I have an emonTxV3 that I bought in Nov 2018 that appears to be failing. I have a program I run to check feed status and lately it’s been reporting missing data from this emonTx. The emonTx is one of two I bought, and is very close to the receiving emoncms system; the other is much further away. Looking at the signal strength reported by emoncms it seems the signal from this emonTx has become weaker over the last six months, going from between -25 and -34 to a much more variable range between -34 and -59 this last month. Data drop outs have become more frequent and longer.
So my questions are:
Have I provided enough detail to diagnose the problem?
Is there a cure?
Or is it time to replace one or both emonTX with all the hassle that will bring?
Edit to add - Here’s a picture of the signal strengths over the last few months:
How close is “very”? What is between them? What is there by way of radio reflective surfaces around them which might reflect a wave that adds destructively, that’s moved slowly or otherwise changed physically over time?
I’m not saying it’s not failing, but those are things which might affect the received signal of one and not the other.
This is my emonTH V1, it’s on one side of the garage and the emonPi is on the other. When the car is out, the RSSI is lower. Clearly, a reflection off the car is adding constructively to the direct wave and reinforcing it.
It’s about a metre separation. The emonTx is mounted on the wall above my emonBase, which is sat on a worktop. The area is around my consumer units, so there’s an awful lot of wires etc also fastened to the wall. There’s a load of other things on the worktop as well.
But my problem is the increasing periods of data dropout. The decreased signal strength is maybe a symptom or maybe nothing - its signal is always better than the more remote emonTx.
If it’s r.f. collisions, then stopping one transmitting will most surely remove that possible cause, and the wired connection will provide a 100% signal into the emonBase.
I don’t have any suggestions at all. That’s why I asked my original questions.
If it’s r.f. collisions, then stopping one transmitting will most surely remove that possible cause, and the wired connection will provide a 100% signal into the emonBase.
Agreed, and maybe worth trying on spec, but why would the problem have appeared this year after working well for so long? And why is the stronger signal the one apparently having reception problems when the weaker signal isn’t? I’m not yet convinced the mechanism explains the symptoms.
