Newbie Questions

[Nick Bruder]

Hi,

 

First of all, kudos to Linar Yusupovand all involved. Excellent work and relatively good documentation!

 

Let me introduce myself: I'm new to Git, Linux and these little microcontrollers, but we are changing at work. Done VxWorks and other legacy RTOS low level embedded programming. I'm not quite ready to retire and would like to contribute to SoftRF with a new feature (you'll see it when my PR is ready :). I have a glider with mostly steam gauges. Years ago, I made a CAI 302 bluetooth adapter to connect to my old iPhone, Galaxy Tab and just now bought a HugeRock x7 (2600 nits!) tablet. Used to have an Oudie but lost it! I'm running XCSoar and Naviter SeeYou (Navigator) and would like to integrate your SoftRf FLARM. My interest comes in waves, so many distractions and other things to do, look, a squirrel! and maybe this will be a Winter project....

So far I have Arduino IDE 2.3.10, SourceTree 3.4.31, VS Code 1.133 installed. I added the latest version of Dolt ESP toolkit: File > Preferences > Additional Boards Manager URLs: https://githubusercontent.co. Copied contents of my local Git software/firmware/source/Soft and software/firmware/source/libraries into Documents/Arduino/libraries folder. Selected ESP323s3 Dev Module and set these tool settings:

Question: Could you update the documentation web page on which PSRAM selection to use? QSPI, OPI or disabled?

Then I tried to run the Blink sketch and bricked my Prime Edition MkIII. Totally dead but at least the COM port worked. Luckily I could use https://espressif.github.io/esp-launchpad/ to flash the latest https://github.com/adafruit/tinyuf2/releases#release-0.35.0 bootloader but it had a scrambled screen. Reverted to tinyuf2-lilygo_ttgo_tbeam_s3-0.12.1 and it works and looks nice again.

For reference original INFO_UF2.TXT:

TinyUF2 Bootloader 5d12508-dirty - esp-idf (v4.4-dev-3608-gbbe2a1bf34) tinyusb (0.12.0-203-ga4cfd1c69)
Model: LilyGO T-Beam Supreme
Board-ID: ESP32S3-TBeam-v3.0
Date: Feb  1 2023

lilygo_ttgo_tbeam_s3-0.12.1:

TinyUF2 Bootloader 0.12.1 - tinyusb (0.12.0-203-ga4cfd1c69)
Model: LilyGO T-Beam Supreme
Board-ID: ESP32S3-TBeam-v3.0
Date: Feb  2 2023

 

Question: Do you know where to download the original boot loader or which  lilygo_ttgo_tbeam_s3-xxx  version you recommend?

 

Question: Is there an easy native windows tool to flash the device rather than online https://espressif.github.io/esp-launchpad?

  

So, now I made a code change: one letter in the startup screen and successfully compiled the SoftRF sketch in the Arduino IDE and get that build output:

 

 

Question: How to convert the Arduino build dir content into a .uf2 file that I can drop into the bootloader's mounted drive or just, how do I run my code?

 

I’m ok with trial and error for now. Printf would be nice if I could connect a serial terminal output to Windows. Someday I'd like to learn how to do realtime debugging with breakpoints....

Question: What is your prefered build environment?

On a different note, there are no branches in the repository. Sometimes things are more involved and need collaboration. Still like working off the tip, old school.

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Nick Bruder]

Looks like the images didn't come through:

[Nick Bruder]

Still can't see the images. I should become a mechanic! 

[Moshe Braner]

Hi Nick.  Welcome aboard!  You didn't say which version of SoftRF you are trying to compile and flash.  My fork only "works" with the old classic T-Beam (Prime Mark 2, ESP32).   My documentation describes both the compilation and flashing tools.  I have not tried to compile for the T-Beam Supreme (Prime Mark 3, ESP32-S3) (and some nRF52840 devices).  If you want a project to work on, you can try and create a Supreme version of my fork.  I expect problems with it not fitting in the flash space, since it barely fits using the old board support libraries I use, newer libraries are needed for the S3, and the newer libraries are larger.  I am not familiar with the S3 bootloader options.  A "terminal" program (including the "serial monitor" built into the Arduino IDE) does work via the USB connection, all output to "Serial" in the "sketch" is seen on the connected computer.  That has worked for me even on the ESP32-S3 (in the OGNbase project, not SoftRF) but need to be careful regarding the "USB-CDC" compile settings.