Connecting a nRF24L01 to the Raspberry Pi 3

The problem

While working on my latest project, I struggled to get the nRF24L01 working with the Raspberry Pi 3. My goal was to enable communication between the RPi3 and an Arduino using these modules to exchange data. Specifically, for this project, I only needed one-way communication, with the RPi3 acting as the receiver.

I discovered that while several libraries exist for this, many are either obsolete or simply don’t support the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS. To save you the headache, I’m going to show you exactly how I got it up and running.

Used chip

Required components:

Raspberry Pi 3
nRF24l01 module
Arduino Nano
Dupont cables.

Raspberry Pi 3 to nRF24l01 connection

Setting up the physical connection between the RPi3 and the nRF24L01 can be a bit chaotic and error-prone, so take your time. You can find the wiring diagram below to guide you. I strongly recommend connecting everything while the RPi3 is powered off. Before booting it back up, double-check your power supply lines—mixing up 3.3V and 5V could be a costly mistake!

Tip

Although the standard wiring should be enough, the nRF24L01 is prone to power consumption spikes. These can cause stability issues, so I recommend adding a 0.1µF to 10µF capacitor between the VCC and GND pins of the module. This helps smooth out the voltage and ensures a much more reliable signal.

Trust me, skipping this tiny capacitor is the number one reason why these modules ‘randomly’ fail. Save yourself the troubleshooting time!

Installing the software

Enabling SPI in `raspi-config`

The first thing to keep in mind is that the nRF24L01 communicates via the SPI protocol, which is disabled by default on Raspberry Pi OS.

To enable it, you’ll need to use the raspi-config tool. Once the interface opens, navigate through: 'Interfacing Options' -> 'SPI' -> 'Yes' -> 'Finish' After selecting ‘Ok’ to confirm, the SPI interface will be active and ready to go. You might need to reboot for the changes to take full effect, so keep that in mind!

Tip

Pro tip: If you prefer the command line, you can also do this by running

sudo raspi-config nonint do_spi 0

Compiling the nRF24l01 library

The next step is installing and configuring the nRF24l01 library but beforehand we need to configure the Python3

# Install required Python3 libraries
sudo apt-get install python3-dev libboost-python-dev python3-setuptools python3-rpi.gpio

# Clone the source code repository
git clone https://github.com/nRF24/RF24 nrf24

# Configure and compile the source code
cd nrf24
./configure --driver=SPIDEV
make
sudo make install

# Install the library.
cd pyRF24/
python3 setup.py build
sudo python setup.py install

Using the installed driver.

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import RF24
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import time
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import struct
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pipes = [ 0x52, 0x78, 0x41, 0x41, 0x41 ]
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pipesbytes = bytearray(pipes)
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radio = RF24.RF24()
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radio.begin(25, 0) #Set CE and IRQ pins
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radio.setPALevel(RF24.RF24_PA_MAX)
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radio.setDataRate(RF24.RF24_250KBPS)
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radio.setChannel(0x4c)
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radio.openReadingPipe(1, pipesbytes)
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radio.startListening()
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radio.printDetails()
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#radio.powerUp()
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cont=0
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while True:
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  pipe = [1]
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  while not radio.available():
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    time.sleep(0.250)
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  recv_buffer = bytearray([])
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  recv_buffer = radio.read(32)
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  print(recv_buffer)

Sending data

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import RF24
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import time
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pipes = [ 0x52, 0x78, 0x41, 0x41, 0x41 ]
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pipesbytes = bytearray(pipes)
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radio = RF24.RF24()
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radio.begin(25, 0) #Set CE and IRQ pins
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radio.setDataRate(RF24.RF24_250KBPS)
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radio.setRetries(3,5)
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radio.setPALevel(RF24.RF24_PA_MAX)
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radio.openWritingPipe(pipesbytes)
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radio.powerUp()
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radio.printDetails()
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while True:
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  print(radio.write(b"Hola"))
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  time.sleep(1)