WashTastic - 1W node based on E22-900M30S and promicro NRF52

[heady mulch]

"Reduce prices plz. VIP designer right here."

[olive basin]

it is kinda frustrating that it costs so much

i would need to increse my prices to actually keep up with this and make something

[heady mulch]

Hopefully this batch you won't need to troubleshoot

[olive basin]

haha yea

about 451,74€ currently

I sent this

Hi,

I did some price comparing and i found out that at the manufacturer ive used usually 20 boards is about 276€ assembled without the promicro compared to the 452€ i paid on this batch.

The price im paying for pcbs compared to the demand and what i'm gonna get in the end after paying taxes, this means i would most likely need to increse my sale price.

[marble loom]

Yikes. Double for the PCB, 50% higher for components...

[olive basin]

yeaaa.....

i would basically not make alot from these in the long rung 😅 i need to pay income tax and usd to eur conversio is a thing too

[marble loom]

Do either if those prices include any testing after assembly?

[olive basin]

Apparently it was free 🤷‍♀️

But still

Even if it did include testing it's not disclosed

If possible i Will probably just use most of the earnings to order more pcbs without cashing it to my bank account

Tex evasion

[marble loom]

the legal kind though! Can't have any gains if you spent all your money on the business 🤷‍♂️

I did a few cycles of that when I was reselling bitcoin miners during the first boom. Each successive batch was bigger than the last

[olive basin]

Yeaaaa

[olive basin]

aaaaannndddd all of the washtastics have been sold

[vague blade]

congrats! that was fast

[olive basin]

thats like about $1400 in few days 😅

[vague blade]

👀

[olive basin]

about 1.2k€

minus taxes

[vague blade]

time to buy more boards!

[olive basin]

yup

and to increse the price lol

[vague blade]

you know, you could assemble those in small scale yourself without a ton of investment 👀

cheapo toaster oven, controller, order the boards on panels and get a solder stencil

[olive basin]

but i would not be able to ship to usa

[vague blade]

hmm

[olive basin]

i mean i can

[vague blade]

if you know someone in usa, you could ship them like 10 of them

to distribute for you

[olive basin]

but its fucking expensive

[vague blade]

yeah tell me about it, same from canada

sometimes I can get cheap rates through a company here "netparcel", they're like pirateship but canada

[olive basin]

ofc i'm willing to ship if ppl pay lol

[vague blade]

If they all sold at the existing price so quick, maybe people wouldn't mind the extra 🤔 dunno

[olive basin]

tho idk how to ship outside the EU 😅 what does it require

[olive basin]

yeaa 😅

[vague blade]

I usually employ the time tested technique of lying on the shipping bill

[olive basin]

from $85 to $100

[vague blade]

there's like probably 100k parcels entering the US a day

it just flies past a camera on a conveyor belt 99.999% of the time

[olive basin]

tbh its byers responsibility to declare it

in most cases

it depends tho

[vague blade]

worst case they just throw it back to you

[olive basin]

haha yea

[vague blade]

I tried to mail something to florida once and the address reader thing sent it to malaysia 💀

and it was e-cigarette stuff, which is banned there, so it got returned with a big "refused entry" letter taped on .. written in malay

[olive basin]

😅

haha

[severe halo]

I'm not sure if you can.. I think the price is actually tight from the customer perspective. Doesn't seem cheap to me despite the selling success. But this is just my opinion 🤷‍♂️

[olive basin]

Ill see what i get for a quote with 50 boards

[hot perch]

I'd try to get quotes from different manufacturers on Alibaba. For 50/100pcs you might be able to get a better price there than on JLCPCB. For bulk 500pcs, I'm 100% sure you'll get a much better price on Alibaba.

[olive basin]

Jlcpcb is the cheapest what ive seen currently

But im selling my boards on Elecrow and they handle all the logistics

And wdym alibaba?

@hot perch

[hot perch]

https://www.alibaba.com/search/page?spm=a2700.suppliers_search.the-new-header_fy23_pc_search_bar.keydown__Enter&SearchScene=suppliers&SearchText=pcba&from=pcHomeContent

[hot perch]

alibaba means alibaba hahah there are manufacturers also not only things already done....

[hot perch]

aaa ok elecrow make it...? I thought when you said you were going to order 50 pieces you were referring to JLCPCB, not elecrow....

[olive basin]

Yea elecrow manes and sells

[olive basin]

sent 50 pcbs for quotation on elecrow

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/A9gFI5.png

for comparison jlc

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/d5KyKa.png

😅

[small blaze]

On PCBWay it would be double

[olive basin]

pcbway is still expensive

jlc is the cheapest

[small blaze]

Yeah my Next big order will be on jlcpcb

But I am testing nextpcb Right now they asked for a Cooperation

[olive basin]

u know what

they sponsored me hehe

#1377910167240441866 v0.4

[small blaze]

Nextpcb?

[olive basin]

yup

[small blaze]

Yeah I am switching from PCBWay to Nextpcb Right now

[small blaze]

Are they good?

[olive basin]

i mean they just sponsored

they are making them

[small blaze]

Did you also Talk to jocelyn

[olive basin]

yes and no

[small blaze]

Ahhh now I get it

[olive basin]

This is without a battery 😅

Now it looks bit different

This was with 6V input

5.1V

Max 7V
Min 4.9V i think

Charging the battery

At 370mA

[cunning breach]

That's a lot of ringing

[olive basin]

Just the battery

[olive basin]

I could hear the inductor making whining noises i think

[olive basin]

Battery is st 2.2V

Pcm shuts output off when no power is fed into solar port

[heady mulch]

Is this the battery charge circuit?

Having a quick look, that ringing can only be suppressed with carefully tuned snubbing circuits which take some efficiency as well.

[olive basin]

scope is hooked to promicros bat pins

but yes

its the charging

ill have a video soon ish

[heady mulch]

It's fine. Battery doesn't care about ringing.

[olive basin]

yea but node does?

[heady mulch]

It's literally a huge capacitor.

[olive basin]

i saw promicro bootloop 😅

the pcm lets power through when u start charging

[heady mulch]

The promicro is fed through the LDO

[heady mulch]

Is it causing the bootloop?

[olive basin]

saw it few times reboot

so 🤷‍♀️

[heady mulch]

Filter circuit...

[olive basin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrZsRhNj1b0

[severe halo]

What ldo?

As far as I know, washtastic has battery and mppt in parallel, both behind a BMS that should not 'close the switch' until 2.9~3v are reached. Then, it feeds both promicro and 5v boost in parallel.

Then, the promico nice!nano freeds the bat+ and bat- (almost) directly into the nRF52

[heady mulch]

low drop out regulator

it basically turns everyhting above 3.3v into heat

[severe halo]

which seems to be configured in high voltage mode

[heady mulch]

yes, in promicro it is

[severe halo]

but the promicro is not fed from any ldo, that's whats puzzling me from your statement

promicro board has an ldo (me6217) but is only used for output pin, to control external hardware

https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/3009214883/O1CN01dX5XEt1lwSylaBst7_!!3009214883.jpg

the ldo outoput is tagged into extvcc and I couldnt find the extvcc anywhere in the schematic but in the headers section

bat goes into the mosfet (NPQ2) source that switches between usb or bat power sources, then is directly fed into promicro's VDDH

I also tested this soldering a wire to the NPQ2 mosfet drain leg, and the voltage was about the same as in the source leg.

[severe halo]

I know what LDO means, is just that I dont understand to what LDO are you refering.

[heady mulch]

Oh, for some reason I assumed there were two LDOs, one for the processor and one for vext

[heady mulch]

Yes, if there's no additional LDO for filtering then adding something between the battery itself and the battery pin (which is the only sensible way to power the promicro aside from the usb).

[olive basin]

There are some caps on bat pin next to promicro

[severe halo]

I'm hopping that the voltage monitor directy tied to nrf52 reset works. If it doesn't then I should tie it to a mosfet that cuts power from battery to promicro

[olive basin]

Yeaaa

I wonder why the pcm lets the power through even when the voltage is under 3V

[final rain]

hi iris. my local group is ramping up infostructure deployments but are using sub 1W nodes. I want to pitch the idea of using this board instead to them, what is the state of this project?

[olive basin]

They work 😅

[final rain]

i ran v4x through jlcpcb and got a bunch of errors in the part picker. got an idea of what x5 would cost?

[olive basin]

What errors did it give?

But v0.4 is 4 layers and cost arm and a leg compared to v0.3.5

[olive basin]

If it has some parts not in bom its expected

Since some don't need assembly

[final rain]

I don't recall. I read that the nrf52840 is embedded in .04. I don't have the equipment to do it myself.

There is someone that does in the local group so using 0.3.5 isn't the end of the world if 0.4v is too expensive.

[olive basin]

This is v0.3.5

Only thing jlc wont do is the promicro

Biggest difference between .4 and .3.5 is that the nrf52840 is integrated

Also has ina3221

[final rain]

Yup. Im trying to find solar requirements, as well as the battery voltage.

4.5-28v solar input?

[olive basin]

Yea but 5V is kinda recommended min 😅

[final rain]

I see now the image eplains both

[olive basin]

Haha

Yup

I recommend using the WashTastic variant since its aware of the 1W module

[final rain]

Why isnt the 0.4v aware of it, jc.

[olive basin]

It is 😅 I'm talking about the firmware

[final rain]

Aight. I will try putting 0.3.5 through JLCPCB tmrw. its late.

[olive basin]

Just remember the licence :)

[severe halo]

this is the doomed board from elecrow, right? why do you keep it attached to the second promicro ?

I mean, once diagnosed the bootloader, technically you could just unsolder the parallel promicro board and put the promicro in the v0.3.5 to work by flashing the bootloader, couldn't you?

[olive basin]

Been too lazy to remove 🤣🤣

[olive basin]

Here we go

U can exclude the shipping

So its $740,59

About 636.53€

I'm making no profit yet 🤣

Rather I'm negative lol

Hehe told them that they have very expensive compared to other places 😅

Ofc didn't tell it was jlcpcb

If i did math for 50 boards i would get 2.5k€, elecrow fee and taxes taken out of it.

[olive basin]

Now the jlc quote isn't that far off 😅

[final rain]

Not too familiar with JLCPCB yet, what is this quote for? I see its for 1W 0.3.5. Is that $740.59 for 50 assembled 1W nodes?

[olive basin]

This Elecrow

But yea 50 assembled

[final rain]

That is cheaper per unit that I expected. Of course it needs the pico nr52 as well but still not bad.

[olive basin]

That's included 🙃 atleast it was on the last order hehe

[final rain]

Oh does eleceow have the pico then?

[olive basin]

Elecrow is not like jlcpcb that has warehouse with parts, most of them are bought to order basically

But Elecrow does sell promicros

https://www.elecrow.com/pro-micro-nrf52840-development-board-compatible-with-nice-nano-v2-0.html

[final rain]

Very nice. Makes it easier without finding someone willing to attach a separately bought board.

[olive basin]

I would do it anyway before selling 😅

[final rain]

Are you saying that it comes with the order but isn't attached? Again these weren't as far as I'm concerned going to be sold but used as infrastructure nodes. Gotta test them first of course.

[olive basin]

Elecrow solders, flashes and tests these boards before they even leave to a customer 😅

Basically what i did before i partnered with Elecrow

[proud cargo]

Washtastic is my first board with MPPT built in and my math says I need at least a 14W panel for a Washtastic to survive our winter

I don't have a go-to solar panel that can benefit from MPPT in the 15-20W range. Any suggestions?

All the ones I've bought so far are for 5V or 12V. I could buy a 12V one and just not use the charger, I suppose

[olive basin]

wait rly?

hmmmm

[proud cargo]

That's assuming 3.3Wh consumed per day

[olive basin]

wdym not use the charger?

[proud cargo]

I've been getting 20W panels that come with a PWM-based charger that handles 12V batteries

[olive basin]

ooooh

got it

[proud cargo]

I used Goal Seek in Excel and asked it to set the Solar power balance (Wh) cell to 0 by modifying the panel wattage in the upper left

If the weather de-rating of 90% seems absurd, it's because we can have multiple weeks of heavy cloud cover in winter

[olive basin]

consumption ofc also depends on ur tx power and how frequently u transmit stuff and how active is ur mesh

[proud cargo]

I'm assuming a 1% TX duty cycle

Which is on the high side, but not crazy

[olive basin]

mm

[proud cargo]

Do you know average power draw for a Washtastic? I worked up the numbers for an Ikoka and am assuming Washtastic will be pretty similar. Something like this

That assumes 120mW during RX and 2.55W consumed on TX

[olive basin]

https://github.com/valzzu/meshtastic-pcbs/tree/main/WashTastic#power-consumption
was measured on older version of the board

[final rain]

Putting the files through elecrow throws a non-specific error.

Is a testing guide required?

[olive basin]

No

[olive basin]

What error?

Worked fine for me

Jlc is the cheapest for small quantities

[olive basin]

Final quote from elecrow was 544€ :)

[final rain]

Not sure what I did wrong there. I proved the files, changed nothing other than quantity and then requested the quote. Error.

[olive basin]

Interesting

Have u tried jlc?

[final rain]

Not with these files.

[olive basin]

Elecrow has started a new batch of WashTastics

[marble loom]

Am I doing this right? When connecting a 12v lifepo4 battery, the red light next to the battery connector illuminates but the pro micro does not.

If I connect USB-C to the pro micro only, I can configure it... Sort of. But not the radio.

[heady mulch]

Red light is reverse polarity warning

[marble loom]

Sorta answered my own question when I zoomed in on my picture and saw the LED was labeled "WARN"

My fault for trusting this cheap barrel jack... the wiring colors are reversed 😩

[olive basin]

oh and btw, that battery connector is only rly meant for 3.7V cells :)

[marble loom]

ok, gotcha. What are the power settings for? If you did have 24V, where do you apply that to the board?

[olive basin]

that voltage setting is for the charger

aka solar plug

[marble loom]

ahhh, ok.

That was not clear to me from the docs but makes a whole lot more sense

[olive basin]

yea i do kinda need to make it better 😅

[marble loom]

Ok.. still having a problem. If I hook up 3.7v (a single 18650) with the proper polarity, no lights come on and the regulator next to the promicro starts to get hot VERY quickly

[olive basin]

wait, dont tell me its the 5V boost

[olive basin]

the grey inductor or the black ic?

[marble loom]

sorry, L1

I think I smoked at least one when I fixed the polarity 🙁

(the promicro at least)

ok! 2nd one is fine.

[olive basin]

L1 is the small inductor 🤔

[marble loom]

i'll replace the promicro and go from there

[olive basin]

nothing in that circle should get hot 😅

only thing tha should get warm is the charging ic when charging

[marble loom]

Call me a chef, i'm cooking these things

[olive basin]

elecrow is making more of these :)

this time 50 boards 😅

hopefully they dont sell out in about 2 days

[marble loom]

as long as you don't have other random people buying up 5 at a time 😏... but hey there are worse problems to have than "these things are selling too fast"

[olive basin]

like taxes 😅

i have uploaded IBom for those that like those lol
https://github.com/valzzu/meshtastic-pcbs/blob/main/WashTastic/V0.3.5/InteractiveBOM_PCB_1W-meshtastic-node_V0.3.5.5.html

[marble loom]

how much battery/solar do you typically like to use with these? I was planning on doing 5w and ~5ah

It tucks very nicely into a standard US waterproof junction box with three 18650s. Going up today!

[final rain]

Giving JLCPCB a go with the gerber/BOM/picknplace.

I am looking at the InteractiveBOM and see differences that I am trying to work out before placing an order. R13, R26, C13, maybe more, are not populated in the InteractiveBOM but are populated in the BOM.

Should I alter the order so that it matches the interactiveBOM or are the 0.3.5.5 files good to go as is? Every part in Bill of Materials gets selected and assembled?

[olive basin]

If u want the newest board then i want the 3.5.5 files

[olive basin]

Should be fine

Headers aren't placed for a reason

[final rain]

Okay. Another thing I seen while viewing the InteractiveBOM was these holes appear offset and lining each hole up in the center still shows the offset.

[olive basin]

Don't worry

Its just the model

[heady mulch]

Hmmm. Needs a little bit of scaling...

[severe halo]

@olive basin I made a twice pannel model and fixed the zipties holes

not sure if the model of panel you got there fits here.. I made it for my original solar panel, to fit two in parallel

[olive basin]

145x145mm

[severe halo]

165.5x131.5mm 😅

[final rain]

Got 5x nodes in production. 🤞

[final rain]

Now for soldering

[tame sigil]

Is there a significant difference between 0.3.5.4 and 0.3.5.5? I unfortunately had a batch made of 0.3.5.4 like two weeks before the 0.3.5.5 files were available.

[olive basin]

Nah

I changed the temp sensor

Don't remember what else i did

[final rain]

What would I search for if I wanted to buy pin sockets for a press fit pico nrf52?

[olive basin]

These?
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EzlKrbE

[tired coral]

anyone have some to sell. I tried to use the 3.5.5 files in JLC and it didnt see m to be happy, a lot of components had issues

[final rain]

that is normal

[olive basin]

Thats fine

[vague blade]

I was just trying out the tester firmware uhh, is it normal for P1.00 to just stay high the whole time? All the other pins toggle as expected. 4 boards the same, different sellers

[olive basin]

wut

no?

[vague blade]

5/5, maybe because I'm checking it with a multimeter? No load?

[olive basin]

lemme check

const int pins[] = {
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,
32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39,
40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47
};

those are all the pins

so yes it should not stay on

[vague blade]

🤔 yeah the code looked right to me too, hmm

I'll try to get a led wired up

all I've got are some smd rgb ones from fixing my keyboard lol

It indeed do be blinking, but it's going really dim instead of off 🤔

[olive basin]

weird

i mean it prob will work 🤣

[vague blade]

Yeah and there's a bunch like it from different batches so, it's probably fine

[olive basin]

yea

[vague blade]

ah that's the user button pin on the faketec pcb anyway, as long as it works as an input idc

[olive basin]

ah lol

[untold wharf]

Anyone willing to sell me a couple of these pre-fabbed so I can design a case for em?

[heady mulch]

@meager spruce you got some in the stable?

You're in the same neighbourhood, I think.

[olive basin]

I think i have one too

[meager spruce]

I think I have one not in use, but I don't recall if @tidal dawn has any or not, he's closer. Otherwise I can spend some time to build one but it's an older revision I think 0.3.2, gotta check

[tidal dawn]

No Washtastics here

[olive basin]

If one wants to make a case id recommend doing it on the newer bigger pcb

[untold wharf]

Yeah just the newest one would be great, @olive basin I'll DM u 🙂

Spoke to Iris and the EU to US shipping is crazzyyy, LMK if anyone's got some in the US 🙂

[olive basin]

Not to mention shipping in eu vs domestic

I can send a parcel here for like 7€ for the smallest and its like 23€ elsewhere lol

Xxs here and s elsewhere

So yeaaaa

[meager spruce]

Maybe I'll just get 20 to have them in addition to the next JLC order

[tired coral]

Q? What's the normal way to wire up the washtastic

[olive basin]

Can u send a pic

Not home atm so can't check

[olive basin]

theres a reason why i dont ship to outside of the EU 😅

anyway first time doing that

welll

i did send something to uk but dont count it

[tame sigil]

I have a few 0.3.5.4 boards that I just had made a month ago. Don't know if the layout or size changed to the 0.3.5.5 revision. I am in the US.

[olive basin]

the important stuff are in the same places

[tired coral]

I was asking because my rak says 💯 battery and I'm wondering if there is anyway to know the charge

[olive basin]

should not

[tired coral]

This is how it's connected. Been reporting 💯 for 12 hours

[olive basin]

adc value is most likely wrong

[severe halo]

hey this hasn't been published outside of this meesage, right ?

you should publish it in your printables account :p

[vague blade]

Got any pictures of an assembled one? Feels weird posting a model without photos, makes people think it's untested

I don't have any of the tester boards

[severe halo]

sure

thing is, someone ask me for the tester and just found that I built mine and iris published everything on her side, there was no manual or files all together available to build it

[vague blade]

Oh my bad I forgot to check the thread again, I'll get on that now

[vague blade]

https://www.printables.com/model/1471461-nrf52840-promicro-tester-enclosure voila

[olive basin]

Time to add da link to repo

[severe halo]

cool thanks to all!

[olive basin]

Not like there will be alot that will use it but its there if someone rly wants 😅

[severe halo]

yeah, there's not much people assembling more than 5 nodes

but those who do, really appreciate it

[olive basin]

Oh yea probably

[tired coral]

On the gerber files when I upload them it says J2,J3,J5,J5,U2 do not exist on the BOM, can I just ignore them?

[severe halo]

yeah, you can. Look at the board. Those are different type of connectors

[tired coral]

Ok thanks

[marble loom]

Minor update here, the boards don't like 12v. Fried everything on two of them, MCU and radio. Expensive smoke!

[olive basin]

Huh, it's meant to handle 20v too 😅

[olive basin]

Is there visible damage somewhere?

[severe halo]

where did you plug 12v, in the solar charger port or in the battery port?

[olive basin]

oh yea that too

[marble loom]

Battery.

[heady mulch]

@olive basin I'm beginning to think you need e-fuses, or at least Zeners and polyfuses.

[olive basin]

yea battery is max 4.2V

[olive basin]

maybe

did not think someone would actually do this

[heady mulch]

They're not idiot-proof, but they add a level of idiot resistance that might prevent some of these issues.

Trouble is that batteries need to be bidirectional

[olive basin]

yeaa

[heady mulch]

But can still use zener and polyfuse to protect against over-voltage and reverse polarity.

Or just bite the bullet and find an efuse.

There were some on the list I sent you

Trouble is, it's either another dollar in BOM cost, or an extra 10x10mm of board space.

[olive basin]

hmmmm....

i think i want to try to keep the size the same as long as possible

[olive basin]

the list with the chargers?

[marble loom]

The instructions as they were written did not make it clear. I thought it was setting the voltage for the device as a whole, not just solar.

It's my mistake and I'm not asking for anything from it, just a suggestion to put that in big bold letters.

[olive basin]

yes i know i need to make it better. but also theres these red voltages where the connector would be
https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/6bGQGF.png

[olive basin]

@heady mulch i may be blind but dont see lol

[heady mulch]

In a tab marked e-fuses?

Maybe I really did slim it down.

I'll send it later

[olive basin]

wai

huh

lemme check

ah lol

i looked at the txt file 🤣

[heady mulch]

Oops, wrong place

[marble loom]

That is helpful. I ordered from Elecrow, and those images flash by pretty quickly so I missed that. This description on the page is what also confused me. The text says nothing at all about battery voltages. but I understand it now.

For efficient power management, the board integrates a CN3791-based charger, allowing battery charging through a solar panel or any 5-28V power source.

I would also put some verbiage in the description that the battery connector is "only suitable for 1s (3.7v) lithium ion batteries"

Take it or leave it on that feedback. Not everyone that orders these things is going to be at the same level with this stuff. I'm happy to own up to my mistake here but others maybe not so much. A little extra guidance (and clear warnings) could save you some grief in the future.

[severe halo]

RIP

[marble loom]

This person is way better at documentation than me, I like the way they have stuff laid out. The other thing that I found interesting was the support for multiple battery chemistries... being able to do lifepo4 or LTO would be amazing https://lectronz.com/products/solar-mppt-charger-for-meshtastic

[olive basin]

i do have plans to eventually support multiple chemistries

[marble loom]

LiFePO4 would be really nice for a ton of reasons... low temp performance and cost particularly. And there are some great options for high-capacity cells. I have a bunch of 15ah cells that I bought for like $3usd/ea

[olive basin]

We might have soon another batch of WashTastics on sale at elecrow

[olive basin]

Money money moneeee

80$x50 is alot 😅

Minus 5% comission fee what ever

Minus tax

Still alot

[silver crest]

Damn

[jolly wigeon]

The Washtastic firmware on mrekin's flasher is only for the newer versions with the NRF52 IC, right? I'm assuming older 0.3s with Pro Micros should still use the generic DIY TCXO builds but wanted to double check.

[olive basin]

nope :) its for all of them

only change is that the firmware is aware of the 1W lora module

[jolly wigeon]

Ohh great! Thanks @olive basin 🙏

I couldn't find the variant.h on GitHub (but I'm very dumb lol). Any chance someone could point me in the right direction?

[olive basin]

nrf52 and diy

its basically using promicro variant but changing some build flags

[jolly wigeon]

Ahh thanks so much! Think it'll work for other standard pro micro builds with a 1W radio (e.g. Tom's Liberty MeshMess with an e22-900M30S)?

[olive basin]

Well..... Possibly

If originally used the promicro diy firmware

Then yea

[heady mulch]

Yes, should be fine.

Main thing is that Iris took the initiative and made her own variant.

[olive basin]

heh

[olive basin]

PLEASE READ!!!
https://github.com/valzzu/meshtastic-pcbs/blob/main/WashTastic/Readme.md#note-for-ppl-who-have-ordered-this-before-i-was-notified

[true garden]

do we know what that even causes ?

[heady mulch]

More susceptible to transient voltage wibbles

It's a RC filter

It's only 100nF - can chip one off anything

[true garden]

ah so maybe thats what is causing the ripple i saw originally when a battery isn't connected with solar only but this is on bat + not sure if that would impact that i'd have to look at the solar path

[heady mulch]

Nah, it'll be the charger.

Battery is a huge capacitor

[heady mulch]

Yep

[true garden]

the cn3491 ?

[heady mulch]

Bang bang bang goes the buck converter.

Need moar caps

[true garden]

that was solar input of 5v without battery

[olive basin]

yup

[true garden]

even with added cap it was still pretty bad

but the battery sinks it all

just wonder when the xb chip is in low-voltage protection what how that would look

maybe should use the scope to see whats really happening

this was with 330uf

but that was just at the pro micro bat+ and gnd

where it was added

[heady mulch]

The NRF is fed through a ldo anyway - they're very good at filtering out that kind of noise.

[true garden]

it didn't boot unless there was 100uf there

[heady mulch]

Or a battery?

[true garden]

right or battery

[olive basin]

i have added some caps on the bat line next to promicro on later versions

[true garden]

with battery that is essentially all clean

[heady mulch]

I was discussing this on the dev call last night, btw. The net consensus is that even with cutoffs, even with watchdogs, even with the improved write control in littleFS, the NRF52 is still prone to getting stuck in a loop. The answer is simply either: don't let it run flat, or be prepared to press the reset button.

That goes for RAK, seeeeeeeeeeed, whoever.

[true garden]

yeah

i'm getting ready to just put a lot more battery in these nodes

would be nice to have the reset hold on these though

that you proposed built in

[heady mulch]

Btw, that hysteresis circuit can be fit on a cheap board about 5 times, and JLC will bang them out in 5s. How many people do you know with solar nodes that would want one?

[true garden]

if you think about selling them as stand alone i can imagine that people would buy them for raks and other nrf that have this issue

the major issue for me is the US current tariff and trade bs making ordering anything a nightmare

[heady mulch]

That's why I was thinking of a through -hole one that could be made on perf board.

[true garden]

yeah

[heady mulch]

But it's so much easier to find SMD stuff these days.

[true garden]

also add this into the schematic as standard so it doesn't have to be added

[olive basin]

easyeda pro to the win xd

reuse blocks

[heady mulch]

I still haven't got the hang of them yet.

[olive basin]

neither have i

[heady mulch]

I wasted this morning adding it to one of my designs, and then remembered that it also works with sodium ion 🙃

[olive basin]

i guess could just make a project that has alot of these things

[true garden]

i found a cool pcb design for using bunch of just dev through hole components so just a pcb could be used and build out of easy to source parts https://danielpcostas.dev/masn-a-simple-and-open-source-solar-node-for-meshtastic/

[heady mulch]

I was going t split up the sampler board into bits, but haven't got the hang of it yet, either.

[heady mulch]

Yeah, my first introduction to EasyEDA was making a layout for what was on my protoboards

I was kind of put off by needing to get 5 boards 😬

Doesn't seem to bother me now...

[olive basin]

lol

[silver crest]

That’s sick

[silver crest]

Me to 😂

[true garden]

its easy enough to have pcb's made in the US but PCBA service is not so easy

so a board like above makes it possible to assemble a working node out of easily accessible parts

thats generally what i meant by that

[tidal dawn]

it's like a more featured Xiao BLE just with 22dB instead of 30dB radio

[olive basin]

I asked if elecrow is able to move the resistor 😅

well see

[heady mulch]

Should be able to bodge it.

I've seen worse.

[olive basin]

yeee

[near maple]

Not sure if you can help - am trying out an order of the 0.4 Washtastic version on jplpcb. It tells me "the below parts won't be assembled due to data missing. U8,U11,J1,U12,J3,J4,J5,J6 designators don't exist in the BOM file." Am trying it with the BOM no connectors 0.4 and the PickAndPlace CSV for 0.4.

[olive basin]

Yea thats normal but wait for me to update it since theres a slight issue with the battery protection

Atm at work so can't

[near maple]

No worries, thanks

[olive basin]

Heh

[true garden]

should add in the reset circuit being suggested by Nom https://discordapp.com/channels/867578229534359593/1194757507013427250/1442718736342585456

[small blaze]

This is Gore

[olive basin]

nah

[small blaze]

Yes it is

Its horrifing

I nearly sharted

[severe halo]

This looks like a lot of heat was applied, I’m havibg doubts about the integrity of the BMS chip.

[olive basin]

not gonna even use that pcb 😅

i can test it if it works if ur wondering

[small blaze]

Can you Test if it works with 15kV and 2kA

I Need those datas

[olive basin]

im not gonna be that one guy who showed 12v

[heady mulch]

https://tenor.com/view/i'll-allow-it-gif-17514413855288578269

[olive basin]

v0.3.5 and v0.4 has been fixed hopefully

[crisp tundra]

meaning new gerber has updated track for this capacitor and nothing else?

[olive basin]

Yea 🤣

Only fix is that one cap lol

[heady mulch]

A few test boards...

For a hyper-aggressive cutoff (3v falling, 3.4v rising)

[true garden]

you're in the UK right ?

did you buy up all their stock of those? lol or did you have to preorder them as well ?

[heady mulch]

It's a different chip.

One of the TI ones.

[true garden]

ah ok

4 solder points ? gnd / bat+ / reset / 3v3 ref ?

[heady mulch]

Populated pads with the target resistor values prefitted, and spare pads for when they're inevitably wrong

Battery at the top, enable at the bottom, and the resistor points broken out for good measure.

[true garden]

thats nice you could just put common values you think are right with solder bridges or something to easily change it but i assume once you know the right value it shouldn't need those ?

or maybe thats what those r1 r2 and r2 pads are

[heady mulch]

They're for adding extra resistors

The small ones are 0402, the others are 0603 which is the limit of my skill level.

The 0402 are easy to depopulate ✂️

[true garden]

i've soldered 0402 once and don't wish to ever do that again

[heady mulch]

Indeed

Iris and I have spent a lot of time debating when to use one or the other.

[true garden]

do you think the schematic you sent is probably correct ? i know you make no guarantee without testing it

Iris did me a favor and added it and i was planning to order some board with this circuit in place i'm sure i could just cut traces if something isn't right but modifying it with its location and small 0402 compoents would be difficult

[olive basin]

I love my 0402

[heady mulch]

I think try that chip out on some Veroboard, and use chonky resistors to set it.

[heady mulch]

Yeah, now you do!

Cos you got an army of robots to make stuff for you!

[olive basin]

Whaaaat

Naaaah

Totally not

Also i think elecrow is moving the resistor

No

Cap i mean

I do also kinda want to find something to replace the cn chip

Its okay but could be better

That would totally not make me redo v0.4 layout 🙃

That i totally have not thought of doing for ages

And totally have not neglected

And totally have not forgotten about it untill few days ago

[heady mulch]

I tacked the cutoff test circuit onto the bodge boards. They'll be here in a couple of weeks.

And I ordered 5x new charger boards, cos I'm 100% certain of this design.

[olive basin]

Are u sure sure

[true garden]

@heady mulch if you come up with a good design and are either selling them or let others order them let me know because i'd like to add some to the boards i have already

[olive basin]

I wanna make something small but useful

Cheap too

So could sell alot xd

[true garden]

it looks like people have good luck selling good whole built nodes for quite a large margin

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4310813646/meshtastic-meshcore-solar-outdoor

like this

[olive basin]

Eventually yes

When i figure out solar in Finland

I guess that's using 25w panel

That's in the range I'm thinking

But they are expensive as hell

[true garden]

there are cheap panels meant for charging car batteries

[olive basin]

25w?

Or close

Found one

80€

[true garden]

https://a.co/d/5gmFa0k

[olive basin]

Thats us Amazon so yeaaa....

Won't ship not show price

[true garden]

yeah but maybe you can find those types of panels cheaper than just the panel

for some reason if you look for car battery maintainers versus just the panel

its much cheaper

[olive basin]

https://www.amazon.de/ECO-WORTHY-Monocrystalline-Solar-Panel-Kit/dp/B0C9Q3MSP4/

42€

[true garden]

see

[olive basin]

Its still expensive

Would be cheaper maybe if it didn't come with the charger

Ye

I see apparently free shipping too

[severe halo]

I got lost here. What did you fix?

[olive basin]

The battery protection had s capacitor in a wrong place

Apparently prevented booting if battery drained

Can't confirm nor deny

[crisp tundra]

i solder 0402 😄

[true garden]

it can be done it isn't easy and its a pita and its especially difficult if its in a place that isn't easy to reach with an iron next to tall caps or other stuff

[crisp tundra]

its not that hard 😉 i did that few times already

[true garden]

i had to fix a RC remote by replacing a 0402 resistor with a different value

i got it done

just a pain

you soldered all of those by hand ?

[crisp tundra]

nah - no pain no gain

[crisp tundra]

Yes Sir

[dusky wraith]

Would you mind providing the p/n that gives this .4v hysterisis? Thanks.

[heady mulch]

For sure, but it's not just one part 🙂

Wait til I've solved it first!

I only ordered it a few hours ago!

[dusky wraith]

Just curious about the IC used.....

[severe halo]

You could use a tlv840 tied to a fet

The tlv840 lets you program the hysteresis with a cap

[heady mulch]

That's time delay, not rising Vs falling threshold

Adding hysteresis on a single input chip is really hard.

There's some nanopower ones that would be great, except they're only 4 pins.

[dusky wraith]

I was planning on using the TPS3806J20DBVR. It wouldn't be this one, would it?

[heady mulch]

No its not, but that's a good find!

Sorry, I fell asleep before i had chance to answer

I'll look it up later

[heady mulch]

TPS3808G01DRVR

[dusky wraith]

I looked at it's datasheet and the big thing I see is that it's Vhys is only 1-1.5%, which for a Vit (threshold voltage) of either 2.79V or 3.07V; I feel that that hysteresis is too small (~0.03V). Depending on battery chemistry, I believe the hystersis should be about 0.2-0.3V. The TPS3806J20DBVR hysteresis is fully programmable.

Thank you for letting me know what you found. It is always great to see what others have found and are using!

[heady mulch]

That's what the extra bits are for 😉

Basically, need a chip with independent sense pin, and then feed the output back in, so it changes the trigger level.

[dusky wraith]

The TPS3806J20DBVR has independent Sense and Hysteresis pins; so 4 resistors and the IC and you are done.

[heady mulch]

Yup.

Also sot23

[heady mulch]

So my design is definitely wrong

I forgot this one is open drain, not push-pull

Oh well

What's one more round of rework? 😬

[olive basin]

Heh

[heady mulch]

Oh deary dear 😭

I think I set it up to work with either the 2.9v cutoff or the push-pull version, but then never swapped out the core chip

[olive basin]

Oooooffff

[heady mulch]

So at the moment, if it switches off, it will stay off...

But luckily it will never switch off...

Ack

Whatever

I only got 5

[olive basin]

Ahhahahaha

[true garden]

hmmmm

am i feeling lucky

parts arrived

lol

[olive basin]

Mmm

[heavy mist]

so the only problem with the cap is it won't boot up if battery gets from too low, to "enough" and the reset/power button need to be hit? or does it affect the solar charging in general?

[olive basin]

only boot

cant confirm nor deny this lol

[heavy mist]

ok

[olive basin]

but its now like datasheet shows it

[heavy mist]

@untold wharf did you already start designing a case? im stuck at the switch for on/off its so smoll

[untold wharf]

I have not no, I am waiting on some china parts

[olive basin]

i prob should maybe change it since one person broke the switch lol

[untold wharf]

On/off will be done via battery cutoff on the BMS AIO that I am using

Not gonna expose the on/off from the board

Ya there is some good panel mount options or toggle push options

Toggle push on/off buttons are the best foradapting to cases IMO

[olive basin]

maybe could use something like that

[heavy mist]

the black slide part is like 1.3mm square, dont know how i would be able to print something so smoll

[olive basin]

resin

xd

[heavy mist]

ahhh okay, i want to create a case for mobile use

[untold wharf]

yeah me too

[heavy mist]

P1.01/02/07 are not connected right? do you even solder them to the board?

[olive basin]

the 3 middle pins?

yea not used for anything

i dont solder them

[heady mulch]

https://tenor.com/view/its-free-real-sate-gif-7215175

[heady mulch]

How are you adding the switch? Solder or just battery line cutoff?

[heavy mist]

i'm not here often, but i noticed tom really likes his free real estate 🤣

[heady mulch]

So I can fill it with capacitors

[heavy mist]

https://tenor.com/view/run-fire-explosion-gif-12482612

[heavy mist]

hat it when the GND steals all the heat from my soldering iron

[heady mulch]

hotplate

[heavy mist]

👀 to fit a 5000mAh lipo liter battery in the bottom or 2-3 Li-ion cells. buttons are useable and the slider for on off too. lets see of it works

edit: buttons work excellent, usb slot needs rework to fully insert usb cable

[heavy mist]

yep, the logo is upside down 🙃

[olive basin]

looks good either way

[heavy mist]

only problem left. when screwing down the board, it lifts up on the other side where the usb is.... need to hold it down somehow

not as handy, but it should fit 3 li-ion and 5000mAh lipo batteries

[silver crest]

How much are the newest version of the washtastic board? Anyone tried to order them in the U.S.

[olive basin]

$85 per board fully assembled from elecrow heh

Well ofc might need to pay tarrifs

[heavy mist]

is it possible to change the device lora settings with a physical switch? like using the washtastic in the city daily with lower dbm and when in the Mountains flip a switch and get full power

[olive basin]

maybe if u modify the firmware

[heavy mist]

then i would need to modify every new release right 😮‍💨

[olive basin]

basically

[crisp tundra]

You can add attenuator. Remove it for mountains and add for city usage

[crisp tundra]

85 is kinda expensive 🙁 if i couldnt do it myself i would not pay that

[olive basin]

I have to cover the cost of manufacturing and make something out of myself

So can't help it

[crisp tundra]

I understand, i wont ruin your business. Just saying …

[olive basin]

i know its not the cheapest

[heavy mist]

its more about saving battery life

[crisp tundra]

Well this node dont use as much as heltec so you save anyway. And attaching attenuator is the fastest way imo

[crisp tundra]

Not cheapest but not most expensive but clearly its awesome. Already soldered like 4 of them. 😉

[olive basin]

Heh tx takes like 700mA

At 1w

[crisp tundra]

True but its not transmiting 100% time right ? Where heltec uses that all the time, for wifi, leds, screen other mambo jambo

[olive basin]

True

Its less when u don't tx at 1w

Still alot

[heavy mist]

ok, since the node does a reboot after lora changes, it isnt that intersting anymore

[silver crest]

Ahhh thats pricey

[slender sentinel]

Curios if this board has networking?

[olive basin]

It's nrf52 so no

[olive basin]

Cuz me selling it heh

[slender sentinel]

Doh’

[heavy mist]

maybe something for thr doc.
you can enable 500mA charging on the bottom side of the nice nano 🙃

[olive basin]

Its 300mA

Afaik

On promicros

[heavy mist]

well, still better than 100mA

[olive basin]

True but ive seen reports that it doesn't charge anyway 😅

[olive basin]

Guess what, the fucking boards don't work again!!!!

I did send them the promicro ota bootloader iirc

Id did send the adafruit one know so we'll see

Like how hard can it be to just work aaaaaaaa

[crisp tundra]

Thats why i dont solder it directly to pcb 😄

[severe halo]

https://tenor.com/view/ah-shit-here-we-go-again-ah-shit-cj-gta-gta-san-andreas-gif-13933485

[olive basin]

Indeed

[olive basin]

It was the bootloader again

I guess the ota fix also doesn't work

[olive basin]

Or somehow i sent the wrong bootloader

[light bison]

@olive basin Do you have any assembled boards available?

[olive basin]

dont think so

lenme check

[light bison]

Thanks!

[olive basin]

nope

sorry

elecrow should have soonish

[light bison]

Thanks for checking, yeah how long do you think soonish would be?

[olive basin]

maybe a week i hope

[light bison]

kk sounds good

[crisp tundra]

anyone has any case for the WashTastic pcb please ? 🙂

[heavy mist]

@crisp tundra in the afternoon i can provide the stl files if you want

[crisp tundra]

perfect 🙂

[heavy mist]

u need it with space for batteries?

[crisp tundra]

depends how will it look. but it is battery / solar powered. now glued to 3x18650 holder

[heavy mist]

3x18650 holder should fit in the 20mm case

looks exactly like tho one above

u need extra holes?

[crisp tundra]

like the gray one with pink buttons ?

[heavy mist]

yes

except the PWRD logo is flipped now ^^

[crisp tundra]

ok, this is the only available 3d printed case at the moment - right ? 🙂

[heavy mist]

didn't find any, thats why i made this brick

[crisp tundra]

🙂

i will PM you

[ivory cedar]

I'm designing a mounting plate for use in off the shelf enclosures, those with a 5mmx5mm grid plate, and the Carlon waterproof 4x4x2in box.

[heavy mist]

https://makerworld.com/en/models/2127356-washtastic-pcb-enclosure#profileId-2303342

[olive basin]

There are others but that one is for a older version heh and probably not released

[olive basin]

https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/comments/1pp97tb/just_finished_some_automated_pcba_test_fixtures/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

heh

[heavy mist]

you building such a device?

[olive basin]

Would be funny yes

[crisp tundra]

Hi, i have solered one extra for one dude from my country, now he says its not needed anymore. im willing to sale it for 70Euros if anyone interested. I can send photos or measurements - just PMme

[olive basin]

i have approved of this sale :)

[ivory cedar]

Here is a simple mounting plate I designed for version 3.5 of the board, for the common 5x5mm grird mounting plates found in many encloures: https://www.printables.com/model/1525057-simple-mounting-plate-for-the-washtastic-board-v35

[olive basin]

awesome

[north wing]

@olive basin Are these being sold on the US market yet?

[olive basin]

Not that im aware

When elecrow has them in stock u can get them from there

[north wing]

Would I be allowed to sell prebuilt solar nodes with these in them on the US market?

[olive basin]

Technically my license only applies to the board itself.
Haven't thought of this tbh 😅
But u aren't selling the board on its own but a complete node so i guess u can.

If u decide to order from jlc consider sponsoring me on GitHub for any amount u like, i would appreciate it :)

[north wing]

Does the license apply to kits aswell?

[olive basin]

U would be selling it with something, not alone so I'll say no but I would still appreciate if u considered sponsoring :) don't need to be much

[heavy mist]

currently charging with 400mA via the usb-c port 😎

[olive basin]

if it works it works lol

[olive basin]

hehe :) elecrow has finished assembling

and they moved the cap

so go nuts with these boards lol

[olive basin]

next version when ever that is relesed will have an efuse to protect the node from higher than 1s lipo voltages just in case

[olive basin]

also would swap that lora to to e22p but that would mean id need to do 2 orders on elecrow and have 2 differrent products maybe

ill have to ask

[small blaze]

so if i put 12kV on it its gonna survive?

just in case

[olive basin]

no

[olive basin]

U can now get WashTastic for 75usd for rest of the year :)

Happy holidays 😅

[heavy mist]

if i want to desolder the tiny cap, how big of a chance is it, that it just burns on my iron tip 🤣

[olive basin]

should not

u might loose it tho 🙃

[heavy mist]

yeah, dont even have such a smal tweezer to hold it

[olive basin]

i should get some small angled tweezers

[heavy mist]

yo, how do you remove the pro micro from the board without destroying? really want to set the bridge for the 3-400mA charging

[olive basin]

:)

heat

or if u can then a solderwick

i just used hot air gun

[heavy mist]

which side is easier? bottom of the pcb or at the pro micro

[olive basin]

just have to be carefull not to heat the board too much too close

[olive basin]

bottowm

[heavy mist]

yeah no hot air gun here 🙁

[olive basin]

also be carefulkl u can accidentally desolder some caps lol

def did not do that

[heavy mist]

i placed it on the Kitchen stove, it was getting hot, but the hell. i could not pull the pro micro off, to scared to lose some other components

[olive basin]

it takes a bit time

[heavy mist]

and it was smoking a little

👀

[olive basin]

yea thats solder

fkux

also the whole board basically is a big ground plane so it does take a while

[heavy mist]

scared to fry it ^^

[olive basin]

😅

[olive basin]

i just did some math and i realised i could lower the price of washtastic if i keep ordering like these in batches of 50

its fucking $16 per board about

could make it more affordable 🤔

[olive basin]

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/80xZOe.png

@heady mulch

oh yea i can remove the mosfet since the lm73100 has a reverse polarity protection

ill keep the light tho

[heady mulch]

Does the lm73100 have rpp? What's the reverse voltage limit,

[crisp tundra]

you can add headers to the board so promicros are removable - like i solder them at home ^

[olive basin]

i can only find max of -12

nothing more

[olive basin]

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/XW9CuX.png

heh

should not break

[olive basin]

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/cRcwus.png

[olive basin]

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/mzGDbD.png

now my board supports e22p

@crisp tundra

would have wanted it on the top side but no space

i mean there are space but not close enough

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/GzT6X3.png

also finally added text on these pins xd

[olive basin]

that resistor will not be there

u have to short it manually, will make elecrow do that

[crisp tundra]

nice.

thank you!

[olive basin]

np

[north wing]

I noticed that It was about 20 dollars per board when I was looking at buying some

But that was also before the terriffs happened

[olive basin]

It rly depends on the quantity

[north wing]

also I think the part quantities are messed up somehow

[olive basin]

lol

[olive basin]

It's funny looking at elecrow statistics where ppl bought these from

Like 99% is usa 😅

[heady mulch]

Yeah, tariffs have done nothing to shift the base

[olive basin]

Also i have one person in my emails who asked if i have some and what it would cost

For their meshcore network

Well see how many I'll be making and sending to usa lol

[heady mulch]

Eh, it's fine. It can be used for whatever, really.

Unless they're asking for design or branding changes...

I did have one person (who clearly didn't know me) ask if I could remove the logo...

[olive basin]

Not yet atleast 😅

But will not change xd

Told them that i need a number how many they need/want to give a price 😅

[severe halo]

lawl

[olive basin]

I checked GitHub and the bom file does look fine to me so idk

Must be jlc

[heavy mist]

only one oopsie 😬

nooooo the tinies of the tiniest restistors next to R7 is also swoped away

[olive basin]

thats only adc 😅

[heavy mist]

found it in one of the holes for pro micro 🤣

[heavy mist]

hmmm if U4 (5V boost chip) is misplaced a little bit, does it affect the config saving of the node ? node is running but when i'm about to save, it doesnt save anything, even when it is also connected to the pc

edit: if no battery is connected, shouldn't the config saving still work? (yes should still work, tested with another node)

seems like the pro micro is fried?

but i was able to flash the promicro new, im confused

[olive basin]

all i know know u cant tx heh

[heavy mist]

can't set region, after reboot the settings aren't saved

[olive basin]

hmmm what if u try with a battery?

what happens

[heavy mist]

cant do anything as the region must be set, but after reboot nothing is saved

[olive basin]

yea but does it save with a battery?

[heavy mist]

no

[olive basin]

ah

hm

weird

[heavy mist]

yep

[olive basin]

what do u see in the cli? like does it see the lora

[heavy mist]

but reflash worked

[heavy mist]

Connected to radio
Set lora.region to EU_868
Writing modified preferences to device
Writing lora configuration to device
WARNING file:stream_interface.py __reader line:216 Meshtastic serial port disconnected, disconnecting... ClearCommError failed (OSError(22, 'The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request.', None, 995))

[heavy mist]

flashing between firmware versions work, but set configurations doesnt. idk 🤣

[heady mulch]

Older or newer firmware?

[heavy mist]

first from 2.7.15 to 2.7.17 and back to .15 again

even if i did damage the washtastic pcb it shouldn't affect the pro micro in this way or am i wrong?

[heady mulch]

Depends how damaged it is.

Some promicros are just... No good.

[heavy mist]

it worked beforehand

heated the whole pcb to desolder the promicro again and resolderd the promicro again

[crisp tundra]

Why cant you solder headers to the pcb and then attach promicro ?

[heavy mist]

to fit it in a handy case 🙂

saves some milimeters

[crisp tundra]

So you can solder pins to the pcb and low profile headers like “pins up” to promicro

[heady mulch]

Yeah, I've got some 7.5mm pins and 2.5mm sockets for that purpose

[heavy mist]

didn't knew those exist, good to know

so i guess it is desolder again and test a new one 🤷‍♂️

[crisp tundra]

You can try like this guy made this screen

I test my promicros by attaching them to a breadboard with lora wired and testing if it works, if all good then its ready to go, if something is wrong then well …

[heavy mist]

yeah well, it worked beforehand ^^

got one node with headers to test every promicro, but yeah, this one died afterwards seems like

[crisp tundra]

Thats why few milimeters for detachable is a winner

[heavy mist]

would have worked fine, i just wanted the 500mA charging option and had to desolder it again, maybe that cooked it

[crisp tundra]

How solid is this ?

[heady mulch]

Surprisingly solid

Very stiff to get apart.

I recommend using a spudger

[crisp tundra]

Ill try this in future.

[olive basin]

Hmmm.....

[heavy mist]

yep the promicro is fried

[heady mulch]

Sleep well, lil buddy.

[viral pier]

Earlier boards had a hole for access to those jumper pads on the ProMicro.

[heavy mist]

i heard the T55 hotplate is popular, any other recommendations?

[crisp tundra]

In this price you can get something bit bigger. I have similar to t55 and its small. And if i were you i would look for hot plate with this arm that push pcb against the plate so it heats better and wont move when you want to move the parts around

Like mechanik ix5 ultra

[heavy mist]

washtastic pcb also something wrong 🙁 new promicro restarts when try to tx. i guess the 5V boost chip is misplaced, maybe shorted

always the same output.

WARNING file:stream_interface.py __reader line:216 Meshtastic serial port disconnected, disconnecting... ClearCommError failed (PermissionError(13, 'The device does not recognize the command.', None, 22))

next promicro gone 🫡

[olive basin]

I have that

[olive basin]

For tx u need a battery

Promicro can't supply enough what the lora requires

[heavy mist]

with or without battery, same issue again. promicro reboots when try to tx or saving a config

standalone it worked , after soldering it to the pcb, this error

[olive basin]

Hmm

[heavy mist]

i guess U4 is misplaced and causes a short. my fault

[olive basin]

Yea then its the board

What voltage is on the 5v rail?

[heavy mist]

this footprint.... arrghhhhhhhh

[olive basin]

Yeaaa.....

Find me a better one and ill change it

[heavy mist]

hahahah not your fault, i moved it when removing the promicro 🙃

[olive basin]

But yea it's not the best

[heavy mist]

2.5V short peak when reboot at 2.9V

[olive basin]

Oop

[heavy mist]

on the 2 holes next to the qwicc connectors

[olive basin]

Yea

No wonder it reboots 😅

[heavy mist]

guess i will need a hotplate and some suction tool to hold this tiny chip. inventar is growing 🤣

[olive basin]

Get a aquarium pump, some hose and a suringe

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EyiVmPQ

I got this one

[heavy mist]

ahhh i think i saw a video from you about this

[heady mulch]

Found one!

[olive basin]

Isnt this one with the integrated inductor?

[heady mulch]

Yes.

But you have to be careful what you say around it, because it doubles as a summoning circle for creatures from the inductor dimension.

If it begins to glow, make the sign of +++ and begin the exorcism process from step 12.

[olive basin]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[heavy mist]

@olive basin did you thought about a mosfet between VCC from pro micro and 5V boost IC switched by the battery? this would allow the usage of USB without battery. the 3.3V regulator on the pro micro should deliver 800mA. i think that should be enough

[heady mulch]

The LDO datasheet says 600mA

and I'm fairly sure the E22-30db uses ~1A @5v during TX

[heavy mist]

hmmmm okay

[olive basin]

Yea it's close to 1A

[severe halo]

also, usb without negotiation should not deliver more than 500mA

[olive basin]

someone emailed elecrow with this

I just purchased a Washtastic V0.3.5.5 1W node, and I am unable to flash it. I followed the instructions to load Meshtastic v2.7.15 (for nRF52840) and it seemed to flash. I used my iPhone app via BLE to configure, but, after entering PIN 123456, the screen only said "Communicating...." and never fully connected, e.g., green "Subscribed" message. I then tried to configure with CLI, but, when I first went to set up LoRa region, frequency, etc, it froze after printing this: meshtastic --port COM4 --set lora.region US --set lora.modem_preset LONG_FAST Connected to radio Set lora.region to US Set lora.modem_preset to LONG_FAST Writing modified preferences to device Writing lora configuration to device I thought I should erase and re-flash, so I then flashed using Factory erase 6.1.0 .uf2 file as that was the correct one given what was indicated in the text file. Since then, I have been unable to get the device in DFU mode. The blue LED is blinking rapidly and the red light is solid. Please help and thank you.

my biggest suspect is no battery lol

[crisp tundra]

so it wasnt me as i solder them myself 🙂 And im not in US

first i would confirm the bootloader version and re-flash it. as far as i noticed you can operate it without the battery it will just errors that unable to tx or something like it. i was able to connect, change things and then connect battery and use it. Then if that wont help i would go for next promicro 😉 but thats me.

[olive basin]

Elecrow did test all of them but with cli so can't say anything about ble aspect

I have seen it not save any settings without a battery

[severe halo]

'Factory erase 6.1.0 .uf2 file as that was the correct one given what was indicated in the text file' ?

what file?

[heady mulch]

There's a text file in the dfu drive

When you double reset, it's not an empty drive

[severe halo]

I know that file.. but... that version doesn't sound familiar, so I though the comment refered to another file.. somewhere else

the one I'm using is 0.9.2 and that's way modern

so.. no sure what it means 6.1.0

knowing this, looks like commenter flashed wrong file and burnt out the bootloader

maybe he meant 0.6.1 which was the one usually recommened by the meshtastic docs files

mmmm .. maybe he's refering to this:
https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/raw/master/bin/generic/Meshtastic_6.1.0_bootloader-0.9.2_s140_6.1.1.zip

[heady mulch]

He's referring to the soft device

[severe halo]

or this: https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/raw/master/bin/generic/update-Meshtastic_6.1.0_bootloader-0.9.2_nosd.uf2

[heady mulch]

You can't flash that by uf2

It's not recognised

[severe halo]

I don't understand this.. what's the soft device ?

[heady mulch]

The Bluetooth implementation in the bootloader

There's two variants: 6.1.1 and 7.3.0

6.1.1 is older, but the bootloader is smaller as a result

Xiao etc. use 7.30

Promicro is 6.1.1

It's a sub-version of the bootloader

[severe halo]

oh, so 6.1.0 is the bluetooth stack version inside the 0.9.2 bootloader ?

ok

[heady mulch]

Perhap

Or perhaps they did that stupid thing of incrementally updating the bootloader...

[severe halo]

thanks

[heady mulch]

Yeah, it's 100% confusing

[olive basin]

they managed to connect :)

gave them the adafruit bootloader

[olive basin]

now they have no interface 😅

[heady mulch]

Oh

[severe halo]

Meshtastic —noproto is your friend

The commenter already said that tried to configure node using cli, so he is already familiarized

[olive basin]

Oh yea duh

[olive basin]

https://pastebin.com/w953bBSp

Sx1262 init failed 😅

Darnit elecrow

[olive basin]

OMG!!!

The polarity is wrong 😅

Thank god i added the reverse polarity protection

[ivory cedar]

But you are limiting your sales of replacement boards😆

[olive basin]

Preferably i don't want angry support requests cuz they plugged the battery in reverse and fried it

[heady mulch]

This is the customer?

[olive basin]

Yes

[heady mulch]

Ah

Oh well.

All's well that ends well.

[olive basin]

Hasn't said if it works now xd

Well see

[heady mulch]

Ok, ok, I'm convinced. I'll add them to my designs, too.

[olive basin]

Apparently works now :)

[heady mulch]

I stayed up til 3am adding LEDs to my design...

[heavy mist]

guess who ordered those and whose pins are to short

[heavy mist]

its alive again!

[olive basin]

oooh

nice

[olive basin]

@heady mulch
charger is on the battery side before the cutout

[heady mulch]

Yes, the lm73100 is a diode - no backsies

[olive basin]

so i did this correctly?

i could order a test batch

[heady mulch]

Not sure - I'd have to look it all over

What are you using Pg for?

[olive basin]

PG nothing

PGTH comes from the divider above it

[heady mulch]

Pgth only controls pg

[olive basin]

ah, idk why i have added it 😅

[heady mulch]

Because the data sheet ain't clear

[olive basin]

makes sense then xd

[olive basin]

ill remove it then