asked about it earlier - from the picture I cannot establish a scale.
I have a few of them, the transmitter is tiny. About the size of a dime
EDIT: 19x19mm to be exact
Unfortunately they are not simple ON-OFF devices. They can only send/receive a modulated signal and the waveform must be balanced (sum of signal high times must equal low times). The receiver has a PLL/AGC circuit that goes gaga if you try and send DC signals.
I use them to control the optical beacon in my rocket launch controllers and use an ATTINY85 to do the modulation/demodulation. I use something like a 500 Hz waveform for a “1” and a 1 kHz waveform for a “0”.
I have no idea why but I can’t post photo’s from google anymore. Given me the 5hits. I separated the boards and took a pic with my mobile but I can’t seem to show you. Even pics I have posted already will not paste again???
I think I worked out how to at least link you guy’s to the pictures -
I checked out your pictures.
I’d just use the radio as is. We’ve got a good working TX & RX that are already paired. You’ll probably be able to use the regulated supply for the MCU on your new driver board and power the RX with it. If not, we should still be able to come up with another easy solution.
The pcb antenna is not connected. See my post #10.
Its just using the green wire as a monopole whip antenna.
Getting off topic. If the OP can just use the existing module then none of this matters here, antenna SWR, matching, blackmagic.
Thanks heaps for the help guys. I was thinking of maybe ordering a small voltage regulator for the receiver now just in case I need it later. The driver has not yet arrived anyway.
This bulid will be 2s 8.4v, right?
Definitely should have voltage regulator if so. Usually need a couple caps with a regulator.
Helios- was talking/thinking about discrete regulators, not a pre-built assembly like that BEC. A small BEC is a good thing to have here and will be easy to use.
This is the smallest one I have found, still far more than what's needed to power that little receiver. I use them to run 10v/1A LEDs for car dome/trunk lighting retrofits.
Very likely there will be a spot on the LD-36 that can be tapped to provide power already at the right voltage without adding anything.
Seems I can post pics from my home pc only.
LCK were pretty quick with their shipping. I took the liberty of separating the boards to take pics. The smaller board has nothing on the underside. It wasn’t until I was taking the pics that I realized some of the chips had blobs of solder bridging the legs. It isn’t meant to be like this, is it???
