Arduino Yun & nRF24L01+ -> Linino crashing

Question

I'm trying to hook up a nRF24L01+ wireless transmitter to an Arduino Yun Mini on SPI, but I'm having a hard time. After a few minutes Linino crashes and becomes completetly inaccessible - until I upload a new sketch to the Arduino.

I connected the SPI pins (MOSI, MISO and SCK) to the corrensponding pins of the Yun. I connected CE to pin 3 and CSN to pin 2. I'm using the RF24 library found here: https://github.com/TMRh20/RF24

The following little code is enough to make Linino crash:

#include <SPI.h>
#include "RF24.h"
RF24 radio(3,2);
void setup() {
 radio.begin();
}
void loop() {
}

What am I doing wrong here? Any ideas? Any help is greatly appreciated!

• Majenko: Sounds like lack of power to me. What are you powering the board with?
• Avamander: ~14mA, I doubt it. Does Linino work with the default, empty sketch?
• DinuTheHuman: I power the board with an external power supply, two voltages common ground. 5V/1.5A attached to Vin. There is one component on the pcb (h-bridge) hocked up to 12V supply, common ground. There's a 3V3 voltage regulator (no logic level converter) between the 5V rail and the Vcc of the nRF24L01. And yes, Linino is doing fine with an empty sketch.
• DinuTheHuman: Random thought I had: Since I use an Arduino Yun mini I only have wifi to access linino. Could it be possible that the nRF24L01 is jamming wifi that much that it is unable to connect to the router? I guess that sounds strange but would explain the strange behaviour.
• DinuTheHuman: I tested the hypothesis of radio interference and I could be on to something. I did this before by changing the distance to the router, which didn't seem to do the trick. Now I got an external wifi antenna and it seems to work more stable now. I'll do a long-term test and post the results here.

Answer 1

I finally managed to get it running. It really seems to be a problem with radio interference. I failed to hook up an external WLAN antenna to the Arduino Yun mini but I found a very useful workaround with a usb adapter here: http://www.lucadentella.it/en/2014/11/08/yun-adattatore-wifi-usb/

This workaround is possible with an Arduino Yun mini as well but you'll need the Arduino Yun Linux OS from here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

because the necessary packages are not available for the Linino system that comes with the Yun mini. Then, you can connect the WiFi adapter to USB+, USB-, 5V and GND of the Yun mini and you're good to go.