LoraWan modules for Espruino Pico #914
Replies: 78 comments
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Posted at 2015-11-16 by @yerpj Hi @GNZ, I look forward to see projects taking their power both from LoRaWAN and Espruino :-) That is a good thing too, to see such projects in Switzerland.. There is not so many people here to work on IoT . Your wiring seems OK. For the antenna, you could just solder a wire 8.6[cm] long, which is a 1/4 wavelength antenna. This should work fine. (it is important that the ground pins 22 and 24 of the RN27483 are connected to ground, as they will act as the reference voltage for the antenna. Once done, the software should be straightforward:
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Posted at 2015-11-16 by @gfwilliams That'd be great! When it was announced (before the KickStarter) I tried to get in touch and see if I could do anything to add support, but all my emails got ignored so I gave up. Shame, as I'd have bought one of the access points otherwise :) I'm afraid the link seems broken so I can't see the diagrams, but... What you're suggesting sounds fine - I would just use the one 3.3v pin on the Espruino though. I'm not sure how much power the module draws, but if it's 150mA or less you should be fine without any external voltage regulator. Getting a driver for Espruino should be easy. I'd look at using the AT module though - it's generally meant for serial modems, but it handles the whole send data, wait, get result thing really easily (and asynchronously so Espruino doesn't block). |
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Posted at 2015-11-16 by @yerpj (The module draws a maximum of 38.9 mA when transmitting @ 868MHz: http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/50002346A.pdf ) |
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Posted at 2015-11-16 by gnz Thanks guys! I just fixed the link (there were parenthesis in the name that messed up the markdown link). |
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Posted at 2015-11-25 by gnz Do you guys have any tips on how to solder these 0.05" pins on the Microchip? I've been trying but is incredibly tricky, especially because the board is not very thick. In comparison, the ones on the Espruino Pico are a walk in the park because the board is thicker and the castellation is deeper. Is it the only sane approach the use of a PCB on top of which I can solder this? If that's the case, do you know of any that would fit for this chip? Thanks! |
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Posted at 2015-11-25 by @yerpj Microchip provides an evaluation board for this module : http://www.microchip.com/DevelopmentTools/ProductDetails.aspx?PartNO=dm164138 , unfortunately it is not cheap at all. (60~70$) |
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Posted at 2015-11-25 by @gfwilliams I don't know if it helps, but @drazzy makes these prototype boards that have SOIC pinouts on them as well as space for a Pico - as far as I know, they're 0.05" pitch. |
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Posted at 2015-11-25 by LawrenceGrif Hi all I too am a member of thethingsnetwork.org have Pico running with Multictech mDot for over 6 months Pico & LoRaWAN are a great combo |
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Posted at 2015-11-25 by @gfwilliams Wow, sounds good. Has the mDot got firmware on it that interfaces with thethingsnetwork then? Would you be prepared to contribute the drivers you wrote for the Pico? I'm sure a load of people here would be interested in that! |
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Posted at 2015-11-27 by gnz @drazzy, nice boards! But we would need more SOIC pins, the RN2483 has 47 in total (20 on each side and 7 on the top). Would be cool if you would add those to your tindie store, I pre-order! ;) |
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Posted at 2015-11-28 by DrAzzy My god, that thing looks dreadful to try to solder without a proper breakout board Do you think there's enough demand that I'd be able to move a 10~12 board order? I've got a lot of designs that aren't exactly setting the world on fire - more like gathering dust (note the two breakout boards I got a batch of 30 - and haven't sold a single one of) That would have to be a board dedicated to the RN2483 - that's a bizzaro package, and I don't think the same layout could be readily used for other things, particularly with the ones on the end outputting RF (hence layout sensitive). |
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Posted at 2015-11-28 by gnz @drazzy at least 10 I'll buy myself, not sure if there are others interested but it is likely because here in Zurich we ordered about 45 of these little guys in the last couple of weeks, some of the more hardware-skilled guys are trying to connect it as is or build their our breakout boards. I don't have the skills to design my own board, so, I'd gladly buy these ones if you have them for sale. :) |
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Posted at 2015-11-28 by Sacha @drazzy |
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Posted at 2015-11-30 by @gfwilliams I'd buy some as well (only maybe 2 though :) With the Pico pinout, that'd be awesome but I imagine more people are interested in RN2483 than just those with Picos. I guess a nice-ish option would be to make the pinout on the header such that you could just push it into a breadboard right next to a Pico, without any jumper wires needed? Then you could always solder a Pico on the back of it if you wanted... |
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Posted at 2015-11-30 by DrAzzy Hmmm.... I was thinking I'd use the same scheme as the evaluation board for the RF pins (one going to a through hole, the other going to an SMA connector. I don't have the expertise to put the antenna on the board, since you need to do impedance matching for that, and that's a dark art in which I am not skilled. Originally, I was thinking I'd break out the GPIO lines to rows of through holes, and then put Gnd/Vcc/Tx/Rx on one row of pins, so people could easily connect to them. And maybe a spot to put a 3.3v regulator. If we were to make it Pico-friendly.... the pico would go where? Soldered to the bottom? In that case, there would have to be a second batch of through holes to make the Pico pins accessible (since only a couple of them would be connected to the Pico), since a microcontroller that can only talk to wireless and has no other hardware connected isn't very interesting. But this extra row of pins might be objectionable for people using it with things other than Espruino... Thoughts? |
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Posted at 2016-01-07 by gnz yay! :) |
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Posted at 2016-01-19 by DrAzzy Back in stock! |
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Posted at 2016-01-20 by DrAzzy I'd love to make a post over in that thread on The Things Network, but I'm not allowed to make any more posts in that thread because I have already made three posts there, and I'm a "new user". http://forum.thethingsnetwork.org/t/rn2483-breakout/729/28 Can anyone help me out there and let people know that these are back in stock? |
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Posted at 2016-01-21 by pdominique Does anyone know if this breakout board would work with a RN2903? As far as I understand this is what I need to use here in Canada (915 Mhz radio). |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by DrAzzy !!! Pinout is identical - it should work! I wonder how many other compatible units there are? |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by pdominique Nice. Btw I left a message on the TTN forum yesterday to let people know your boards are back in stock. |
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Posted at 2016-01-22 by DrAzzy Actually - Re: RN2903, there are two differences:
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Posted at 2016-07-07 by @gfwilliams Did anything ever come of this? Is there any example code? Looks like getting the RN2483 working isn't too painful at all: https://thinginnovations.uk/getting-started-with-microchip-rn2483-lorawan-modules |
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Posted at 2016-07-07 by gnz I've been super busy but I had a simple driver working at some point, I will make it a bit more complete now that the ttn open network has OTAA support and publish as soon as I have a bit of time. |
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Posted at 2016-07-08 by @gfwilliams That'd be awesome - thanks! |
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Posted at 2017-01-30 by OwenBrotherwood Good morning. Br Owen |
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Posted at 2017-01-31 by @allObjects @OwenBrotherwood, are you planning to expose some of the interfaces of this quad controlling to JS? ...or just using puck as the board instead of the heavy one in the blog? |
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Posted at 2017-01-31 by OwenBrotherwood espruino is at the moment my favorite in terms of microcontroller: I feel I have a ZX80 on steroids. |
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Posted at 2017-01-31 by @allObjects The question is "control on what level". Speed is of essence. Close loop control for a given control should not be interfered with JavaScript execution. As long as the hw interrupt and other time sensitive requests by flight control are timely handled, it works. Otherwise you have to move onto a dual core or two processors, where one is just taking care of the time sensitive things and co-ops / communicates with the other running Espruino... |
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Posted at 2017-01-31 by OwenBrotherwood I have not enough experience with Espruino yet to see if the architecture can handle the job. In olden days, the guy who made the cannon, had to sit on it when it was first fired. |
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Posted at 2015-11-16 by gnz
Hi guys,
I'm part of a community deploying an open/free LoRaWAN network in Zurich (thethingsnetwork.org) and I'd love to be able to use my Espruinos to connect to it. I got a couple of Microchip RN2483 modules (LoRaWAN transceiver) that provide a serial interface, but I really don't have the skills to wire it up to the Espruino Pico.
Could you please give me a hand on how I should wire it? What I've found is this schematics: https://www.dropbox.com/s/679gjqza5fk5tp3/LoRa%20QuickStart%20Guide%20(English).pdf?dl=0 targeted at Arduino.
So, my (likely poor!) understanding of all this is that I should wire as follows:
Once wiring is done, creating a driver for this should be almost trivial. I guess is just a matter of adapting this sample code to Espruino.
Cheers
Gonzalo
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