New Espruino Board #1614
Replies: 170 comments
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by @gfwilliams Just to add, this has one button and two LEDs. However no JST power connector or battery switchover circuitry - nobody really seemed to be using it that much and it makes layout a headache and adds to the cost. |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by Snerkle Is it worth considering hardware flow control on the usart with the ESP8266? |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by asez73 Well, I found that power management is critical in iot... |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by verdeimpacat Hope the Real Time Clock is kept in the new design. |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by @gfwilliams @Snerkle I'm not sure if that's available in the firmware - if it is then yes, that could be an option. Of course I didn't think of that, but Espruino can do software flow control. If that could be turned on in ESP8266 via some AT command then it'd work right now. @asez73 I'm definitely connecting the power-down pin, which should totally power the ESP8266 down - I'm sure it will still draw some power, but it won't be much. I'll just have to add some functions to allow the user to toggle it, but that should be pretty easy. @verdeimpacat yes, I'm definitely keeping the pads for the low speed oscillator, and will see if I can fit it in this version. It'd make a big difference. There's still some work that could be done on the Pico that'd really improve the RTC accuracy though - I'll see if I can get it in soon. I'm afraid an SMD version is unlikely, because the ESP8266 has to be stuck onto the back of the board. I guess if the PCB was castellated then you could stick it onto a board with a hole milled in it, but I wonder if anyone would actually do that - especially since I don't think you could reflow it or the ESP8266 would fall off the bottom! Since there are no 0.05" pins, you could just fit a socket onto your board though - I'd imagine that'd be ok for small production runs (or soldering directly?). |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by RandyHarmon Kudos for such great functionality crammed onto such a small PCB. I guess it wouldn't be feasible to put the low-profile main processor on the back, with the ESP8266 on the top side - not that it would really make the board surface-mountable, unless a depression (not quite a hole) was carved for the STM to nest into to the "host" PCB. ?? |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by RandyHarmon Does this version have dummy-proofing power protection against ground shorts? |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by @gfwilliams For anyone else thinking about flow control, it looks like Yes, the board will have a fuse in it - while there is a diode it's only there to stop voltage flowing back into USB, so it won't protect against reverse voltage I'm afraid. The ESP12 module is actually pretty tight on the back - putting the STM32 on top means there's enough space to (finally!) have pin markings where they can be seen - which I think is probably better than being slightly more SMD mountable :) |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by @yerpj I would reconsider the uselessness of the battery support... (JST header and/or step-up/down) Just a tip for the reverse voltage protection, you can try this mosfet based solution, which requires only 1 component http://rs20.mine.nu/w/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pfet.png Could we imagine this board providing a mechanical hole, in order to ease the mounting ? Thank you @gfwilliams, for always trying to improve the Espruino and its user experience. |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by Ollie I'm too new at this but my immediate thought was why not use ESP8266 as the host for Espruino and have the board be the shim - with the USB and extra storage et al. I don't really understand why it would use two chips, which are both capable of running Espruino. I've missed stuff, I'm sure I must have. My apologies in advance. |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by the1laz @ollie there are plenty of ESP8266 boards that you can buy, I'm not sure that there's much to be gained in having an espruino specific one. There's also some advantages in having a chip with more functionality, hardware spi/i2c etc, multiple ADCs, more I/O, etc. Not to mention that if @gfwilliams is selling a board, I'm sure he's going to be doing something he can be in control of the quality of. He wrote Espruino for STM32s and I imagine it'd take plenty of effort to keep up the stability and quality of the official builds. The ESP8266 firmware is going great (I'm planning on using a couple of ESP8266 boards at home) but it's not feature complete yet and very much depends on the contributions of other people to keep up with bugs and features. I think that Gordon's set a high standard for the official boards and their firmware, it'd be difficult for him to maintain it for a completely different chipset. |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by the1laz @gfwilliams have you thought about keeping the same pins as the pico to try and keep some similarities between the boards? Have you considered going for a slightly bigger board in exchange for cheaper larger components? I imagine shrinking things like crystals would bump the cost of the board up by a few dollars. |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by tve Which power regulator are you using? |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by Ollie @the1laz thanks yes that makes some sense. |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by DrAzzy That looks pretty slick - looks like it will be a great tool for a lot of jobs. Which micro are you planning to go with? What do you mean by removing the battery switcher? What will the power section look like now? |
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Posted at 2016-09-13 by @gfwilliams @ollie thanks! That was a stupid mistake :) That's what comes of designing them 4 months ago and then sitting on it before making the page. I've just added a redirect. @drazzy at least it wasn't too long this time. The frustrating thing is the URL just 404s to everyone except me until they approve it, so if you link to it it looks like your site's broken :( @spocki thanks for the update - got some orders already this morning! |
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Posted at 2016-09-13 by @gfwilliams Direct Tindie link: https://www.tindie.com/products/gfwilliams/espruino-wifi/ |
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Posted at 2016-09-13 by ClearMemory041063 Does it do AES? |
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Posted at 2016-09-14 by @gfwilliams Yes - it works just like the Pico, but has a bit more RAM so stuff like AES will be easier. |
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Posted at 2016-09-14 by DrAzzy Ordered mine |
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Posted at 2016-09-14 by @gfwilliams Thanks! I literally just handed yours to the postman :) |
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Posted at 2016-09-14 by @allObjects What happen, @drazzy: Doesn't the sun rise in the East? jk ;) ...they will be gone quickly! |
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Posted at 2016-09-14 by Ollie Mine arrived today. Very nice looking board. Finish is great. |
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Posted at 2016-09-14 by Ollie Can we save a wifi configuration, similar to how ESP8266 wifi.save() implementation works, so the board joins the network or acts as AP when powered up? |
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Posted at 2016-09-15 by tve FYI, if you ever do another rev, you might want to consider a cut-out in the PCB above the antenna. It makes a difference. Espressif has a pretty good app note about the antenna stuff with test results and the cut out performs better. |
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Posted at 2016-09-15 by DrAzzy What are the connections to the esp8266? Can we flash firmware to the esp8266 "through" the espruino? |
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Posted at 2016-09-15 by @gfwilliams @tve thanks! Yeah, I'll have a go at that. There's no copper on that part of the PCB, but it still interferes? @ollie thanks! I'm totally sold on matte black now :) right now the ESP8266 itself remembers, but the JS that drives it ignores the reconnect. That could change, but you have to explicitly call something to enable the WiFi anyway (it's off by default) so IMO it's less of a big deal. @drazzy there's pretty much a bare minimum connected to the ESP8266 (boot, Rx, tx, ch_pd and flow control), but yes, that's enough to flash the ESP8266 through Espruino.... Not that I hope you'll have to since the AT firmware seems pretty stable now |
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Posted at 2016-09-17 by tve Well, maybe the cut-out isn't the biggest improvement. See http://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/esp-wroom-02_pcb_design_and_module_placement_guide.pdf page 3 if interested |
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Posted at 2016-09-19 by @gfwilliams Wow, thanks for that! The results are a bit strange - I guess the radiation pattern changes and it's pretty hard to measure that with any certainty... At least what I'm doing isn't the worst though :) It's not like it'd hurt removing the PCB though - I guess the only gotcha would be if it made it more likely that users bent the ESP8266 module while trying to pull the Espruino Wifi out of breadboard |
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Posted at 2016-09-23 by @yerpj The PCB material (most of the time FR-4) has its influence in term of RF performance, as its dielectric constant is not the same as air. Anyway, in your case, you should not worry about radiation pattern, as the module is meant to be put on a breadboard, which contains several metallic strips inside, which will cause most of the radiation loss. |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by @gfwilliams
Hi,
I've been finding recently that 95% of all the sales from my Tindie store are for the Espruino WiFi shim - which, let's face it, isn't the easiest thing to solder up. It kind of points to the fact that quite a lot of people want WiFi.
Now the Pico can do HTTPS with the ESP8266, and given it uses so much RAM there isn't a great deal left for other things, I've decided to make another board with both an ESP8266 and a chip with a little bit more RAM on (probably 128kB).
Earlier this week I sent the first PCB off - it looks as below. It's roughly an inch by a little under an inch - about the smallest I could get it with the WiFi module on board, and pretty much everything is available on 0.1" pins so it's quite breadboard friendly. This one's got Micro USB too, rather than an on-board connector.
Does anyone have any thoughts, or things they'd really like to see on it?
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