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individual assignment
for this week's assignment, I connected the board I made to my laptop and tested some inputs and ouputs (neopixel ring + pulse sensor)
from the ESP32 data sheet I discovered that it has TX and RX pines. This means it has a serial connetion port that can be used to send and store data
I bought this adaptor on amazon to connect my board to my computer (pics)
It's important to switch the TX and RX between 2 devices
this creates the serial communication forwards and backwards between the devices
after connecting my board through the adapter to my computer, I used the RESET and BOOT switches to let me write onto the board it is important to add a reset button connected to pin EN and a resistor to EN and power (10k pull-up). Also important to add a boot switch to GPIO0 and pull to GND
- I ran this test code to update (test code) and when the output says 'connecting...'
- press and hold BOOT switch
- press and release the RESET button
- keep holding BOOT for 2 seconds more
- release BOOT switch
I had to go disable CDC on boot (usually keep it on enabled to use the barduino) because of the external adapter I used to connect the laptop
this process took may tries and debugging with ChatGPT before it successfully connected
after connection, I powered on the neopixel and pulse sensor by running this test code (test code arduino)
Reflection
this week is really important and a difficult part of the PCB design. It was interesting to also explore the UPDI adaptor and how it can be used for simpler boards like AItiny. This is all still very confusing to me and I have a lot to learn and explore especially wireless
group assignment
here is the link to the group assignment page Group Assignment week 11
Reflection
This week was about understanding the fundamentals of communication between electronic devices. I learned a lot about serial networking. It is an important way to connect to a device to be able to send instructions and to connect it to another electronic system as a trigger/input to start the actions encoded on the receiving device.
I helped in the group work by reading the Barduino & the ESP-32-WROOM-1 datasheet to understand the pinouts. The ESP32 has built in networking pins called RX & TX. They are usually connected in a crossed fashion with 2 other connections to ground & power. This is the UART protocol. It helps connect to the Arduino IDE interface & to other devices with UART. It was important that I learned how to navigate technical documents for necessary information.
RX-TX work in pairs by cross connecting to another RX-TX. One works as a voice while the other works as a ear. I saw conceptualising the communication logically was useful. The serial communication creates a bunch of highs & lows that can be understood through the binary & ASCII encoding system.
Using WOKWI to visualise the connections was valuable to test the communication flow. The logic analyser helped to see the physical messages that are being transmitted.
Overall I enjoyed understanding the network GPIOs & translating ascii messages. debugging is important. Adding a boot & reset button is also important to switch between an existing coded sequence or to add a new code. I feel like I got stronger in a very valuable & important part of PCB design & microcontroller design & use.
notes
Put your notes here.