[OpenTRV-interest] Tinkering kits

[Damon Hart-Davis]

Hi,

If you and Mark don’t mind me chipping in…

On 27 Mar 2014, at 17:04, Alasdair Macdonald <EMAIL ADDRESS HIDDEN> wrote:

> Mark -
> 
> My tinkering kit arrived a few hours ago.

Good.

> 
> FTDI cable has been ordered.
> 
> I have 3 questions right now. (I have some more that I'll either figure out in the next few days, or I'll ask at a suitable time).
> 
> 1. Please confirm the connections that should be soldered. Damon wrote "solder to it’s normally-open contacts which are the near-centre lug and the one further from it, marked ‘C’." I THINK that means that I solder red & black to the left & centre pins in the attached image (the white cable is marked "ANT", and is I suppose the antenna?)

Can’t see your image, but yes indeed, the red and black wires that run to the BRB pads on the board.  Sorry for not being clearer.

And indeed the ANT is the antenna.

> 
> 2. How should I power the two boards? Hopefully the image can help here; the green terminals are marked 5 / B / GND / 3.3, but I don't believe you've passed on any information about this issue.

If you leave the jumpers on then you can power from the FTDI cable or USB; if you take them out then you can power from 2xAA calls (NiMH by design, but alkaline would probably be fine) connected to the GND (-) and 3.3 (+) terminals.  Failing to remove the jumpers when you connect a battery is likely to toast at least the regulator on the board.

> 
> 3. Do I *need* an Arduino now, or *might* I need one in the future (to reprogram the board?) If possible, I hope to use my Debian desktop PC to connect to the board(s). I've read the Ubuntu section at http://sourceforge.net/p/opentrv/wiki/Arduino/ and already installed arduino and arduino-core, but I'm still not clear if this is going to talk to the Arduino or to the OpenTRV controller board.

Unless you need to load a new bootloader then you should not need an Arduino.  You can set things via the OpenTRV CLI (Command Line Interface) or load a new version of the OpenTRV code via the FTDI cable directly from a PC / laptop via the free Arduino IDE software.

Rgds

Damon