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UNIT Electronics DualMCU Joins Together An ESP32 and RP2040 in One Board

by shedboy71

There are so many development boards available in the market, it can be tricky to find a board with a lot of versatility and power.

Additionally, the target use cases involving ESP32 generally require more I/O for data transmission, and RP2040 projects lack support for WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

This board from UNIT Electronics attempts to solve this problem with the DualMCU. Hence, this development board combines the features of two 32-bit microprocessors– the ESP-WROOM-32, and the Raspberry Pi RP2040.

The ESP-WROOM-32 module has two Tensilica Xtensa LX7 with a clock speed of up to 240MHz and SRAM of 520kB, WiFi, Bluetooth/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio.
Meanwhile, the RP2040 constitutes two Arm cortex-M0+ with a clock speed of 133MHz and 264kB of SRAM, along with 16MB of external FLASH memory. It also supports 30 GPIO pins, 4 ADC channels, 16 PWM channels, and useful PIOs to increase the development board’s applications further.

 

Some of the Features:

Combines a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and an Espressif ESP32 chip on a compact board.
Offers Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Features four programmable cores with wireless functions and advanced capabilities.

The RP2040 microcontroller has a clock speed of 133MHz, 264kB of SRAM, support for up to 16MB of external flash memory, 30 GPIO pins, 4 ADC channels, and 16 PWM channels, amongst many other features.
The ESP32 chip has a clock speed of up to 240MHz, integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and support for multiple wireless protocols, amongst many other features.

With its Dual CORE architecture, this development board comes with robust capabilities for IoT projects in addition to its advanced low-power features and WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity. But, the board has four programmable COREs–two Arm cortex-M0+ and two LX7, with wireless features and Arduino IDE and MicroPython support for programming. This means that one can program each core using MicroPython, CircuitPython, as well as with Arduino Programming Language.

The DualMCU has a large range of potential applications like the Internet of Things(IoT), prototype development, and robotics. Also, the high processing capacity from RP2040, along with its flexible programming support, enables the board to be used in extensive applications involving motor control and machine learning.

The two microcontrollers operate largely independently. For the most part, the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins for each microcontroller are on opposite sides of the board — this allows them to be treated as two boards in one, running independently. You can link the microcontrollers together — via UART, SPI, I2C, or in any other way — which then allows for cooperative use of the resources.

Pinout

Other Features

External Memory
The RP2040 (U1) has access to an external 2 MB of flash memory (U3) via a QSPI interface. All the application code and data must be stored in an external flash chip. Six dedicated pins are used to communicate with a separate QSPI flash, using execute-in-place (XIP) technology to run code directly from flash without needing to copy it to RAM first.

Cryptography IC
Optionally, the ATECC608A can be incorporated and used for authentication tasks, which can be accessed by both MCUs through selection pads for I2C communication. The ATECC608A Cryptographic IC (U7) provides secure boot capabilities alongside SHA and AES-128 encryption/decryption support for security in Smart Home and Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications.

RGB LED
The common anode RGB LED (L5) is also controlled by the ESP32 module such that the LED is on when the digital state is LOW and off when the digital state is HIGH.

WS2812B LED
The WS2812B (L4) led is an intelligent control RGB NeoPixel for full color indication integrated in a 3535 component package and is connected to RP2040 at pins GPIO16 for intelligent digital port (DI) and GPIO17 for power enable.

MicroSD Card Socket
The DualMCU interfaces a microSD card with ESP32 using the microSD card socket connected via an SPI interface. Using a microSD card becomes very handy for applications where we need to store files that are larger than the size of SPIFF (flash file system) of ESP32.

 

Development

The DualMCU development board is compatible with the Micropython Integrated Development Environment (IDE), such as Thonny, and also with the Arduino development environment. This means that you can use these development environments to program the DualMCU using both the Micropython or Circuitpython programming languages, as well as the Arduino programming language.

The support for the Micropython IDE includes an interactive console (REPL) for executing commands immediately in Micropython and Circuitpython. This allows you to easily and quickly test and debug your code.

Additionally, support for the Arduino development environment allows you to use the tools and extensive community available through Arduino to develop projects with the DualMCU development board. This can be especially useful if you are already familiar with Arduino and want to take advantage of its ease of use and wealth of resources.

Arduino Package RP2040 Index – JSON https://github.com/UNIT-Electronics/Uelectronics-RP2040-Arduino-Package
Arduino Package ESP32 Index – JSON https://github.com/UNIT-Electronics/Uelectronics-ESP32-Arduino-Package

Links

https://www.tindie.com/products/unitelectronics/unit-dualmcu-esp32-rp2040-development-board/

https://github.com/UNIT-Electronics/DualMCU

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Hardware

An ESP32 based Heart Rate Development Kit

by shedboy71

In this article we look at a bit of a niche product featuring an ESP32 it is a Heart development kit featuring an ESP32 and a Max30102.

The kit is already comes complete and you get a typical heart rate monitor that you can put a finger in.

You can see this in the image below

The MAX30102 is an integrated pulse oximetry and heart-rate monitor module. It includes internal LEDs, photodetectors, optical elements, and low-noise electronics with ambient light rejection. The MAX30102 provides a complete system solution to ease the design-in process for mobile and wearable devices.

The MAX30102 operates on a single 1.8V power supply and a separate 3.3V power supply for the internal LEDs. Communication is through a standard I2C-compatible interface. The module can be shut down through software with zero standby current, allowing the power rails to remain powered at all times.

The MPU-6050 devices combine a 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis accelerometer on the same silicon die, together with an onboard Digital Motion Processor™ (DMP™), which processes complex 6-axis MotionFusion algorithms. The device can access external magnetometers or other sensors through an auxiliary master I²C bus, allowing the devices to gather a full set of sensor data without intervention from the system processor

For precision tracking of both fast and slow motions, the parts feature a user-programmable gyro full-scale range of ±250, ±500, ±1000, and ±2000 °/sec (dps), and a user-programmable accelerometer full-scale range of ±2g, ±4g, ±8g, and ±16g. Additional features include an embedded temperature sensor and an on-chip oscillator with ±1% variation over the operating temperature range

Specifications

  • SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32 dual-core Tensilica SoC with WiFi 4 & Bluetooth connectivity
  • Display – 0.96-inch IPS LCD using a ST7735 SPI controller
  • Sensors
    • MAX30102 heart rate blood oxygen I2C sensor
    • MPU6050 6-axis accelerometer and gyroscope (I2C)
  • Debug – Micro USB port via CP2104 USB to TTL bridge
  • Misc -PCF8563 RTC, user button
  • Battery – 200 mAh; charging voltage and current: 5V, 500mah via micro USB port

 

Development

You can develop using the Arduino IDE and/or PlatformIO. The github link at the bottom has more information

Use Arduino IDE

  1. Install the correct serial port driver CP210X Driver
  2. Change src/main.cpp to src.ino
  3. Copy the files in the lib directory to ~/Arduino/libraries, Windows users copy to Documents/Arduino/libraries
  4. Double-click to open src/src.ino
  5. Change the port to the correct port and select upload

Use PlatformIO

  1. Install the correct serial port driver CP210X Driver
  2. Open directly to change your serial port in platformio.ini, click compile
  • Note: To use TFT_eSPI, you need to select the correct model, you need to select Setup26_TTGO_T_Wristband.h, which has the same definition as T-Wristband, If the copy is in the lib folder, you can ignore it

In the examples directory contains two sample programs, FactoryTest is the factory test file, HeartRateMeter is a simple heart rate meter.

Purchase

The kit costs about £27 – buy from aliexpress

Links

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGo-HeartRate-Kit

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Hardware

Another board – the ESP32C3-CORE Development Board

by shedboy71

This is another ESP32 I purchased for the collection

CORE ESP32 core board is a core board designed based on Espressif ESP32-C3, the size is only 21mm*51mm, and the edge of the board is designed with stamp holes, which is convenient for developers to use in different scenarios. 
The core board supports UART, GPIO, SPI, I2C, ADC, PWM and other interfaces, which can be selected according to actual needs.
Here is a picture of the board, it is marked with a website on the back luatos.com/t/esp32c3

Hardware

    • Size length and width 21mm*51mm
    • 1 way SPI FLASH, onboard 4MB, support up to 16MB
    • 2-way UART interface, UART0~UART1, among which the download port is UART0
    • 5 channels of 12-bit ADC, the highest sampling rate is 100KSPS
    • 1 low-speed SPI interface, support master mode
    • 1 way IIC controller
    • 4-way PWM interface, any GPIO can be used
    • 15 GPIO external pins, reusable
    • 2-way SMD LED indicator light
    • 1 way reset button + 1 way BOOT button
    • 1 USB to TTL download and debug port
    • 2.4G PCB onboard antenna

Pinout

Now lets look at the pinout and functions of the board

Pin Number Name Default function multiplexing function
32 GND grounding
31 5V 5V power interface, connected to VBUS of USB
30 BOOT GPIO09, input BOOTMODE
29 IO08 GPIO08, input, output, high impedance
28 IO04 GPIO04, input, output, high impedance I2C_SDA/ADC_4
27 IO05 GPIO05, input, output, high impedance I2C_SCL/ADC_5
26 3.3V Chip power supply, 3.3V
25 GND ground
24 PB_11 GPIO11, input, output, high impedance VDD_SPI
23 IO07 GPIO07, input, output, high impedance SPI2_CS
22 IO06 GPIO06, input, output, high impedance
21 IO10 GPIO10, input, output, high impedance SPI2_MISO
20 IO03 GPIO03, input, output, high impedance SPI2_MOSI/ADC_3
19 IO02 GPIO02, input, output, high impedance SPI2_CK/ADC_2
18 3.3V Chip power supply, 3.3V
17 GND ground
16 5V 5V power interface, connected to VBUS of USB
15 PWB Chip 3.3V power supply control, high level is effective, can be suspended when not in use
14 GND ground
13 3.3V Chip power supply, 3.3V
12 RESET chip reset
11 NC
10 IO13 GPIO13, input, output, high impedance
09 U0_RX GPIO20, input, output, high impedance UART0_RX
08 U0_TX GPIO21, input, output, high impedance UART0_TX
07 GND ground
06 IO19 GPIO19, input, output, high impedance USB_D+
05 IO18 GPIO18, input, output, high impedance USB_D-
04 IO12 GPIO12, input, output, high impedance SPIHD
03 IO01 GPIO1, input, output, high impedance UART1_RX/ADC_1
02 IO00 GPIO0, input, output, high impedance UART1_TX/ADC_0
01 GND ground

 

The ESP32 core board has 2 LEDs on board that can be used.

LED GPIO pin description
D4 IO12 GPIO12 configuration
D5 IO13 GPIO13 configuration

 

There are two buttons on the ESP32 core board, among which the BOOT button can perform the BOOT download function, and the RST button can be used for the reset function, 

Button pin description
BOOT/GPIO9 When the button is pressed, the chip enters the download mode
RST When the button is pressed, the chip resets

 

The CORE ESP32 core board equipped with ESP32-C3 is a version without built-in FLASH, and the external SPI FLASH is mounted by default.

If you encounter a core without external SPI FLASH, you need to pay attention to the specific model of the main chip. Using built-in Flash is GPIO11/12/13not available.

flash pin pin description
SPICS0 GPIO14 configuration, FLASH_CS, chip select
SPIQ GPIO17 configuration, FLASH_D1, data pin 1
SPID GPIO16 configuration, FLASH_D0, data pin 0
SPICLK GPIO15 configuration, FLASH_CK, clock

 

This board seems to be designed to work with a development environment called LuatIDE and LuatOS, so I will check these out but being an ESP32-C£ it will work with Arduino IDE and Micropython

 

Hardware Information

Schematic of CORE-ESP32-C3 development board

New version of CORE-ESP32-C3 development board schematic diagram (version without serial port chip)

https://wiki.luatos.com/pages/tools.html

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Hardware

A look at the LILYGO® T5 V2.3.1 2.13inch E-Paper Display

by shedboy71

In this article we look at a development board that contains an ESP32 and an 2.13inch E-paper display

Here is an image of the board.

Specifications

Operating voltage: 3.3V
Interface: 3-wire SPI, 4-wire SPI
Display color: black, white
Grey level: 2
Full refresh time: 8s
Refresh power: 26.4mW
Driver chip：SSD1680
Display Driver：DEPG0213BN/ GDEM0213B74 / GDEM0213B74

2.13 inch/DES electronic paper/ultra wide temperature
This is a 2.13-inch DES electronic paper display (what is DES?), with a resolution of 212×104 and communication via SPI interface
The driver IC includes gate buffer, source buffer, time control logic, oscillator, DC-DC, SRAM, LUT, VCOM, and each panel provides a frame.

Wide operating temperature range: -20c to 60c.

Can be used in cold environment and sunlight, GDEW0213M21 is an excellent choice for shelf label, smart label, smart home application, industrial tool, smart card, outdoor equipment application.
Power consumption: ultra-low power consumption
Viewing angle: 180 degrees
Use in the sun: support
Ultra-wide temperature -20 degrees use: support

Features

What is DES?

  • Characteristics: Compared with other similar products, DES has higher contrast and better display effect.
  • DES products are greater than 1:45, ordinary EPD products are less than 1:25

The driver IC includes：

  • Gate buffer, source buffer, time control logic, oscillator, DC-DC, SRAM, LUT, VCOM, and each panel provides a frame.

Ultra-wide temperature working range: -20℃ ~ 60℃

  • Can be used in cold environment and sunlight, GDEW0213M21 is an excellent choice for shelf label, smart label, smart home application, industrial tool, smart card, outdoor equipment application.
  • Working temperature range of conventional monochromatic electronic ink screen: 0℃-50℃, three-color working temperature 0℃-40℃,ultra-low temperature working temperature: -25℃ ~ 25℃

Purchase

  • If you already have a T-U2T, you can buy the DEPG0213BN No Chip version.

  • If you don’t already have a T-U2T, you can purchase the DEPG0213BN T-U2T version.

You can purchase these from alixepress from about £12 – buy it here

Development

Use Arduino IDE

  1. Install the correct serial port driver CP210X Driver
  2. For the first use, you need to select the model you are using at the top of main.cpp, and select the corresponding screen header file
  3. Change src/main.cpp to src.ino
  4. Copy the files in the lib directory to ~/Arduino/libraries, Windows users copy to Documents/Arduino/libraries
  5. Double-click to open src/src.ino
  6. Change the port to the correct port and select upload
  7. Put the data folder in the src directory
  8. Use Arduino ESP32 Sketch data Upload files,if you not install,Download ESP32FS-vX.zip,Extract to <C:\Users\Your User Name\Documents\Arduino\tools>,Open Ardunio IDE, Tools -> ESP32 Sketch data Upload -> Upload

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T5-Ink-Screen-Series

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Hardware

A look at the TTGO T4 from LilyGO an ESP32 LCD development board

by shedboy71

The TTGO T4 from LilyGO is an electronic development board based around an ESP32 with a built-in 2.2 inch TFT display. There is also a 2.4inch LCD option as well.

The USB to serial converter makes it easy to program, even using the  Arduino IDE. The board has a micro USB connection with which it can be programmed and/or powered.

Pinout and functions

Specifications:

  • ESP32 chip (240Mhz dual core processor)
  • Flash memory: 4MB
  • PSRAM: 8MB
  • Built-in Wi-Fi
  • Built-in Bluetooth
  • Built-in 2.2 inch TFT display (ILI9341 driver)
  • Built-in power management chip (IP5306) with Li-ion/Li-Po battery charging circuit (charge up to ~2A)
  • USB to serial converter: CP2104 or CH9102 (drivers)
  • Built-in micro SD card connection
  • I2C connector: 5p JST-PH
  • I2C cable included
  • Battery connector: 2p Molex Picoblade
  • Battery cable included
  • Dimensions PCB: 65.9×40.8mm

ILI9341 is a 262,144-color single-chip SOC driver for a-TFT liquid crystal display with resolution of 240 RGB x 320 dots, comprising a 720-channel source driver, a 320-channel gate driver, 172,800 bytes GRAM for graphic display data of 240 RGB x 320 dots, and power supply circuit.

ILI9341 supports parallel 8-/9-/16-/18-bit data bus MCU interface, 6-/16-/18-bit data bus RGB interface and 3-/4-line serial peripheral interface (SPI).

The moving picture area can be specified in internal GRAM by window address function.

The specified window area can be updated selectively, so that moving picture can be displayed simultaneously independent of still picture area.

Purchase

This board costs around £22 for the 2.4 inch version

LILYGO® TTGO T4 V1.3 ILI9341 2.4 inch LCD Display Backlight Adjustment ESP32 Development Board WIFI Wireless Bluetooth Module – Buy this from Aliexpress here

Development

There are several examples on the github repo

Quick Start

  1. Install TFT_eSPI from the Arduino library installation manager
  2. Copy the Buttons in the LilyGo_Txx/lib directory to the <C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Arduino\libraries> directory
  3. Enter <C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Arduino\libraries\TFT_eSPI> to change the configuration file. For different types of boards, you need to enable the corresponding TFT_eSPI setting (select the corresponding pin of the LCD screen).

I have the T4 V1.3 version so I did this

  • Open User_Setup_Select.h in the TFT_eSPI directory and disable it by #include <User_Setup.h>.
  • Uncomment the #include <User_Setups/Setup22_TTGO_T4_v1.3.h> line

  • Select the board according to the following options

    1. Board -> ESP32 -> ESP32 Dev Module
    2. PSRAM -> Enable (if it is TS, you need to select Disable here)
    3. Flash Size -> 4MB(32Mb)
    4. Flash Mode -> DIO
    5. Some other options are filled in according to the actual situation, and the selection is as shown in the figure below

  • Click the right arrow above Arduino IDE to compile and upload (please make sure to install the serial driver and connect the board to the computer via USB)

Check the examples out from

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGo_Txx

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Hardware

A 4.3 inch TFT and ESP32-S3

by shedboy71

This LCD module uses an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module as the main controller, the main controller is a dual-core MCU, integrated WI-FI and Bluetooth functions, the frequency can reach 240MHz, 512KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, 8M PSRAM,Flash size is 16MB, The display resolution is 480*272 or 800*480, resistive touch or Capacitive touch.

The module includes an LCD display screen, backlight control circuit, touch screen control circuit . Reserve the TF card interface ,IO port interface, this module supports development in arduino IDE, ESP IDE, Micropython and Mixly.

ESP32-S3 is a low-power MCU-based system-on-chip (SoC) that supports 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth®LowEnergy (Bluetooth LE).

It consists of high-performance dual-core microprocessor (Xtensa®32-bit LX7), a lowpower coprocessor, a Wi-Fi baseband, a Bluetooth LE baseband, RF module, and peripherals.

Features

  • ESP32-S3-WROOM Controller
  • Working voltage 4.75-5.25V
  • Resolution: 800*480 IPS
  • Dimension: 4.3 inch
  • Capacitive Touch
  • Onboard SD card socket
  • Extended IO for applications’ usage
  • Onboard Photosensitive resistor (for auto Backlight adjustment)
  • Onboard RGB LED

Display color RGB 65K color
Size – 4.3 inch
Type – TFT
Driver chip – ILI9485
Resolution – 480*272(Pixel)
Effective display area – 95.04* 53.86(mm)
Module size – 105.5*74(mm)
View >60°
Operating temperature is -20℃~70℃
Storage temperature is -30℃~80℃
Operating Voltage is 5V
Power consumption comes in at about 260mA
Product weight comes in at about 130g

Software setup

To ensure the running environment, the same version is recommended.

All the projects are based on ESP32-S3 development board.

1.Install the Arduino IDE V1.8.19.

2.Install the ESP32 boards supporting V2.0.5

3.Click “Tools>Board>Boards Manager” to search for and install the ESP32 library:

Summary

A nice big LCD screen at a price of $27 which can be programmed using the Arduino IDE

A couple of examples are supplied via the links, the TFT comes with an sd card fitted

Links

https://www.makerfabs.com/sunton-esp32-s3-4-3-inch-ips-with-touch.html

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Hardware

An ESP32 heart rate monitor kit

by shedboy71

In this article we look at another interesting idea for an ESP32., its an ESP32 heart rate monitor kit.

Its an all in one development kit which contains the development board, a touch enabled LCD display and its all contained in a typical finger sensor that you get for checking your blood oxygen levels.

Pinout

Features

Chipset: ESP32 WIFI/Bluetooth
USB TO TTL: CP2104
LCD: 0.96 IPS LCD
Heart rate blood oxygen sensor: MAX30102
Six-axis attitude sensor chip: MPU6050
RTC: PCF8563
Customizable buttons: Button
Battery: 200mah
Charging voltage and current: 5V, 500mah

Individual sensors

MAX30102

The MAX30102 is an integrated pulse oximetry and heart-rate monitor biosensor module. It includes internal LEDs, photodetectors, optical elements, and low-noise electronics with ambient light rejection. The MAX30102 provides a complete system solution to ease the design-in process for mobile and wearable devices.

The MAX30102 operates on a single 1.8V power supply and a separate 3.3V power supply for the internal LEDs. Communication is through a standard I2C-compatible interface. The module can be shut down through software with zero standby current, allowing the power rails to remain powered at all times.

MPU-6050

The MPU-6050 devices combine a 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis accelerometer on the same silicon die, together with an onboard Digital Motion Processor™ (DMP™), which processes complex 6-axis MotionFusion algorithms.

The device can access external magnetometers or other sensors through an auxiliary master I²C bus, allowing the devices to gather a full set of sensor data without intervention from the system processor.

PCF8563

The PCF8563 is a CMOS1 Real-Time Clock (RTC) and calendar optimized for low power
consumption. A programmable clock output, interrupt output, and voltage-low detector are
also provided.

All addresses and data are transferred serially via a two-line bidirectional I2C-bus.

Maximum bus speed is 400 kbit/s. The register address is incremented automatically after each written or read data byte.

Development

The files are available on the github archive – https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGo-HeartRate-Kit

Download all the files from the github repository above

  1. Install the correct serial port driver CP210X Driver
  2. Change src/main.cpp to src.ino
  3. Copy the files in the lib directory to ~/Arduino/libraries, Windows users copy to Documents/Arduino/libraries
  4. Double-click to open src/src.ino
  5. Change the port to the correct port and select upload

Purchase

The development board costs about £30

LILYGO®TTGO Heart Rate Programming Development Kit ESP32-D0WDQ6-V3 Flash 16MB WIFI Bluetooth IPS 0.96 LCD – Buy here

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Hardware

An ESP32 based board from Seeedstudio in its XIAO form factor.

by shedboy71

In this article we look at an ESP32 based board from Seeedstudio in its XIAO form factor.

The Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 is a mini development board based on the Espressif ESP32-C3 WiFi/Bluetooth dual-mode chip.

The ESP32-C3 is a 32-bit RISC-V CPU, which includes an Floating Point Unit for 32-bit single-precision arithmetic with powerful computing power. It supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth 5 (LE) protocols. This board comes included with an external antenna to increase the signal strength for your wireless applications.

It also has a very small form-factor coming in at 21 x 17.5mm – a true thumb sized board.

It has 11 digital I/O pins that can be used as PWM pins and 4 analog I/O that can be used as ADC pins. It supports four serial interfaces such as UART, I2C, SPI and I2S.

There is also a reset button and a bootloader mode button on the board.

Being an XIAO form factor this means there are a couple of generic add-on boards that can be purchased and used – an expansion board and one for the popular Grove connectors, modules and sensors

Specifications

Processor ESP32-C3
RISC-V single-core 32-bit chip processor with a four-stage pipeline that operates at up to 160 MHz
Wireless 2.4GHz Wi-Fi subsystem
Bluetooth 5.0/ Bluetooth mesh
On-chip Memory 400KB SRAM & 4MB Flash
Interface 1x UART, 1x I2C, 1x I2S, 1x SPI,11x GPIO(PWM), 4x ADC
1x Reset button, 1x Boot button
Dimensions 21 x 17.5mm
Power Circuit operating voltage: 3.3V@200mA
Charging current: 50mA/100mA
Input voltage (VIN): 5V
Deep Sleep Power Consumption Deep Sleep Mode: >44 μA
Wi-Fi Enabled Power Consumption Active Mode: <75 mA
Modem-sleep Mode: <25 mA
Light-sleep Mode: <4 mA
BLE Enabled Power Consumption Modem-sleep Mode: <27 mA
Light-sleep Mode: <10 mA

 

Being a low power device it is ideal for IoT applications and that small and compact size also means that its a practical option for wearables as well

Software setup

  • Step 1. Download and Install the latest version of Arduino IDE according to your operating system
  • Step 2. Launch the Arduino application
  • Step 3. Add ESP32 board package to your Arduino IDE

Navigate to File > Preferences, and fill “Additional Boards Manager URLs” with the url below: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_dev_index.json

Navigate to Tools > Board > Boards Manager…, type the keyword “esp32” in the search box, select the latest version of ****esp32****, and install it.

  • Step 4. Select your board and port

Navigate to Tools > Board > ESP32 Arduino and select “XIAO_ESP32C3“. The list of boards is long and you need to scroll to the bottom to reach it.

Now you are ready to go and

Purchase

Aliexpress click here

Links

ESP32C3 Datasheet

XIAO ESP32 Schematic

XIAO ESP32 Eagle Libraries

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Hardware

An ESP32 and integrated camera module

by shedboy71

In this article we look at a neat module which integrates a camera and an ESP32 into a 3D printed case

The camera is an OV2640 type and here is an image of the actual board and camera

Description

Hardware Specifications
Chipset ESP32 Dual-Core
FLASH QSPI flash 4MB / PSRAM  8MB
SRAM 520 kB SRAM
USB to TTL CP2104
Modular interface UART、SPI、SDIO、I2C、LED PWM、TV PWM、I2S、IRGPIO、capacitor touch sensor、ADC、DACLNA  pre-amplifier
On-board clock 40MHz crystal oscillator
Working voltage 2.7V-3.6V
Working current About 160mA
Working temperature range  -40℃ ~ +85℃
 

Power Supply Specifications
Power management Chip AXP192
Power Supply Input USB 5V/1A
Charging current 400mA
Battery Input 3.7-4.2V
Battery 3.7V lithium battery
Wi-Fi
Standard FCC/CE-RED/IC/TELEC/KCC/SRRC/NCC (ESP32 chip)
Protocol 802.11 b/g/n(802.11n，speed up to150Mbps)A-MPDU and A-MSDU polymerization，support 0.4μS Protection interval
Frequency range 2.4GHz~2.5GHz(2400M~2483.5M)
Transmit Power 22dBm
Communication distance 300m
 

Bluetooth
Protocol Meets bluetooth v4.2BR/EDR and BLE standard
Radio frequency With -97dBm sensitivity NZIF receiver Class-1,Class-2&Class-3 emitter AFH
Audio frequency CVSD&SBC audio frequency
 

Software specification
Wi-Fi Mode Station/SoftAP/SoftAP+Station/P2P
Security mechanism WPA/WPA2/WPA2-Enterprise/WPS
Encryption Type AES/RSA/ECC/SHA
Firmware upgrade UART download/OTA（Through network/host to download and write firmware）
Software Development Support cloud server development /SDK for user firmware development
Networking protocol IPv4、IPv6、SSL、TCP/UDP/HTTP/FTP/MQTT
User Configuration AT + Instruction set, cloud server, android/iOSapp
OS FreeRTOS

 

Quick Start

  • Select ESP32 Dev Module in the Arduino board selection,and select Huge APP (3MB No OTA/1MB SPIFFS) in the Partition Scheme option,select Enable in PSRAM. Replace ssid and password in the sketch with your hotspot and password Or leave the code unchanged use AP mode
  • Upload a sketch to the board
  • Connect to the hotspot turned on by the board, turn on the phone to scan wifi by default, you should be able to see the hotspots sent by the board, the default is TTGO-CAMERA-xxxx, the default is no password, open the browser and enter 192.168.4.1 and you will see Web interface, slide to the bottom and click Start, you will see the real-time video stream
  • There is a touch button under the camera, touch it, the camera screen will be reversed
  • Before changing the code, you must know that this board uses integrated power management. Before coding, you must turn off the current limit of the AXP192, otherwise it may cause excessive current to cause protection.
  • There are two versions of Camera Min. The earlier version is green PCB and the new version is black PCB. If using older version please turn on OLD_VERSION_CAMERA macro,in sketch 16 line

Purchase

The module costs £18 from aliexpress

LILYGO® TTGO T-Camera Mini Camera Module

Links

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/TTGO_Camera_Mini

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Hardware

An add on module for the LILYGO TTGO MINI E-Paper

by shedboy71

In a previous article we showed a small epaper module from Lilygo. This is an add-on module which includes a a 200ma battery, HMC5883L compass, BMA423 step counter, and RTC function.

Here is an image of the epaper module, the add on board fits

Here is a summary of the various sensors included

HMC5883L

The HMC5883L is a surface-mount,multi-chip module designed for low-field magnetic sensingwith a digital interface for applications such as low-cost compassing and magnetometry.

FEATURES

12-Bit ADC Coupled with Low Noise AMR Sensors Achieves 5 milli-gauss Resolution in ±8 Gauss Fields
Low Voltage Operations (2.16 to 3.6V)and Low Power Consumption (100 μA)
Wide Magnetic Field Range(+/-8Oe)
Fast 160Hz Maximum Output Rate

BMA423

The BMA423 is an ultra-small, triaxial, low-g acceleration sensor with digital interfaces, aiming for low-power consumer electronics applications.

Featuring 12 bit digital resolution and embedded intelligence, the BMA423 allows low-noise measurement of accelerations in 3 perpendicular and thus senses wrist tilt, tab/double tab and enables plug ’n’ play step counting especially in wearable devices.

Features

Step-counting in wearable devices
Wake up display on wrist tilt
Low power user interaction by tab/double tab
Advanced gesture recognition
Activity recognition/tracking
Advanced power management for mobile devices
Tilt compensation for electronic compass

pcf8563

The PCF8563 is a CMOS Real-Time Clock (RTC) and calendar optimized for low power consumption. A programmable clock output, interrupt output, and voltage-low detector are also provided. All addresses and data are transferred serially via a two-line bidirectional I²C-bus.

Maximum bus speed is 400 kbit/s. The register address is incremented automatically after each written or read data byte.

Features

Provides year, month, day, weekday, hours, minutes, and seconds based on a 32.768 kHz quartz crystal
Century flag
Clock operating voltage: 1.0 V to 5.5 V at room temperature
Programmable clock output for peripheral devices (32.768 kHz, 1.024 kHz, 32 Hz, and 1 Hz)
Alarm and timer functions
Integrated oscillator capacitor
Internal Power-On Reset (POR)
I²C-bus target address: read A3h and write A2h
Open-drain interrupt pin

Development

There are Arduino libraries and examples available from the github links at the bottom of this article

Purchase

This module costs around £11 from Aliexpress

TTGO MINI E-Paper Shield RTC Magnetoresistive Sensor Accelerometer Vibration motor

Links

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGO-Mini-Epaper/tree/main/examples/Extension

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGO-Mini-Epaper/tree/main/lib

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Hardware

LILYGO T-QT V1.1 a tiny board with an ESP32 and a 0.85-inch color display

by shedboy71

LILYGO T-QT V1.1 board changes that and combines the dual-core WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5.0 AI microcontroller with a 0.85-inch color display.

The board also happens to be rather small and comes in at a tiny 33 x 18 mm form factor, and also offers some I/O via headers and a 4-pin connector, and can be powered via its USB Type-C port or a battery

  • Storage – 8MB flash
  • Connectivity via ESP32-S3
    • 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 4 with 40 MHz bandwidth support
    • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0 connectivity with long-range support, up to 2Mbps data rate.
    • On board and external antenna support
  • Display – 0.85-inch 128×128 IPS LCD with 262K colors based on GC9107 SPI display controller
  • USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming
  • Expansion
    • 2x 7-pin headers with up to 11x GPIO, FSPI (fast SPI), ADC,  Sub SPI bus, 5V, 3.3V, and GND
    • 4-pin connector with 3.3V, GND, and 2x GPIOs
  • Misc – Reset button, 2x user buttons
  • Power Supply
    • 5V via USB port
    • 2-pin header (unpopulated) for battery; voltage monitoring is possible through IO04, but there’s no charging circuit

Specifications

Here are the specifications of the 2 different boards

The main difference is the microprocessor

T-QT

MCU

ESP32-S3 Xtensa dual-core LX7 microprocessor

Wireless Connectivity

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth V5.0+BLE

Onboard Functions

Buttons: IO00+IO47

Battery detection: IO04

Programming Platform

Arduino-ide / Micropython

Clock frequency

240Mhz

Serial chip

None

Flash

8M

0.85 inch GC9107 TFT IPS LCD

Resolution

128*128px

Drive

GC9107

Display Colors

262K

Brightness

260cd/m2

Display Area

15.2064(H)*15.2064(V)

Features

Support 4-Wire SPl interface

 

T-QT Pro

MCU

ESP32-S3FN4R2 Xtensa LX7 microprocessor

Flash

4M

PSRAM

2M

Wireless Connectivity

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth V5.0+BLE

Onboard Functions

Buttons: IO00+IO47

Battery detection: IO04

Supports charging and discharging

Programming Platform

Arduino-ide / Micropython

Clock frequency

240Mhz

0.85 inch GC9107 TFT IPS LCD

Resolution

128*128px

Drive

GC9107

Display Colors

262K

Brightness

260cd/m2

Display Area

15.2064(H)*15.2064(V)

Features

Support 4-Wire SPl interface

Development

Arduino:

  • Click “File” in the upper left corner -> Preferences -> Additional Development >Board Manager URL -> Enter the URL in the input box. (ESP32S3 is a new chip, and the SDK version needs to be version 2.0.3 or above) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json
  • Click OK and the software will be installed by itself. After installation, restart the Arduino IDE software.

PlatformIO:

  • PlatformIO plug-in installation: Click on the extension on the left column -> search platformIO -> install the first plug-in
  • Click Platforms -> Embedded -> search Espressif 32 in the input box -> select the corresponding firmware installation

Purchase

The LILYGO T-QT V1.1 costs about £11 from Aliexpress. The T-QT Pro costs around £13.70

LILYGO® T-QT V1.1 or Pro ESP32-S3 GC9107 0.85 Inch LCD Display

Links

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T-QT

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Hardware

An ESP32-C3 Development Board

by shedboy71

In this article we look at another board from Lilygo, this time its based on the ESP32-C and is called the T8-C3 ESP32-C3 Development Board.

Since this is mainly a development board for the ESP32-C3 we will look at that.

The specs of the ESP32-C3 microcontroller are as follows

Specification

Basic Parameter

  • Operating Voltage: 3.3V
  • Type-C Input Voltage: 5V DC
  • VIN Input Voltage: 5V DC
  • Operating Current: 25mA
  • Maximum Charging Current: 400mA
  • Operating Temperature: -40~105℃
  • Size: 25 x 20.5mm/0.98 x0.81”

Hardware Parameter

  • Processor: 32bit RISC-V Single-core processor
  • Main Frequency: 160 MHz
  • SRAM: 400KB
  • ROM: 384KB
  • Flash: 4MB
  • RTC SRAM: 8KB
  • Clock: external crystal(32kHz); internal fast RC oscillator 17.5MHz(adjustable); PLL clock
  • USB: USB 2.0 Up to 12Mbit/s

WiFi

  • WiFi Protocol: IEEE 802.11b/g/n
  • Bandwidth: Supports 20 MHz, 40 MHz bandwidth in 2.4GHz band
  • WiFi Mode: Station, SoftAP, SoftAP+Station and promiscuous mode
  • WiFi Frequency: 2.4GHz
  • Frame Aggregation: TX/RX A-MPDU, TX/RX A-MSDU

Bluetooth

  • Bluetooth Protocol: Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth mesh
  • Bluetooth Frequency: 125 Kbps, 500 Kbps, 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps

Ports

  • Digital I/O x13
  • LED PWM 6 Channel
  • SPI x1
  • UART x2
  • I2C x1
  • I2S x1
  • IR Transceiver: transmit channel x2, receive channel x2(random pin)
  • 2 × 12-bit SAR ADCs, up to 6 channels
  • DMA controller, with 3 transmit channels and 3 receive channels

Development

There are several development options, I prefer the Arduino IDE or using Micropython with an IDE like Thonny

PlatformIO

  1. Install VSCODE and Python
  2. Search for the PlatformIO plug-in in the VSCODE extension and install it.
  3. After the installation is complete and the reload is completed, there will be a small house icon in the lower left corner. Click to display the Platformio IDE home page
  4. Go to file – > Open folder – > Select the T8-C3 folder and click the (√) symbol in the lower left corner to compile (→) for upload.

Arduino IDE

  1. Install the current upstream Arduino IDE at the 1.8 level or later. The current version is at the Arduino website.
  2. Start Arduino and open Preferences window. In additional board manager add url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json .separating them with commas.
  3. Select Tools -> Board -> ESP32C3 Dev Module

Micropython

  1. Download and upload the firmware
  2. Note that the firmware upload address is 0x0, not 0x1000.

Purchase

Again their are 2 options, one with the uploader tool and another without. The basic version is the equivalent of £4.70 and with the uploader it is £9.50

LILYGO® T8-C3 ESP32-C3 Development Board

Links

https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/documentation/esp32-c3_datasheet_en.pdf

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