From 4d00f10f2ef1d7bb643ec8495997a9903ae85f46 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bdale Garbee Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2022 10:09:04 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] capture thoughts about wifi transition --- Notebook | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 33 insertions(+) diff --git a/Notebook b/Notebook index e1a0392..be87eff 100644 --- a/Notebook +++ b/Notebook @@ -115,3 +115,36 @@ drive INA125 output above the 5V allowed by ADC input. adding a 5.1V, 500mW zener between INA125 and ADC to clamp that and protect the ADC + +2022.09.17 +- and now, for something completely different... + + What if I re-think TeleStatic to use an ESP32-S3 chip with integrated WiFi + radio? Imagine a board in an ammo box with an SMA female and a cheap WiFi + whip on top of the box. Looks over the air like an access point with web + server. Take any client device (laptop, tablet, phone) with a web browser + and use it to talk to the box, check status, initiate a burn, etc. If we + include an SD card, then data is stored on board and can be downloaded via + WiFi, or pulled out and parsed later. + + One really big win with this approach is that ALL the software involved in + operation lives on the board. Only post-processing tools might want to live + on a separate computer. And, frankly, if we make "raw" data avaialble in + CSV form and have on-board plotting with pdf output .. we'd be about done? + + The onboard 12-bit ADC seems pretty lame, but I've been planning an off-SOC + SPI attache ADC anyway, so who cares? The pyro circuit, LED outputs, + + The ESP32-S3 is under $3 each at Q1 in stock at DK, a 56 lead QFN'ish thing. + +2022.09.19 +- sadly, the ESP32 series requires a pile of binary firmware blobs to make + the wifi and BT stuff work, and because those execute on the same processor + and must be linked to the firmware, it just isn't legally possible to write + GPL'ed code for this processor series. Sigh. + + So, Keith suggests I use an available SAMD21 part with 256k flash and 32k RAM + and an external standalone wifi peripheral, like the uBlox NINA-W131-03B. + You talk to it with an AT command set, so we don't have to deal with a binary + firmware blob. Amusingly, this seems to have an ESP32 inside! + -- 2.30.2