1 Like
To the soldering iron, they’re all pins 
I look forward to seeing this in the not too distant future.
Whats board definition for this in the meshtastic config?
You can find the lines for the board config on the link.
There are some extra pins for gps and battery. So on the main.cpp I added below lines.
#ifdef GENIEBLOCKS
//gps setup
pinMode (GPS_RESET_N, OUTPUT);
pinMode(GPS_EXTINT, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(GPS_RESET_N, HIGH);
digitalWrite(GPS_EXTINT, LOW);
//battery setup
pinMode (BATTERY_EN_PIN, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(BATTERY_EN_PIN, LOW);
#endif
For platformio.ini I added below lines
[env:genieblocks_lora]
extends = esp32_base
board = genieblocks_lora
build_flags =
${esp32_base.build_flags} -D GENIEBLOCKS
Super cool @oztug!! Will you be selling these? If so feel free to add a link from the docs/README.md.
Also if/when you want mainline to support the board (by a new entry in platformio.ini) I’d happily merge a pull-request.
Thank you @geeksville.
Yes I will sell but need some time. I will update my pcb with new ESP32-PICO-V3-02 that has PSRAM.
Here is the prototype of the enclosure.
There is no OLED screen so BLE pairing has to be done by another method without entering password.
4 Likes
I just spent the last hour reading up on the ESP32-PICO-V3-02 – that’s all sorts of sexy. They packed a lot into an easy to use package while taking advantage of economies of scale for an item at a really good price. $3.20 in unit quantities, just wow.
1 Like
btw @oztug if you are making a new board, could you consider fixing an oversight in all the existing ESP32 based boards? None of them include the (optional) 32.768khz clock source. Without that source we (or other projects) are unable to enable “modem sleep mode”.
Modem sleep mode should (in theory) allow dramatically lower power consumption on the esp32 while still leaving bluetooth active. If we had such a feature we could turn off our ugly esp32 workaround of “we only turn bluetooth on every few minutes and check to see if the phone wants us to do something”
The relevant note is here:
CONFIG_BTDM_LOW_POWER_CLOCK option is set to “External 32kHz crystal”.
I swore I saw a schematic with the 32.768khz clock somewhere. Found it!
That’s on the heltec board.
2 Likes
There it is. Right where it should be.
@geeksville Thank you for your suggestion. I didn’t know that BLE needed this crystal for low power applications. I use all ESP32-PICO pins in my design. For low power applications, I had connected all sensor interrupt pins to ESP32 pins. I connected a 32 KHz crystal pin to the connector to use it for GPIO pins. However, it is possible to solder a crystal to these pins.
If I can find some space, I’ll put the crystal capacitors in these signal traces…
I soldered a crystal with capacitors today and test it with deep sleep example code. It looks working.
2 Likes
Ooh wow! We can try turning this on for heltec (only) boards. Alas, I’m not sure a brought a heltec with me to Taiwan. I’ll check.
2 Likes
If you had an esp32 dev board designated as a “meshtastic development kit”, what would be on there?
32k crystal, gps, lora, analog voltage divider, sd card, what else? Buttons? Switches? LEDs?
2 Likes
hmm. For ESP32 I’d say:
- 32k crystal - to allow always on bluetooth with lower power consumption
- gps,
- sx1262 radio,
- analog voltage divider, but pick the resistors big enough to decrease parasitic drain (or i2c addressable charge controller)
- no sd card, instead just stuff a sizable serial flash
- five switches, laid out as up/down/left/right + ok
- a couple of leds
- Low priority bonus (if this is a devboard): a second sx1262, so that it would also work for disaster radio (and meshtastic could start optionally using second level routing also)
That said (and I love the esp32). I think for most applications a NRF52 (with the features listed above) is even better. Because much lower power consumption (can leave bluetooth on with the cpu kinda awake and still have a power draw of <20uA). The downside of nrf52 vs esp32 for this application is no wifi (which is definitely a minus, but only a minus for ‘gateway nodes’)
6 Likes
Talk about sticker shock. Compared to DIY these are ~3x the cost.
You know, before COVID19 someone left thousands of these on top of scooters that people carelessly left lying everywhere.
Just found another cool looking product - military tactical data terminal Military Tactical Terminal RT5 - HF - UHF - VHF - Radio - Modem It is not a LoRa device, but the form factor is ideal and maybe will inspire enclosure designers to make something similar
More info is on RapidM web https://www.rapidm.com/family/rt-family/ (tactical) / https://www.rapidm.com/family/ra-family/ (government / first responders version) - they have 19" rack version with the same keyboard Unfortunately, these devices are just inline voice encryptors / modems for external radios, thus no internal photos on https://fccid.io/ web 
2 Likes
It would be really cool if we can track down the ‘keyboard’ they are using and find an affordable source for them. Lots of options for a screen like that and the case form factor should be easy to approximate.
I’m sure the keyboard is custom rather than off-the-shelf. It does remind me a bit of the PocketPi, though: PocketPi! | ramin assadollahi
2 Likes
Funny, when I was looking for a rubber keyboard I came with the same solution and exactly with the same keyboard 
Here is presentation mil-std Tactical terminal DEVELOPMENT SUPPORTING MARS - ppt download of another concept and again based on this terminal and a BT rubber keyboard…and then they ended with a tablet
I had to dig out my old T-Mobile Sidekick and click on that wonderful keyboard again for old times sake… I’m not sure if you’ve seen the work @bobricius has done with tiny little keyboards and displays, but his stuff is fantastic: #Zepir (part 1.) Raspberry Pi mini computer - first preview - YouTube