Kongduino

2020/09/02

LoRandom

Being normally an ESP32 user, when it came to RNG (Random Number Generation), I usually resorted to the ESP32’s hardware RNG, which uses either BLE or WiFi (same antenna) to produce random numbers from the noise. This requires that you turn on either BLE or WiFi, even if you don’t need it. I normally use…

2020/08/22

BastWAN & Inkplate

In BastWAN, I introduced this new board, the result of a cooperation between RAK Wireless and Electronic Cats. Since then I have been kicking the tyres on this board (of which I have 2). The first task had been to solder headers on top, to be able to burn the bootloader. Then I went wild,…

2020/08/02

Delving into the world of Chinese fakes

Let’s do something different today – it’s Sunday after all… I have spent ~15 years doing wine & spirits trading. Counterfeits have always been a problem in China, with smuggling, and the so-called grey market[1] coming close as runner-ups. To be fair, Chinese Customs (the people in charge of inspecting the goods that come into the…

2020/07/26

Using a BB Q10 keyboard with M5Stack

I bought a BB Q10 keyboard PMOD from Arturo in May and came recently to try and use it. Once the move was over, what I could find and what I wanted to find wasn’t always the same, but this was one of the last mailbags I got before moving, so it was still in…

2020/07/24

BastWAN

Our friends at Electronic Cats had made some time ago a Feather board based on RAK’s RAK4260 module, that could be programmed on the Arduino IDE. There isn’t much support for the SAMR34 chip (Cortex M0+ and LoRa) for Arduino, so any new project bringing support to it is more than welcome. We were quite…

2020/07/23

WisNode LoRa / RAK811

I have had this product in my bins for a while now, and during my move last May I stumbled on them while packing, and unpacking, everything. I happen to be mostly working with 433 MHz devices, but have acquired – willingly or not – some 868 MHz devices too. In this case I…

2018/04/30

Preferences, SPIFFS, and JSON

While I enjoy the [relative] simplicity of the Arduino IDE, for the ESP32 I found it was worth devoting some time and brain-juice to reading the ESP-IDF source code. I know that many people see reading source code as something akin to reading the dictionary, but since that’s something I used to do as a kid,…

2018/04/28

M5Stack PLC [p]review

Unless you’re new to this blog, or have been asleep during class, you know I’m mostly playing with LoRa. One of my hobbies is doing LoRa walks, trying to pin the most remote points my LoRa gateway is reachable. I’ve had a little success improving things on the M5Stack, but so far I am not…

2018/04/08

M5Stack Review, Part Deuce

This is a follow-up to my M5Stack Review. It’s been a couple of months, and plenty has happened. This time around, I will mostly review two things: the company and people behind the M5Stack, and new products. It’s not my place to reveal upcoming products, but I sure can review stuff that I have in…

2018/02/02

M5Widgets: Widgets for the M5Stack

This is based on the [alas now defunct!] Phoenard project. The Phoenard had a touchscreen, whereas the M5Stack has a “dumb” screen. So instead of copy/pasting and adapting the code, I am selecting the juicy, non-touch bits, and adapting them to the M5, while simplifying a bit. Installation It is a little more complex than…