Dilbert badges

[Dan Nixon]

Several of you will probably now that I started designing my own badge for EMF after they announced they were yet to find funding to have theirs produced (which they have now found).

I've done the design work so will be making a batch of them, they are based on the ESP8266 with a colour TFT display, 8 NeoPixels, D-pad + A/B buttons.

The boards will probably cost around £10-15 each depending on the batch size, the display (which you must buy yourself) is £6-7 and all other parts (which I will buy) with probably be around £5-10 per board.

I've quoted the prices I would expect for boards from Eurocircuits so if anyone knows of somewhere I can gets boards done cheaper within 7 working days then let me know.

Who is interested in one?

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

I am interested. 

  Alistair

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[David Pye]

I'm in.

[Paul Hurley]

I'm in

[Dan Nixon]

Should have also mentioned:

Board design and Arduino library: https://github.com/DanNixon/Dilbert

The display it is designed for: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-2-inch-240x320-Serial-SPI-TFT-LCD-Display-Module-ILI9341-for-Arduino-Raspberry-/262448340175

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

OK, so far I will be ordering at least 5 boards (I want 2, David, Paul and I assume that is a yes from Alistair).

I just checked and 5 boards will cost just under £15 from Eurocircuits for the actual size of the badge, green solder mask and white silkscreen.

If another 5 people are interested (making an order of 10 boards) the cost goes down to about £9 per board.

I want to have the boards ordered on Monday to give me time to assemble and test them before I move away for summer.

I'll probably add a couple of extra boards to the order anyway but if you want one let me know by then.

Dan

On Thursday, 9 June 2016 18:41:38 UTC+1, Paul Hurley wrote:

I'm in

[Jon Davies]

I'm in.

--

[David Pye]

Out of curiosity, how does price compare to dirtypcb with expedited shipping?

[Dan Nixon]

$98 for 10 boards, however even with the fastest shipping and processing they cannot supply them faster than Eurocircuits.

(this is with "Emergency" processing and DHL shipping)

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Is it worth asking Sunderland FabLab for a quote? We can even test one before making the others.

  Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

The version in git now is the "final" version, so feel free to get quotes from other services.

I wouldn't mind someone looking over the board too to make sure I haven't missed anything.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Dan, I have my finger hovering on the buy button for the screen.  Just to be clear: we don't give you money; we instead buy the screen and put it on ourselves.  Is this corrected?

[Dan Nixon]

Correct.

I'm actually going to change this to everybody buys their own display and ESP12 module, after looking at suppliers there is no real advantage to ordering these in bulk.

So everyone buys a display and an ESP12 (or ESP12E) module and gives me money for a board that apart from the display and ESP is complete.

Dan

On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 at 07:51 Dan Nixon <d...@dan-nixon.com> wrote:

Correct.

I'm actually going to change this to everybody buys their own display and ESP12 module, after looking at suppliers there is no real advantage to ordering these in bulk.

So everyone buys a display and an ESP12 (or ESP12E) module and gives me money for a board that apart from the display and ESP is complete.

Dan

[Paul Hurley]

Dan, I'm sure this is me not understanding eagle, or PCBs or something, but is the ground plane missing ? I opened the latest git files and don't see anything connected to the GND pin of the power in, ESP or voltage regulator ?  I thought you had to draw in the ground plane but maybe not if its filling the remaining space ?

Paul.

[Dan Nixon]

Did you click the rats nest button?

In Eagle yo draw a polygon around where the ground plane will be and it is filled whenever the rats nest is updated.

(its the button on the left tool pane with 5 connected green nodes)

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

One thing I have just noticed is the mounting holes (or lanyard holes?) are at around the buttons, so I guess the idea is the screen is to be tall and wide. I found this a floor in the TiLDA badge and not a feature.

I presume you put it round that way for a reason but could another hole be sneaked in? In fact I am wondering if it is practical for me to make a one off that is.

  Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

I had designed it to be hung portrait (as per the last Tilda), but can easily add an extra hole to mount it landscape.

I don't really want to start moving components around and having two versions of the board for each orientation though.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

Added another hole.

I could only add one more as the UART header was in the way in the other corner and moving that mean moving the ESP12.

The additional one is partially obscured by the display board, but given the separation caused by the headers and SD card slot you should be able to clip a thin lanyard hook in there (like the one from the last Tilda).

Dan

On Friday, 10 June 2016 09:17:46 UTC+1, Alistair MacDonald wrote:

[Glen Beestone]

Sorry coming into this late but having caught up on the thread I'm still no wiser as to what a "Dilbert badge" is and what it can do.

can someone explain to me as you would a five year old please


G
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On 09/06/2016, 17:21 Dan Nixon <danns...@gmail.com> wrote:

Several of you will probably now that I started designing my own badge for EMF after they announced they were yet to find funding to have theirs produced (which they have now found).

I've done the design work so will be making a batch of them, they are based on the ESP8266 with a colour TFT display, 8 NeoPixels, D-pad + A/B buttons.

The boards will probably cost around £10-15 each depending on the batch size, the display (which you must buy yourself) is £6-7 and all other parts (which I will buy) with probably be around £5-10 per board.

I've quoted the prices I would expect for boards from Eurocircuits so if anyone knows of somewhere I can gets boards done cheaper within 7 working days then let me know.

Who is interested in one?

Dan

--

[Dan Nixon]

Basically an ESP8266 with a colour display and a few buttons and NeoPixels on a badge in a similar form to the Tilda that was given out at EMF 2 years ago.

I designed this one because there was uncertainty as to if there would be badges at this years EMF (there will be, but since I designed it I kind of want to make a batch of them).

I think it was called Dilbert because Jon misheard me say Tilda.

Dan

[TonyD]

Faraday circuits, in Washington, do a 5-day PCB prototyping service for £200. Basically you get an entire panels worth of PCB's, a panel is 18" x 24". If you really want them quickly you can also pop down and collect them in person once they been processed.

Tony

[Alistair MacDonald]

Added another hole.

Cool. I will check it out later.

 

I just went to order some spare ESP-12s and then found we have options. What is the difference between the ESP-12-D, ESP-12-E, ESP-12-F, and ESP-12-Q. I have done some searching and I think the F has better RF characteristics than the E, and GPIO10 only works on the E, and the Q and E are somehow related, but all this is from unsubstantiated comments on blogs and diagrams. I guess what I am asking is Dan, what version are you testing with?

  Alistair

[TonyD]

Dan could you add a pdf or jpg for the schematic and PCB layout to the github

Tony

[Dan Nixon]

I know the plain ESP12 is what it is technically designed for, the ESP12E has the additional GPIO broken out on the bottom (which is usually unusable as it is for interfacing to the flash chip).

Maybe the others indicate different flash chips? There are a few different types I have heard they can have.

An ESP12E is the best option as that is what I have been using to develop it and is usually the module found on the likes of the NodeMCU, Huzzah, etc.

Dan

On Friday, 10 June 2016 10:08:50 UTC+1, Alistair MacDonald wrote:

[Dan Nixon]

Done: https://github.com/DanNixon/Dilbert/tree/master/board/img

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

Do I have to do the panelisation or can I just give them a single board and ask for as many as will fit on a panel?

Dan

[Glen Beestone]

And what can you do with it ?

G
--
Sent from my Android phone with mail.com Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Dan Nixon]

As far as I'm concerned anything you want.

I'm kind of hoping Alistair would do more cool stuff software wise.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Yes, it looks like the original 12 did not have the IO along the bottom, that we are not using anyway. The D seems a little ambiguous but also appears unavailable any more so let's not worry about that. I will just order something.

Af for the layout, moving the buttons to the bottoms would increase the required board size a s a result, so I am cool with not moving them. The problem with putting the hole on the bottom is the display is them upside down when hanging. I have just submitted a pull request for you to look as with everything slid to the right a little and the logo moved to the top. I am almost wondering if we need the neopixel with the colour display.

As for the cool stuff, I have no idea yet but I think we can do something daft. Battery might be the limiting factor. A C64 has been ported to the ESP8266 so we might be able to get that working but we don't have much time to do it.

  Alistair

[Alistair MacDonald]

...actually it looks like I merged it to master by mistake so have a look and roll it back if it is bad.

  Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

Did you create a new project and open the schematic and board together or just open and modify the board file?

You seem to have completely broken linked annotation for me.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

I do like the new layout though.

The NeoPixels were added because I could, also there is an output to add more (possibly to some sewed onto a lanyard).

They also make a nice torch so would rather leave them on the board.

There is no reason why you could just not populate them on the board through.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

I just modified it but I used version 7. Might be worth just redoing it at your end.

  Alistair

[Alistair MacDonald]

Knowing how fiddly they can be to attach I might just miss them off. :-)

  Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

Actually Eagle says there is an inconsistency with the signal names on the port expander pins.

Did you change any routing or signal names?

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Gurrr. I have figured it and I think I have fixed it. It was because I did not have the schematic file in the same directory. I have also tweaked the button locations to give a little more clearance. Are you okay with me merging them?

  Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

I redid your changes in the latest version, see if they can cleanly merge but I doubt they will.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

No, I was getting conflicts so checked. I will leave what you have done.

  Alistair

[Iain Yarnall]

I'm in - although not going to EMF.  It'll hopefully be good for other events too!

Cheers,

Iain.

[Dan Nixon]

OK so that's 7 boards that are wanted.

At the moment I'm probably just going to order from Eurocircuits, I know I'm going to get good boards from them in a reasonable time even if they are more expensive than Dirty PCB.

Whilst the batch size only makes a small difference to the total price I'd rather not order a large batch for the sake of a cheaper individual board price and leave myself with £40 worth of PCBs I wont use.

Therefore I'll order enough boards to have one spare.

(at a batch of 8 boards, price per board is about £12.50)

Unless anyone seriously objects to this I'll put the order in tomorrow afternoon.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Can you either provide a link for what sort esp12 mounting you're expecting, or just say?

This:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181898500836

Or this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191739286742

Or this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291709890362

?

On Fri, 10 Jun 2016, 07:53 Dan Nixon, <danns...@gmail.com> wrote:

Correct.

I'm actually going to change this to everybody buys their own display and ESP12 module, after looking at suppliers there is no real advantage to ordering these in bulk.

So everyone buys a display and an ESP12 (or ESP12E) module and gives me money for a board that apart from the display and ESP is complete.

Dan

On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 at 07:51 Dan Nixon <d...@dan-nixon.com> wrote:

Correct.

I'm actually going to change this to everybody buys their own display and ESP12 module, after looking at suppliers there is no real advantage to ordering these in bulk.

So everyone buys a display and an ESP12 (or ESP12E) module and gives me money for a board that apart from the display and ESP is complete.

Dan

--

[Dan Nixon]

The first link is exactly what is needed.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Kewly :)

[Jon Davies]

OK, bought screen and a couple of esp12 thingies.  One for the badge, and one for future tinkering :)

[Jon Davies]

Keen to get Conway's Life running on the screen!

[N.S. R]

Don't mean to add complications, but if you're going to use a 12E with the current design (I'm assuming the ESP is mounted on the bottom layer) would the tracks going across on the bottom layer interfere with the additional pins provided at the bottom of the 12E? I'm guessing the routing has been done this way as the component you're using doesn't have the bottom pins. I'm using this, which may or may not help: https://github.com/wvanvlaenderen/ESP8266-Eagle_Library You'll have to restrict the layers under the antenna manually though.

[Dan Nixon]

Good point, I hadn't thought about that but I doubt it would be an issue given that the traces should be covered by solder mask.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

Boards and components have been ordered.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Mint

--

[Paul Hurley]

Awesome. How/when do you want money?

[Dan Nixon]

Not until I at least have all the stuff delivered.

I don't have to pay for the boards yet anyway as they are still in inspection stage (although that will probably change on Monday).

I still need to work out the final per board cost, I think the boards are slightly cheaper than expected as I overestimated the board area when getting the quote.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

The boards are in production now.

The final cost was £94.72 making each board £11.84 each.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Cool.

Any chance I can squeeze some components on to someone else's order? Looking at it we could do worse than have one person order all the small parts but I don't want to volunteer for that. Anyone feeling gullible?

  Alistair

--

[Dan Nixon]

I'm not sure what you are proposing.

The only components you have to buy are the expensive ones, hence why I am not bulk buying them.

Smaller things like the resistors, connectors, IC's etc I have already ordered.

The only thing you need to buy are ESP12 modues and displays.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Right, cool, those were the ones I was suggesting so it is all in hand. I ordered a display from China a while ago and already have the ESP at the ready so fingers crossed it will come together quickly.

Then, the code.... :-)

  Alistair

[Jon Davies]

Imma has mah screeen! :D

[Dan Nixon]

Cools.

Download https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_ILI9341 and https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-GFX-Library and make the game of life happen!

(porting it to the badge will just be a case of replacing "tft" with "badge->display()")

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

I seem to have made a horrible mistake.

I forgot to order NeoPixels.

(I also forgot to order myself any bare ESP12s)

Dan

[Jon Davies]

EEEP!

I planned to order some of the Neopixels that Colin got.  Should I commit to that sort of purchase?  Still a China distance & time...but means you have flashy lighty bits.

[Dan Nixon]

Weren't they already soldered?

The ones on the board need to be the bare 5050 package.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Yeah, on dinky little boards.

[David Pye]

Hi,

Havent had a chance to look at the BRD file yet, are the LEDs the 4 or 6 pad ones?

David

[Dan Nixon]

4 pad.

Dan

[Iain Yarnall]

I've got my screen and ESP8266E now and starting to read stuff about getting started with programming the badge.  No real ideas what to do yet though!

Were we supposed to order our own neopixels or was that going to be part of the bulk smaller components?  Also, on the PCB, are the neopixels just connected to header pins or are they connected through the PCB as well?

Cheers,

Iain.

[Dan Nixon]

Yes, NeoPIxels need to be ordered individually.

There is a header to add more NeoPixels, but to use it you must populate the 8 on the board.

I also realise I arsed up the power planes for the NeoPixels so the first and last pixels require bodge wires.

Dan

--

[David Pye]

Or presumably wire the first Di neopixel's line to the header?   

I wouldn't feel bad about anything like power planes, my boards need bodge wires until at least v3. :-/

David

[Dan Nixon]

Indeed that would work too.

I should have probably added a header at the start of the strip on the board too in case you wanted to add external ones.

As an update I have one nearly working board, everything apart from the IO expander is working (even the DCDC converter that I added without actually testing).

I can't see why it is not working yet, all I can imagine is that I should have added additional pullups on the i2c bus, but I have no through hole resistors to test this with.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

The first badge is now fully working (thanks to David's ability to suggest testing the simple things first).

There are currently 4 boards ready for displays, ESP12s and NeoPIxels to be added.

[Iain Yarnall]

Well done Dan.  Good work!

I might have to badger (sorry) you on how to get up and running with it but I'll give it a go myself first.  I've not used the ESP or any of the libraries before!

Cheers,

Iain.

[Dan Nixon]

I haz guide: https://github.com/DanNixon/Dilbert/blob/master/GUIDE.md

Dan

--

[Jon Davies]

I haz all teh readz!

--

Cheers,

Jon.

[Iain Yarnall]

Thanks Dan!

[Jon Davies]

Yay, Johnny 5 is alive!
(Fwiw, I have badge 5)
(Fwiw2, the above is not indicative of my badge's assembled/powered status...)

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, 09:07 Iain Yarnall, <i.ya...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Dan!

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Cheers,

Jon.

[Dan Nixon]

Just an FYI for anyone actually wanting to write code for it.

I'm working on a framework that allows multiple things to run on the badge using a home menu similar to the TiLDA Mk e.

It's probably easier if you wait for this to be finished before writing anything overly complex.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

I assume that the Conway's game engine will not be affected.  It is pretty self-contained logic.

[Dan Nixon]

It doesn't affect the internal logic of anything, only how it is created, executed and destroyed along side other "apps".

You will probably have to restructure the code a fair bit, but actually change very little.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

She'll be reet.

[Alistair MacDonald]

Following our discussions I have checked in to the wifi on offer at EMF and the badges can connect to an open network but with no encryption what so ever. I have put in a request for an additional WAP2-PSK network that the ESP8266 will connect to and be encrypted to the AP. They are asking campers not to set up there own APs.

In other news my screen has arrived and I have a spare ESP-7 and ESP-12 somewhere so I might have a go an assembling it later. My intention is to use headers for the display so it can be unplugged if needed.

  Alistair

[David Pye]

Being nosey, but why do you want encryption?

What are you planning on doing with it?

I almost wanted each badge to have its own ssid and get it to scan to see when each of us were close by others!

[Alistair MacDonald]

I don't think setting them up in AP mode will be welcomed. The NOC team explicitly ask people not to set up other networks.

As for encryption, I am more worried about people finding and playing around with any API endpoints we generate.

  Alistair

[David Pye]

My understanding was the NOC specifically did not want people setting up APs connected to the main network for fear of routing loops.  I don't think "NO SSID" rule is either reasonable or enforceable.

David

[Alistair MacDonald]

The problem is they don't want the limited wireless bandwidth used up by insufficient network beacons. I feel these are legitimate concerns.

As things stand I am receiving a certain amount of resistance with the argument that WPA2-PSK is no more secure than open, a fact a some what dispute. That said they are going to discuss it and I my main argument for it is a good one, as in it is the difference between doing something cool and not doing something cool. :-)

  Alistair

[David Pye]

I'm not entirely convinced SSID broadcasts alone are likely to generate a huge amount of noise?

Unless I am genuinely missing something!

[Alistair MacDonald]

Well, the figure quoted to me was 3%, but I don't have an accurate figure. A lot of domestic routers were really bad a few years ago mind. I don't know if things are better.

  Alistair

[Jon Davies]

Anyone got any good ideas of how to remove a suspected broken ESP8266 that is surface mounted?

I connected an FTDI on 5v instead of 3v3.

[Jon Davies]

Correction.  Now the binary is uploading, but the screen may well have suffered from the 5v insurgence.  Iz white with teh slight flicker...meh...

--

Cheers,

Jon.

[Dan Nixon]

That could be a bad connection, I would check that first.
I've powered mine on 5v and it still lives .

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

My board has been assembled and lives! :-)

  Alistair

[David Pye]

I have mine but no chance to do anything to it for a week or so.....

David

[Alistair MacDonald]

One issue I am having is when powering on 3.3v via a cheap serial adaptor and the screen is in use it is hit or miss whether it boots. Could this be related to the missing smoothing caps, or just a rubbish regulator in the adaptor?

  Alistair

[David Pye]

When this happened to me with the esp it was a brownout from the 3v3 regulator not being able to supply enough current when wifi was on, let alone a colour screen.

Might be worth checking to see if the voltage sags?

David

[Jon Davies]

I'll try it off a battery instead of via my FTDI board and cross everything including my eyes.

[Dan Nixon]

There are extra caps in the box you picked them up from, try adding them to the vacant pads.

Dan

[Dan Nixon]

I measured the current and the screen with full backlight + the ESP (not doing anything with WiFi) was around 150-180 mA on the 3.3V supply.

Not sure how much extra WiFi would add.

Dan

[N.S. R]

Transmitting at full power it can consume 170ma, while in deep sleep around 10ua. If you constatntly update the display while constantly pinging it then you may get a better idea of total current use.

[David Pye]

Aye, that might well be more than the 3v3 regular on the FTDI board can supply ...

David

[Jon Davies]

Does constant flashing of the LED on the ESP indicate a boot loop? E.g. flash flash...flash flash...flash flash...etc

[Dan Nixon]

If you flashed my firmware then that could be normal as the GPIO that LED is on is (I think, from memory) the chip select for the TFT.

Dan

[Jon Davies]

Issues I addressed:

> Swapped power source from FTDI to battery

> Initially forgetting that the FTDI should be on 3v3

> Fixed dry joint on regulator output

Outstanding issues:

> Missing SMD filter cap on power to Neopixels

> Neopixels not working - could be my botch-up of the needed botch - how robust is the GPIO...?

> Puffy lipo!!!

Apart from that...

IT LIVES!!! 

--

Cheers,

Jon.

[Dan Nixon]

NeoPixels not working is most likely soldering, the filter cap was added because I could there is other decoupling very close.

There should be no issue with the GPIO, the badges are wired in the same way as the NeoPixels on the access control systems.

Did you flow solder the NeoPixels?

Dan