I want to make a little local pager for my house. I want to hook a small box up to a motion light outside of my house with an AC relay in it that connects the switch on the transmitter when the light comes on. I want to have the receiver in a pager type housing on my belt so when it receives the signal it vibrates. I need to find a little transmitter and especially receiver that can be powered by 2-3 AA or AAAs that can transmit the one "channel" and is small enough to fit in the pager housing. Anyone ever run across anything like that?
Anyone know of a tiny transmitter/reciever
- Thread starter tmack
- Start date
There is an E-bay store that sells a pretty fair array of transmitters and receivers of varrying power and size, prices are pretty low, but shipping is from China so you are not likely to receive it overnight.
http://stores.ebay.com/e-MadeinCHN_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZQ2d33QQftidZ2QQtZkm
http://stores.ebay.com/e-MadeinCHN_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZQ2d33QQftidZ2QQtZkm
Never tried it with a picaxe, but this is pretty dang small and has quite a few cool features...
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=152
If I were to do it (and it sounds like a pretty cool idea, actually) I'd probably use that, or one of the other nordic family from sparkfun.
--Andy P
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=152
If I were to do it (and it sounds like a pretty cool idea, actually) I'd probably use that, or one of the other nordic family from sparkfun.
--Andy P
krypton_john
Senior Member
Cool features? You ain't kidding, Andy!
#1 it is a transceiver so half duplex bidirectional possible, #2 has built-in antenna, #3 it is tiny and #4 standard 0.1" pitch pins so very easy to mount.
Thanks for posting the link!
Careful-that Sparkfun unit is VERY low power (1 milliWatt), & being at 2.4GHz would be extremely prone to almost any obstruction in the signal path. You'd really only have Bluetooth/ZigBee ranges & be lucky to get thru' a single wall I'd say.Even body shielding can obstruct weak signals at these freqs- especially an issue if belt mounted.
How large is your home & what sort of materials is it built from? Timber abounds here in NZ & I usually find even basic 10mW 433MHz units run out of steam after ~50m indoors if they only have small antenna. Interference abounds on 433MHz of course too...
Consider perhaps a compact UHF CB handheld walkie talkie (typically on 470 MHz)- which of course usually come belt mountable already. These all have powerful tx (~half Watt),are very sensitive & dirt cheap( ~US$20). Best of all you could talk back when paged, perhaps on another (voice channel). I've done a lot linking these in with PICAXE driven sensors, but regs. in some countries limit applications- Aus/NZ have a "3 seconds an hour" telemetry restriction!
How large is your home & what sort of materials is it built from? Timber abounds here in NZ & I usually find even basic 10mW 433MHz units run out of steam after ~50m indoors if they only have small antenna. Interference abounds on 433MHz of course too...
Consider perhaps a compact UHF CB handheld walkie talkie (typically on 470 MHz)- which of course usually come belt mountable already. These all have powerful tx (~half Watt),are very sensitive & dirt cheap( ~US$20). Best of all you could talk back when paged, perhaps on another (voice channel). I've done a lot linking these in with PICAXE driven sensors, but regs. in some countries limit applications- Aus/NZ have a "3 seconds an hour" telemetry restriction!
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I'll go along with Stan here. That linked module is a nice little device but not suited for your app - which is basically an automatic radio doorbell(?) (Maybe hack a cheap one?).
Or do a hack like Stan suggests.
I assume you want to go as cheap as possible, so how about something like-
http://uk.farnell.com/1304024/electrical-circuit-protection/product.us0?sku=QUASAR-QAM-TX1&_requestid=259754
OR, even simpler:-
http://www.rfsolutions.co.uk/acatalog/QAMT2_a.pdf
But, you'll need to think about range too.
There are a lot of similar products out there, but don't get hooked on 'flash' when something simple will do the job better. (Unless you want to show off). Also what you choose to buy depends where you live unless you want to wait 3 weeks to save 10p.
Or do a hack like Stan suggests.
I assume you want to go as cheap as possible, so how about something like-
http://uk.farnell.com/1304024/electrical-circuit-protection/product.us0?sku=QUASAR-QAM-TX1&_requestid=259754
OR, even simpler:-
http://www.rfsolutions.co.uk/acatalog/QAMT2_a.pdf
But, you'll need to think about range too.
There are a lot of similar products out there, but don't get hooked on 'flash' when something simple will do the job better. (Unless you want to show off). Also what you choose to buy depends where you live unless you want to wait 3 weeks to save 10p.
Steve Joblin
Member
If you are in the US, Rentron has a nice selection of simple RF systems...http://www.rentron.com/PicBasic/RemoteControl.htm
