hardware update for bGeigie nano

[Lukas Huber]

Hello,

I've been playing arround with the bGeigie nano for some time now and also looked into the schematics. When trying to keep costs low and substituting some of the components for off brand ones I noticed that the Arduino Fio is already discontinued. As the ESP32 Wemos modules with integrated Bluetooth, Wifi, LoRa and Oled displays are currently gaining in popularity I wonder if it would be possible to port the firmware to the also Arduino IDE compatible ESP32 modules... Has anyone else looked into this topic yet?
BR,

Lukas

[Pieter Franken]

Hi Lukas,

The FIO is still available from Sparkfun - https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10116

For the next gen Nano, work is underway for the bGeigie Nano Raku: it will have a different CPU that will have more speed/memory and run a Arduino run-time. Many other improvements in the works as well. Hope to have more news early next year on how it's going to look like. 

Pieter 

[Rob Oudendijk]

Lukas,

The code runs already on RedBear Duo/Nano  and Teensy fine. I did some quick test for ESP32 and got the GPS/Display working. The Eprom/sdcard setup not down yet. I agree the ESP32 dropin board for FIO replacement would be a great solution. Especially because of the memory limitations of the FIO. Working on to get the code to run on ESP32. Just need more time.. Also a way arounf the limitaion of the code is to use an ASCII only version of the SSD1306 library(I run that) so you can get much more free RAM. about 7 KB less.

regards

rob

[Rob Oudendijk]

Lucas,

Also a https://blog.hackster.io/the-ttgo-t-beam-an-esp32-lora-board-d44b08f18628 would be a great deal for $31. Combined with a E-Paper (got that working on ESP32 board) would make a great cheap board. Just add a Irover and a tube.

Regards

rob

On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 2:20:16 AM UTC+9, Lukas Huber wrote:

[Lukas Huber]

Hi Rob,

thanks for the tests! also the board you suggested looks really promising for a low cost version!
I ordered an ESP32 board with OLED and 433MHz LoRa some days ago and will try getting the software running on it as soon as it arrives...
BR,
Lukas

[Azby Brown]

Lukas,

Glad to see you've started an interesting conversation here. 

-- Azby

[Lugul banda]

*Wave* @Azby we both missed eachother at Osnabrück only a few hours as we crossed lines to sad ...

 

nice update would be also, the old USB connector wich is spoken in cables 
not any longer present in any normal stores in my country, because the 
standart had moved again, no longer usb 1.0 its 3.0 now, and the old usb 
connector on the nano, is starting to be an problem wich is only availibe 
in special shops... and i wounder how long the sd card option will stay 
like it is now..

on the other hand i would wish the industry would select a final option  

instead producing every year a new one.. 

[Rob Oudendijk]

Some tests I made with E-Paper 2.9 and 1.54 inch displays with 0.3 second updates. Got ESP32, SDcard, battery charger build in.

Seems great candidate for replacement. Ony $30.

regards

rob

On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 2:20:16 AM UTC+9, Lukas Huber wrote:

[Lukas Huber]

Hi, Rob,

Wow, cool idea!
How do you port the Bgeigie-Software for the ESP though? I so far just created a working HW-Clone using a Atmega328p and flashing the precompiled hex file from github... Is the ESP natively compatible because of the Arduino way of naming the IO-Pins or do you have to edit the code?
BR,

Lukas