Connecting RFM69Pi to RPi 3 B

Hardware RFM69Pi
1

I managed to get the RFM69Pi extension board working on a RPi 3 B after disabling the console and swapping the serial aliases (Also see: http://spellfoundry.com/2016/05/29/configuring-gpio-serial-port-raspbian-jessie-including-pi-3/#History).

Now, when running minicom on /dev/serial0, I can interact with the board.

Pressing ‘v’ returns: [RF12demo.12] A i1 g1 @ 433 MHz
Pressing ‘h’ returns: The list of available commands.

I’ve been switching between (0x - decimal, 1x - hex and 2x - hex+ascii).

I am trying to find out now whether the output is okay. In decimal logging mode (1x) I get quite some logging, all lines are preceded by a question mark. Is this what I should expect? What would be the best way to start interpreting the data? Is there any documentation available that could help?

My (initial) goal is to record and playback commands from some RF remote controls that I want to replace.

Logging output:
? 15 211 0 235 61 … 242 157 (-109)
? 35 168 129 252 … 214 54 (-109)
? 34 243 220 5 … 151 153 (-110)
? 53 54 226 36 … 217 (-107)
? 156 30 116 79 … 105 200 (-109)
? 14 17 236 221 31 … 246 (-108)

2

Hello Karel-Henk,

I’m trying to do the same thing. But really struggling. Do you have the steps handy please.

Unfortunately im really new to all this as well.

Thanks

3

Output looks good. The ? packets are incomplete packets. You can turn off reporting off incomplete packets by enabling quiet mode. Issue command via serial:

1q

Your RF remote controls are probably OOK (On-Off Keying) RF devices. The RFM69CW is an FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) device and might struggle to receive and transmit OOK at least without modification.

To transmit OOK the easiest way is using an OOK transmitter: Remote Control of LightWave RF plugs via MQTT using emonPi with OOK Tx - Blog | OpenEnergyMonitor