Open Hedda opened 2 years ago
Hedda
commented
2 years ago As a real-word example you can see that tube0013 has chosen to make sure to always differ antenna alinement orientation of WiFi and Zigbee antennas in his Tube's Zigbee Gateways so that those will not conflict as much when using onboard PBC antenna
https://github.com/tube0013/tube_gateways
Examples of good non-interfering/non-conflicting antenna alinement orientation in Tube's products:
Hedda
commented
2 years ago Alternatively, you could of course just change the antenna alinement orientation on the next PiZiGate PCB radio board revision.
That might actually be the simplest solution, and you might then also also want to consider switching to a ceramic chip antenna:
https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2020-understanding-ceramic-chip-antenna-vs-pcb-trace-antenna
Also, recommend add a metal shield cap cover over the Zigbee circuits to give those some shielding from electromagnetic interference, (this is why only the antenna is exposed on ESP32 and all expertly designed Zigbee modules by the original manufacturer.).
Again if could as well be a good option to combine that with a thicker PCB copper weight to add electromagnetic shielding.
This would as a bonus make antenna alinement orientation match antenna orientations of some other Zigbee PCB radio boards:
Elelabs/Popp Zigbee shield (based on Silibas EFR32MG12 with EZSP serial interface) use other antenna alinement orientation:
https://elelabs.com/products/elelabs-zigbee-shield.html
https://www.popp.eu/zb-shield/
So does also RaspBee and RaspBee II (RaspBee 2) Zigbee shields by Dresden Electronik (which use deconz serial interface):
And the same goes for the Texas Instruments CC2562P Zigbee shields by Egony as well as the ZigStar shield by mercenaruss
https://github.com/egony/cc2652p_E72-2G4M20S1E/wiki/Home-EN
https://github.com/egony/cc2652p_cc1352p_RF-STAR/wiki/Home-EN
https://zig-star.com/projects/zigbee-shield/
fairecasoimeme
commented
2 years ago Hi,
Yes I know all of this. and as only PiZiGate has this kind of orientation, I chose to place ESP32 in this sens. I'll recommend to choose PiZiGate with extern antena when the user want to use WiFi or Bluetooth.
otherwise the impact of two antennas of the same frequency in the sense exists but is not enormous either.
But I'll review the design of the ZiGate.
Thanks for informations
mercenaruss
commented
2 years ago @Hedda For example in my case, i designed specially for use only over LAN or USB - no Wifi, because not so stable. So antenna don't make any interference, the same apply for TubesGW if used over LAN or USB. For @fairecasoimeme if his board is intended for use over Wifi, then he 100% should change ESP to the edge of the board and possible to change orientation of ZigBee Module.
fairecasoimeme
commented
2 years ago Hi, the main goal is to use Ethernet. WiFi is mostly used to config (with web app) the gateway. However in practise, I don't observe radio glitch and it's rather stable ... but you're right, the most optimised is to change ZiGate module PCB antenna. I preconise to choose extern antenna for ZiGate module. thx for remarks
mercenaruss
commented
2 years ago Hi, the main goal is to use Ethernet. WiFi is mostly used to config (with web app) the gateway. However in practise, I don't observe radio glitch and it's rather stable ... but you're right, the most optimised is to change ZiGate module PCB antenna. I preconise to choose extern antenna for ZiGate module. thx for remarks
Exactly what i was trying to say to @Hedda .
Hedda
commented
2 years ago Suggest fairecasoimeme might want to stop marketing ZiGate-Ethernet gateway as being compatible with both Ethernet and WiFi.
https://zigate.fr/documentation/descriptif-de-la-zigate-ethernet/
fairecasoimeme
commented
2 years ago But why would I stop saying that the ZiGate-Ethernet is not compatible with both wifi and ethernet? This is not the case for my part. And what does this have to do with hard drives on USB 3.0? There is no USB on ZiGate-Ethernet.
The USB interference is referenced since a lot and concern RPi or RPI like. This is off topic here ....
Hedda
commented
2 years ago But why would I stop saying that the ZiGate-Ethernet is not compatible with both wifi and ethernet? This is not the case for my part. And what does this have to do with hard drives on USB 3.0? There is no USB on ZiGate-Ethernet.
I only mean that there difference between being compatible with Wi-Fi and marketing it as being compatible with Wi-Fi.
Marketing means advertising that this is how the product is meant to be used, as posed to an unadvertised optional feature.
Again it is only a suggestion based on the fact that Wi-Fi transmissions are known to interfere with Zigbee reception quality.
@fairecasoimeme For the next hardware revision, please consider changing the orientation of the ESP32 module (or rather the ESP32 antenna alinement orientation) as if using a different orientation than the WiFi signals will hopefully interfere less with the Zigbee signals.
Good non-interfering/non-conflicting antenna alinement orientation verses bad interfering/conflicting antenna alinement orientation
Basic PCB radio design architecture says that if you have two radios on the same board then you should use different antenna alinement orientations of them from each other, especially if they use the same overlapping radio frequencies like Wi-Fi and Zigbee.
If possible it would also be better if the ESP32 module/antenna could be placed on the other side of the board instead, and maybe even combine that with a thicker PCB copper weight as those two choices would help further shield WiFi from Zigbee.
PS: As an alternative, you could consider using an ESP32 chip/module that simply does not feature an antenna, but then you would lose the option to use it for Bluetooth.