Hi,@Mplank
@fomi
Do you know why this happens?
I installed the library for arduino, but when I check for the RAK SERIAL PORT TOOL it stays there and does not advance, is there an error in the module?
the pin mapping is ok?
thanks!
Hi @ivancho
yes,the pin mapping is right.Did you use the example code and didn’t modify any code？use it with wisblock+rak811 ? Micro USB power it?
Anybody any luck already?
I see the JOIN request being received by my gateway and application device but the JOIN fails.
I think it has to do with the antenna switching in the RAK811. This is not supported by LMIC. I changed LMIC to also switch the PA but was not succesful in receiving anything…
I’m using the “RAK811 Tracker Board”. LED blinking works fine with the arduino suite but receiving the JOIN response fails.
Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.
Hi @Milo,
Yes, LMIC is used on RAK811 and there is an issue that the join process will fail usually.
We find this issue too.
So we change another LoRaWAN library, even though the feature is few, but it can work well.
Just for you to refer to:
Ok, thanks. But I really like to have OTAA and LMIC seems to be very useable for that. I’m very willing to patch that library to function with the RAK811.
If you have some ideas on what to fix that would help a lot. Saves a lot of time researching the issue.
For now I thought that the main issue was with the antenna switching but I changed the code to also switch the PA and this did not help. Besides that… My gateway is next to my node so even without proper switching I would assume at least something is received.
Sending seems to also work with the LMIC library and I would assume that ABP mode with the LMIC lib should also work.
@Milo, i’m really sorry for that.
We’ve ever worked on porting LMIC to RAK811 for several days, but not success…
Maybe someone else can help on this? Or we can submit a suggestion togather in LMIC github repo for supporting RAK811, if they agree, RAK can send several RAK811 modules/development boards to LMIC team for debuging.
Ok. Then I’ll try to get it working myself. Should be possible because I do have functioning code in the form of the firmware.
If I get it working I’m very willing to test the other boards as wel 
I’ll keep you posted. As this is not my daily job it can take some time.
MAG,
Milo
@Fomi, previous work with LMIC on Arduino Pro Mini with RFM95W was working fine.
LMIC version > 2.2.2 didn’t really work very well.
And then Arduino IDE > 1.8.9 ended up exceeding the 32K memory.
So it could get very complicated trying to resolve!
Hi @nmcc,
Thanks for your information. We’ve used LMIC on RAK4600 and it works well on RAK4600. (Actually, we’ve used it in RAK’s showcase on TTN conference 2020 successfully.)
But for RAK811, it can’t work.
For another project using SX1262, LMIC can’t works too, and we must research how to support SX1262 in LMIC by ourself… So i think there are many things need to do in LMIC, even though LMIC is a better choice of Arduino LoRaWAN stack.
I’m told the registers are different but that the TXCO works really well, so worth the effort.
If I had the time I’d pull LMIC back to it’s barebones, but the reality is that for small production runs of nodes, using a 811 or 4200 with some size of Arduino (Pro Mini or Nano Every) gives quick reliable results.
Hi @nmcc,
Sorry, i can’t understand very well. Do you mean there may be some risk to run LMIC on a small flash size module like RAK811 and RAK4200? or do you mean that an Arduino size RAK811 board will be helpful for resolving the issue?
Yes, exactly that, when we went from LMIC 2.2.2 to any other version, it needed far more flash & was very unreliable and for some reason, even v2.2.2 using Arduino 1.8.10 or above compiles with an even larger binary without changing any code at all.
This is why I have moved to using your modules - we &/or client can use Arduino for rapid prototyping and we can leave you to solve the LoRa Mac problem for us!
Hi @nmcc,
Thanks for your information.
BTW, we want to make a new module with SX1262 recently, and it will run Arduino. Do you know whether there is an usable LoRaWAN stack for Arduino which can work with SX1262?
You know, LMIC doesn’t support SX1262 now, so it can’t be used.
I’ve searched on Github, and found there is a repo which is developed based on Semtech Basicmac stack:
But the author said that it is not usable by now.
I know someone who’s implemented something to test the TXCO on the SX1262 and run some distance & freezer tests - I’ll see what he used but I’m aware he normally only does LoRa - I’ll come back to you
PS, I’ve met the chap behind Ideetron - he’s very good so if he gets it going, it should be good!
Hi @nmcc,
Yes, that repo seems really good, if it can be done finally.
Looking forward for your good news!
Thank you!
Hi @nmcc,
I’ve discussed on Github with the author of another Arduino-Basicmac repo, and he tell me that his repo based on Basicmac has supported SX1262 now:
Do you think it is reliable to use this one? Or we should also port LMIC to support SX1262 by ourself?
Looking forward for your suggestion.
Ha, it’s getting a bit of a tangle. I’ve used matt’s library as well. All of the Arduino LMIC ports suffer from bit rot, the flow of code is not very clear, the more recent versions exceed the 32K so you have to use a larger Arduino and, this is the bit I hate, it uses a very simple task scheduler to sort out the timing which can make things very challenging to debug - which as it’s just for the two receive windows could have been accommodated with a simple blocking timer (like the original Ideetron library) or a timer interrupt. At one point I printed out the LMIC source so I could try & trace through it all.
I met lacuna.space at TTN UK conference - very ambitious project but they seem well resourced so they should be keeping the library up to date. But it still seems to be LMIC at the core.
There seem to be a number of options:
- Use the LacunaSpace library
- Porting https://github.com/Lora-net/LoRaMac-node - it already supports SX126x and your target processor has all the right facilities
- Using your current library and the information from the LacunaSpace repository to patch over the SX126x support
I haven’t tried your Arduino library on a RAK811 but it looks to be very similar to where I left Atmega328 + RFM95W behind due to space constraints, even moving to 4809 I couldn’t do some things like BME680 etc - part of our design goal for entry level devices is to provide a starter kit that’s very accessible - there are many people who can cope with Arduino - but once you start introducing HAL files etc for a moderate sized STM32 or similar, it all gets very complicated.
I can see that a BLE, LoRa with USB using the Arduino IDE for development & programming has a lot of potential! What are your timescales for your new module?