Femtofox - Tiny, low power Linux node!

[mild hare]

Nope. What terminal you using? Baud should be 115200

[opaque abyss]

plain jane putty via usbc into the port on the big board

c-c cable from a TB4 port

oh, I think it was my baud rate set too low

I was chilling on a black screen with the higher rate and pressed enter and then I got some text

[mild hare]

All good now?

[opaque abyss]

seems so, except I think I mistyped the new password and gotta reflash

cuz it didnt do a double prompt like most changes do

[mild hare]

Wait

[opaque abyss]

oh wait no it didnt take the new pw

[mild hare]

Read it carefully. You have to enter femto again before double prompt

[opaque abyss]

I am simply a fool flying by the seam of my pants

yeah I did not do that thing you just said I had to do

lurkers: consider the following

read

[mild hare]

It's fun though right?

[opaque abyss]

move fast break stuff

[mild hare]

I booted every single one and pinged the radios over the mesh before sending. Want everyone to have the feeling you just had when you saw the fox.

[twilit mountain]

I'll bet that took forever 😅 GG on the quality control ❤️

[mild hare]

It was brutal lol. And Imma do it again. Bought a ribbon microsd extender for next time.

Still need to design and print a soldering jig for the Ethernet header pins on the pico.

[chrome tide]

The UART port, that's just a standard USB to serial adapter, right ?

[mild hare]

Wait, do you know that the USB-c port on the board (not the luckfox) has a serial to USB adapter built in? Just plug in there and open a terminal? The other UARTs on the board do not have a console attached to them in Linux. They are meant for devices (gps, etc).

Oof, I don't know if that is documented anywhere.

[chrome tide]

Yes, I know, but that doesn't help if you are powering it from a wall wart, and still wanting to have serial connection to see what is going on during boot, etc..

I set it up initially via USB..

[mild hare]

Ok cool

[forest current]

Yes

[chrome tide]

I have it powered from a Samsung charger right now. So if I wanted to see serial output, I would need to use a USB to ttl adapter..

[forest current]

Well the one that says UART2

not UART4

[chrome tide]

Where is UART4 ? I only saw the UART that was next to the USB-C port

[mild hare]

@Josh, he has the pro with it built in. Uart 2 is attached to CH340 and a USB-C port

[chrome tide]

DAMN IT!!!! I wish I bought 2 of these damn things......

[forest current]

Hmm maybe the newer revision is different than mine

[forest current]

Oh, hmm so if using usb-c for power he could still pin/solder the usb serial adapter cables to the relevant pins on the luckfox itself then right? As it bypasses the ch340?

[mild hare]

Or

[chrome tide]

I normally buy 2 of each board I get, so I have 1 to test with, and one to look at, or test other ways..

[mild hare]

Use the power port on the board labeled 3v-5v

You'd have to make a cable with a jst plug

[forest current]

Yeah easier to splice a sacrificial usb cable for power

[chrome tide]

Yea, that mean I need to get a different PSU than what I already have.

I'm going to make a JST-PH to header adapter..

[mild hare]

Sry, random thought, 3d printed Milwaukee battery adapter... Ok, back on task. 😆

[mild hare]

I need more hours I'm the day. I want this.

[chrome tide]

https://www.printables.com/refresh?redirectUrl=%2Fmodel%2F53684-milwaukee-m18-battery-holder-with-lock

https://www.printables.com/model/210025-milwaukee-m18-battery-adapter

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/jack-nicholson-funny-gif-24793899

And a cheap buck converter

[chrome tide]

I use these for my 3D Printers.. https://www.amazon.com/Regulator-Reducer-Converter-Aircraft-MP1584EN/dp/B0B779ZYN1

[mild hare]

@chrome tide We both know a cool lady that may be into this idea.

[chrome tide]

Are you talking about Iris ? ;P

[mild hare]

Alley Cat

[opaque abyss]

long shot but I dont suppose theres a way to share my PC's internet to the femto via usb c?

[forest current]

i think nagu removed that a while back? RDNIS or something

[opaque abyss]

I wonder if pppd would work

eh I just went and plugged in ethernet

faster and easier

[chrome tide]

Oh, I've tried to talk to her, but never got any response.. LOL

That would be RDNIS..

[mild hare]

Like @WillE said, RDNIS. You would run luckfox-config (not femtofox-config) and change the USB from host to peripheral. I have no experience with this except like a few days back in November.

May need a driver on your PC. Maybe not.

Also, if you do this, remember you did it or you may spend an hour or two wondering why your usb wifi doesn't work. We won't talk about how I know this. 😉

[chrome tide]

Yiu only washed 2 hours ?

[mild hare]

Even worse, I compiled it as peripheral into the kernel and had to redo it. 😅

[chrome tide]

Ofph... that's like 12 hours if you're not cross-compiling..

[mild hare]

Oh you bet I cross compile lol. Postage stamp...

[nova frost]

I thought she'd be a Ryobi follower for sure...

[mild hare]

Where I come from, them's fighting words. 😁

https://tenor.com/view/vin-diesal-nodding-gif-9964909

[nova frost]

Oh, I know!

[mild hare]

The brand wars. Seem pointless, but then on the job site...

[nova frost]

Do you cooperate and risk losing your gear, or get a different brand and risk being stuck?

Omg, its Iike, a metaphor or something!

On the voice chat last night they were talking about grove/jst/stemma and the need for a spaghetti converter, but if you had a Ryobi/Makita/Milwaukee/DeWalt converter, they'd probably call you king Bluetooth or something

[mild hare]

Lol

[fiery finch]

@chrome prairie hey, any update on your testing?

[chrome prairie]

Yea I verified everything yesterday with a tinySA

done

[fiery finch]

oo

[chrome prairie]

Posted the tx out in here a few times

[fiery finch]

Oh, please share

[chrome prairie]

Gonna focus on my solar charger stuff now

[fiery finch]

wait, I don't follow this

is this 5v or 3.3v?

power in

@nova frost do you understand this?

[nova frost]

I do, but @chrome prairie you did these at 5vin, and with your final setup, right?

Did you get chance to map across some of the tx settings to a 3.3vin setup?

[fiery finch]

@nova frost this basically was exactly as expected for 5db, right?

for 5v

[nova frost]

Need to sit down and do some comparisons, but when I saw them last I was happy

[chrome prairie]

5V, I started with 3v3 but haven’t finished

[fiery finch]

Alright, cool

very cool

thank you!

[chrome prairie]

nw

[fiery finch]

please share your google sheet or whatever when you're done

and I'll build a tool to generate an ERP based on user's antenna and location

help people stay legal

[chrome prairie]

https://github.com/eigenlucy/Meshtastic-Test-Scripting/tree/main/results

I looked at everything with the TinySA yesterday to calibrate the output levels looked at the Cpl output on the coupler to make sure the input and Cpl spectrum were the same

[fiery finch]

I know most of those words!

[chrome prairie]

Gotta mostly focus on grants and job applications for a while tho since fema, disaster assistance and small business loans are just evidently just fake concepts (lol) so I’ll be pretty sparse in here. I’ll try to have the 3v3 results soon and a solar hat in the next week or so if everything tests well

[fiery finch]

Remember when there was a government?

[chrome prairie]

No

[fiery finch]

yeah me neither

they were effing us over long before this.

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/good-show-say-what-gif-25485768

[chrome prairie]

Yea it sucks, it destroyed pretty much all of my equipment and possessions and my car and stuff and fema did less than nothing (they had ICE officers outside the shelters checking stuff and our power was out for months plus we had no roof). I got the fellowship through this startup pretty much as soon as I got here to start working on stuff but it’s actually way harder to commercialize stuff from scratch vs contract pcb design, which I can’t do through this lab bc I’m only supposed to be working with their toolchain that keeps totally breaking. I got everything converted from v2 to v3 and 0201 picking just doesn’t work rn, there is no visualizer or block diagram support anymore even, the build doesn’t work and the old version of the part picker and pcba file generation. I think I’m sort of just fucked. I should qualify for sba loans to replace all my lab equipment since it was like my primary income and I was in the middle of a bunch of contracts when everything got destroyed, and theoretically I should qualify for pretty extensive disaster assistance bc of the whole most of my possessions being destroyed in a collapsed house, but increasingly I become aware that at this point pretty much every dimension of the state is entirely fake unless you are a white dude that makes over 200k a year

[fiery finch]

oof

[chrome prairie]

Ironically a pretty cool use case for meshtastic 🥴

[forest current]

have you considered setting up a gofund me or something? given how much work youve been doing/could be doing/will be doing for the meshtastic community at large it might actually be helpful

or some other platform idk but i see potential value in making a list of things you want to accomplish or others might want you to accomplish, then making a list of essential equipment needed to do the thing, and having donations to help cover it

iirc youve been working on an omnibus mppt/cc, and nailing down power metrics for these new sbc's/boards

and im sure theres been a lot more

[fiery finch]

yeah you've been doing impressive stuff here

[forest current]

i mean shoot just making one single board could be a boon to the community: mppt/cc that handles different battery chemistries, with built in ina, that can provide 3v3 or 5v, and solves the rak brownout issue... i figure literally everyone would buy your board. so asking for donations to help reacquire the equipment necessary to develop it could be an easy no-brainer.

id pitch in

[pallid basin]

booting my Femto for the first time. 🙂

Too bad I don't have a USB-C OTG adapter to try wifi. Will need for AliExpress to deliver 🙂

[fiery finch]

They're also available at cell phone shops

[pallid basin]

I think I found one!

so now the question is --- does the Wifi adapter I have work

[pallid basin]

It works! And old Pi WiFi dongle from the Pi2B days and a random USB-A/C adapter that I didn’t realize even supported OTG lol

Also I didn’t realize how much effort you guys put in. The menu configuration. Also didn’t expect the patch antenna. Very nice!

[fiery finch]

And the fox sees it?

The patch is all @mild hare. He packaged and sent it

the menus are mostly me

[pallid basin]

Yeah. Had to run to pickup a kid but I can tell you the chipset

[fiery finch]

the hardware is mostly @nova frost

[pallid basin]

usb 1-1: RTL8188CU rev A (TSMC) 1T1R, TX queues 2, WiFi=1, BT=0, GPS=0, HI PA=0

[fiery finch]

looks good!

[pallid basin]

its a little slow, not sure if thats my wifi or just not to expect much from the luckfox 🙂

[mild hare]

Ya it's a little slow. It's not a raspberry pi.

[chrome tide]

What do you expect from 1 core ?

[fiery finch]

the cpu just isn't fast enough for fast wifi or even ethernet

it's not gonna be your plex server is what I'm saying

but you can watch ascii star wars! https://www.asciimation.co.nz/

[pallid basin]

Yeah. I just was seeking delays in authenticating ssh and occasional freezes while performing tasks on ssh

I’m impressed with this little thing though

[fiery finch]

if the cpu is busy, you have a bit of a pause during login

you get used to it

meshtastic is set to have priority over everything else

to avoid missing packets

That was an issue when cpu was at 100%

[chrome tide]

Is there a dual core luckyfox ?

[nova frost]

Better than that - the Lyra is apparently a "Tripe core" processor

Technically the RV1103 is dual core, its just that one of them is a M0

🤏

[chrome tide]

Lyra ?

[nova frost]

Lyra

[mild hare]

Does not work with our current Femtofox board and does not work with the current Foxbuntu. Also not sure about power usage yet. I have one but no time yet.

[nova frost]

There's no advantage to going to a "bigger" processor, except running a battery down faster.

If you can find an even smaller processor that uses less power and still runs linux and python, then send it our way!

[forest current]

the processor on the Lyra is definitely snappier

and ive done some power tests and its comparable

granted nothing is official until others jump in on it, which will hopefully happen soon

but i think its a very strong contender

[lavish sorrel]

but that was without a radio, right?

And i agree, it definitely seems snappier.

[forest current]

yeah, but with and without wifi

[lavish sorrel]

ok thats fair lol. Now I just need to get this damn ethernet port workking so I can actually try to do some normal tasks on it, like running apt-get install without having to go make dinner just to pass the time.

[mild hare]

We'll get there. Just got to finish a couple irons in the fire first.

[chrome tide]

That's true, but what battery ? LOL

[forest current]

little life hack: the sdcard has a regular gpt partition table, so you can chroot

without having to build stuff

if you just want to install packages and whatnot (basically not kernel stuff)

[nova frost]

Actual footage of the coding process

[pallid basin]

I think my wifi dongle has to be bad. Only getting 200k bytes/sec on download of a 20M binary I want to use

[nova frost]

USB drive?

[pallid basin]

yah I old RTL8188 from the Pi 2 days. it looks like a mouse dongle. Can't have a very big antenna

[nova frost]

no, I mean can you carry the binary to the fox?

sneakernet style

[lavish sorrel]

Mines not that slow and I have 2 of them.

[nova frost]

I bought a smol TP Link dongle off Amazon, they're not too bad and they work with the fox.

[pallid basin]

Gonna try other options and Ethernet too

[nova frost]

I ❤️ ethernet

[pallid basin]

Request for the tun module in the next foxbuntu build 😉

Hmm never mind /dev/net/tun is there

[mild hare]

I samba to this or a femtofox with visual studio and meld merge almost daily. Transfer isn't like 802.11ax on a Ryzem obviously but works good. MT7601U wifi and this card has treated me very well. https://a.co/d/9i0A0Ux

The Femto obviously has a stronger Lora radio and doesn't need a USB serial converter.

This tiny thing is just a gutted femto with a weaker radio. Just trying to push across that a good wifi adapter, otg adapter and sd card is probably why it's treated me so well.

[pallid basin]

Yeah. I,on the other hand found some crap I had in a drawer and plugged it together 😉

I have some real parts on order.

[mild hare]

Hey that's how we all start. 🙂

[pallid basin]

Is a really impressive little unit though

[mild hare]

It takes a little dialing in.

[nova frost]

Honestly, even RPi needs a decent SD card. I was quite taken with the LD memory cards I got for a song back in 2018, but if you want interactivity then a better card is just better.

[pallid basin]

I'm using a Samsung Pro Endurance - I think it does writes at 40M/s

[nova frost]

Hmmm. Should be ok.

[pallid basin]

gonna have to get a new WiFi dongle. This one doesn't come up on reboot. I have to fiddle with it over serial and evenutally I get a connection

[pallid basin]

is /dev/net/tun a real device or was I right originally that the build doesn't include the tunnel interface?

I think the tun kernel module isn't there even though there is a /dev/net/tun

[chrome tide]

What the chance of being able to swap radio to this ? E22-900M33S LOL

[nova frost]

You can be the first if you like.

Might need bigger capacitors

There's space for c10 underneath

[opaque abyss]

Trying to get the TC2 BBS running, for some reason type tcp and the hostname 127.0.0.1 doesnt seem to take. meshtasticd has 'unreads' for lack of better term and the BBS wont read them. Should I be using a serial device?

[fiery finch]

@craggy mulch can you help with this?

no, we're using tcp

[fiery finch]

share your config file

I just installed tc2bbs on a 1.0.0rc3 fox. I had to restart the service for some reason, but I think that was due to bad public keys

[opaque abyss]

which config?

[fiery finch]

tc2bbs

If you install it by menu, it automatically changes the config to one that works with femtofox. I think my issue was that I had a public key mismatch with the node I was talking to (happens because I keep switching out SD cards)

[opaque abyss]

rest below is all defaults. I did install via the menu after a hiccup (tried to install with no internet and couldnt leave the menu)

I think it was force rebooted to get me out

[fiery finch]

looks good

[opaque abyss]

thats all journalctl says

[fiery finch]

couldn't leave the menu? That's odd

[fiery finch]

That is correct - that's what it should say

[opaque abyss]

meshtasticd sees packets but nothing is scooping them up

[fiery finch]

try sending a dm to your fox

[opaque abyss]

I dont even get nodeinfo

fox doesnt see pocket and vice versa, despite matching the lora settings

[fiery finch]

Have you tried sending it a dm?

[opaque abyss]

cant dm without a node list entry afaik

[fiery finch]

ahh

I see

[opaque abyss]

nothing in longfast

so perhaps its MT settings and bbs is fine

[fiery finch]

This isn't a tc2 issue, it's a meshtastic issue

hold on, client

[opaque abyss]

well I was able to connect with android via IP, so I made if fac reset

whys this stuff gotta have so many moving parts ;_;

[fiery finch]

heheh

okay

connect to your pocket node

get the URL

copy it

switch to the fox

paste the URL and send the settings

that'll make the settings match

[opaque abyss]

aye thats a smart way to do it

[fiery finch]

@opaque abyss thank you for the issue - I've made the fix

[opaque abyss]

[pallid basin]

Is there a docker container that builds foxbuntu?

[opaque abyss]

wait I fixed it

had to set the radio to the e22-900m30s, not simulated

works fine now

[fiery finch]

hah, classic

[mild hare]

Not a docker, you'll need Ubuntu 22.04 on bare metal, a vm or wsl.
https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/tree/main/environment-setup
I didn't do any docs yet, sry.
But @nova frost did a brief wsl one.
https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Building-Foxbuntu-(WSL)
I use a Ubuntu 22.04 VM on a server.

[fiery finch]

That's why I added the red warning in the menu

[opaque abyss]

doesnt help if you dont read

[opaque abyss]

I gotta get better at that

[fiery finch]

Maybe I add a pop up warning to the upcoming revamp of the settings system (courtesy of @fast adder)

if you go into meshtastic settings, it goes "hey, fyi, you're on simradio"

[opaque abyss]

you should maybe add something like "simradio does not send actual packets"

[fiery finch]

for the current warning, I need to keep it one line

I'll do something with it when the settings interface is replaced

[mild hare]

And actually @josh has compiled it on other distros, but it was built on Ubuntu 22.04 originally.

[pallid basin]

Thanks. This will probably take a little time for me to setup my own build enviornment.

Would love if the future builds included the TUN kernel module. Doesn't need to load it by default, but that would be useful to me... and maybe a handful of others.

[opaque abyss]

does the femto have a built in charge controller?

a la wisblock

[mild hare]

This was discussed at one point but I can't remember where it left off. @fiery finch was this something in the femtofox-config kernel menu? I don't remember.

[fiery finch]

Which module is that?

searching for tun in kernel config brings up like 100 results

this?

[pallid basin]

seems right.

[mild hare]

Yup

[fiery finch]

I don't see why not

would need testing

[pallid basin]

lets you use vpn tunnels and such

[fiery finch]

some random modules make it not boot

[mild hare]

@pallid basin would you throw in an issue on the github and when time allows we'll peek at it?

[fiery finch]

Alright, doing a test build now

[pallid basin]

I mean, I'm wierd using nebula Mesh VPN but it is a nicer remote-access method for this node. My guess is other things, like TailScale would need it as well.

In the mean time, I’m working on my FemtoBox:

[fiery finch]

ooooo

[pallid basin]

Printing the top and bottom now to see how it all fits.

[fiery finch]

okay, booting

@mild hare what's the kernelconfig file again?

defconfig?

[pallid basin]

Do you have an svg of the fox logo?

[mild hare]

@fiery finch foxbuntu/sysdrv/source/kernel/arch/arm/configs

[fiery finch]

I recommend a bit of kapton tape to hold the ipex connector in place. I don't like that wrenching action on the ipex port

done

That's from foxbuntu menus btw

[mild hare]

I never thought of that, ty

[fiery finch]

I always do it

[pallid basin]

yeah. I also put kapton over the unused pins on the pi header because the N connector is very close and I don't want a short

I might move. it a few MM

if I solder in the RTC module, is there anything to do or does it just find it?

[fiery finch]

just works

@pallid basin tun is added. will be in next release

[nova frost]

If you look in the 3d prints folder for the community edition, there's some brackets for holding the antenna connector in place

[pallid basin]

I'm replacing the headers on my RTC with lower profile ones because I designed this a little to close. 🙂

[nova frost]

If you're desoldering the headers, just put a JST-4pin PH on there and plug in

[pallid basin]

Yep. gotta scoot over the antenna a little though on the next print

[nova frost]

The holes are M3, btw

I don't know if that helps or not...

well, 3mm diameter

[pallid basin]

Yeah figured that out by measuring. I’m using m3 hardware

[opaque abyss]

are the i2c headers any sort of standard like quiic?

[nova frost]

yes

[lavish sorrel]

I stand my RTC up vertically, I removed the headers it came with and replaced them with 90° ones

[opaque abyss]

looks like my oled isnt qwiic so I'll have to make an adapter

[nova frost]

They're not qwiic connectors, because they're a JST PH, and QWIIC is apparently SH SR 1.0mm pitch

[opaque abyss]

thanks for the info

[nova frost]

ah, they're Stemma full size

I knew I'd done something standard at least

QWIIC is the same as Stemma QT

[forest current]

Any tips on that? Ive removed the socket header it came with and replaced it with standars pin headers but it was ridiculously frustrating to do...

[lavish sorrel]

I'll take some pics of how I do it when I get home. I've removed/replaced the headers from about 15 of them so far.

But a Omni-vise, a C210-needle tipped soldering iron, needle nose pliers, solder sucker and new headers are your friend.

https://hakkousa.com/omnivise-pcb-holder.html

[forest current]

Ah solder sucker sounds like the missing piece...

[lavish sorrel]

Yea gotta clear the old out before trying to get the new headers in cleanly

[pallid basin]

I have a Hakko gun.

worth every penny even though it is sparsely used. I used it to repair some $1000 electronics once, that I couldn't risk messing up

Dont have an omni vise, but I do like my omnifixo

[nova frost]

I see these around the place. I like the idea.

[pallid basin]

do I have to manually configure i2c in /etc/meshtasticd/config.d ?

[nova frost]

I'm not sure I2C pass-through to meshtastic works yet?

like, full-stop, not just Femtofox

[pallid basin]

I have an i2c display on my Pi node with the MeshAdvPi Hat

was going to do the same with this one.

[nova frost]

doing meshtastic?

[pallid basin]

yeah

[nova frost]

hmmm

not sure

[pallid basin]

i2cdetect shows the display so I know its connected right at least 🙂

[nova frost]

@mild hare had an I2C display working, but not with meshtastic stuff

[pallid basin]

Just added this to the yaml file in config.d and restarted meshtasticd:

I2C:
  I2CDevice: /dev/i2c-3

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-patrick-star-noted-notes-gif-17474838830648097856

[mild hare]

I haven an oled on mine and never knew this. Ty!

[pallid basin]

Some tweaks to the front panel. Made it too thin near the display but almost there

Does the RTC set the system time early in the boot process. I'm seeing trouble getting an IPv4 lease, and I'm wondering if its a time issue

[mild hare]

Yeah it sets it early on

Ty again

[pallid basin]

hah. glad I could help somehow 🙂

I seem to be having the issue mentioned here... The accepted answer fixes the problem, but it is not perminant. More playing tomorrow.... https://askubuntu.com/questions/1025008/ipv6-is-working-but-ipv4-isnt

[lavish sorrel]

It does work, but overall i2c for sensors, not so much (if at all)

[chrome tide]

So, again, where does this battery go ? LOL

[lavish sorrel]

Whenever I've been having an issue with only seeing an IPv6 address when ruining iwconfig, I just run sudo dhclient

[lavish sorrel]

https://tenor.com/view/greys-anatomy-arizona-robbins-there-are-no-batteries-in-here-no-batteries-no-battery-gif-24875328

[chrome tide]

Not true.. Someone said they have a battery running theirs..

[lavish sorrel]

I have one running mine, but I have an external charge board and a protection circuit in-line

[pallid basin]

Yeah. I really need it to work on boot though in case of power failure or abnormal reboot

[mild hare]

That's weird. Will look into it. I don't have problems getting leases. We don't use network manager btw because it caused stack traces with some wifi drivers.

[lavish sorrel]

@nova frost there's no charging IC on the pro, right? Only surge protection and polarity protection?

[chrome tide]

Where does solar even get plugged in ?

[mild hare]

Yeah. @nova frost should answer but yes no charging.

[lavish sorrel]

Cron job

[mild hare]

@pallid basin you did the setup wizard in femto-config for time and all that right?

[chrome tide]

How are the stores not pinned messages ?

[pallid basin]

Yes. I will redo it when the next build comes out in case I fumbled something in the setup.

[lavish sorrel]

Yea... I don't even try that.

[mild hare]

You can always run it again.

[lavish sorrel]

Femtofox US Customers:
https:// opensourcecountry.etsy.com/
Femtofox European Customers:
https:// nomdetom.etsy.com/

[mild hare]

My profile too

[lavish sorrel]

I just grabbed them from your profile lol

But I'm not allowed to pin

[mild hare]

I would but I don't seem to have permissions

[lavish sorrel]

I know the board is advertised as low-power, but I don't recall it ever being pitched as solar-capable

[mild hare]

yeah, you gotta do your own solar and charging setup (for now). It's being worked on.

We would have screamed solar if we had it lol

[chrome tide]

Ok, just making sure.. I've seen ppl talking about batteries, and solar, and I'm like where the hell does all that plug in at..

[mild hare]

3v-5v but you gotta do the rest.

[chrome tide]

Once you have your own battery/solar setup, you can just buck convert it out to 5v, and plug it into the 5v port..

[mild hare]

it works at 3.3v too

[chrome tide]

https://tenor.com/view/tim-taylor-tool-tools-handy-handyman-gif-1243941889264905833

[little plinth]

i have a battery charge/boost circuit on the babelfox (if not aware: think femtofox with 1 watt LR1121 and a cell modem), but

1. haven't tested that yet
2. i haven't really tested the babelfox yet at all
3. it's only for single cell, and single cell batteries big enough for a device like this aren't super common

[lavish sorrel]

Not sure about the E22-900M30S running at full power on a 3.3V input (don't think there's a boost on board. So it's unlikely)

[mild hare]

Almost positive it does. That's what the testing has been about lately.

[chrome prairie]

Transmit power is lower

On 3v3

[forest current]

Yeah pretty sure it was determined that you need 5v for the 30db radios

By @nova frost iirc

[lavish sorrel]

It'll WORK on 3v3, but not anywhere near full power.

[mild hare]

I always kinda thought that but wasn't sure with the testing. Now I know.

[lavish sorrel]

I realized this back in the day when I breadboarded an M30 with a Xiao, no caps, no nothing else. It worked... but only barely lol

thankfully i got smart and actually built it out the right way after that

[nova frost]

If you make up one of the CE boards with a e22-22db or a Wio sx1262, you can just run 3.3-5v into the socket and it'll go brrrrrrrrrr....

But yeah, no solar or battery or charging yet...

Soon™

[nova frost]

🙏 Imma steal this, and make them links.

Femtofox US Customers:
https://opensourcecountry.etsy.com/
Femtofox European Customers:
https://nomdetom.etsy.com/

@soft cape are you able to pin the above message?

[soft cape]

no, I'm not an admin

[nova frost]

Doh

[nova frost]

It says you're a moderator, tho

[soft cape]

No pin option:

[nova frost]

Huh

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Nm

Thanks anyway!

[nova frost]

@winged snow can you pin this, plz?

[fiery finch]

@winged snow lol you pinned the request to pin, not the message itself

[winged snow]

Hahaha

[fiery finch]

was that an intentional joke?

[fiery finch]

hah

[winged snow]

No but it would have been a good one

[fiery finch]

heheh

thank you 🙂

[gaunt dawn]

No delivery to down under... so sad...

[pallid basin]

Almost there

[lavish sorrel]

If you need anyone to do test prints, lemme know. More than willing to spend some PLA/PETG for a good case. Out of curiosity, What size is that display

[pallid basin]

I’ll post the files soon just waiting for one more print to test some refinements now

[nova frost]

Hmmm... I did work out the rates, but I've forgotten to transfer them over.

Gime a min.

[pallid basin]

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mt9Ix8f

[lavish sorrel]

Fair warning, lot of sellers are switching to the ssd1315, which is a hair smaller

[nova frost]

Check again

[pallid basin]

Had hoped to finish and post the FemtoBox tonight but it’s gonna take another day or so. I’m not happy with the button pusher. But the clear PETG light pipes seem to work great!

[restive scarab]

its looking awesome, are you gonna share the STLs when done?

[pallid basin]

That’s the plan.

[restive scarab]

heck yeah!!

[pallid basin]

The back

Im not in the business of selling prints or STLs. Happy to give away… but if people want to send me future node hardware… ;). Hehe.

[restive scarab]

hah i'd happily build up one the DIY boards I have around as thanks 8)

[pallid basin]

The fox logo isn’t quite the official logo. I simplified it a bit to reduce fine details. I had considered making it all the way through as a passive air vent.

[pallid basin]

Does the community edition need a different case?

[lavish sorrel]

There's no usb-c on it, aside from the luckfox, so possibly

[restive scarab]

yeah I was just noticing that - CE doesn't have the CH34xx USB-UART, just header like UART4

[pallid basin]

If the board is the same size I can delete those holes pretty easily

[lavish sorrel]

Also the CE has dedicated 3.3 and 5V powers, whereas the pro only has one for both

And the CE has 2x UART's, and the Pro has 1. Because of the CH34xx

[restive scarab]

i've been powering over usb-c on the luckfox mostly, had it on the 3.3V-5V header with the bench supply for a bit but that was just silly - probably would just take the STL as it, slice a hole and run cable through that to the 3.3v-5v header cause lazy

[lavish sorrel]

I've been doing 5V in and RX/TX on UART3(or is it 2? I know the other is UART4), because I connect the WiFi dongle to the luckfox. I primarily use Serial to connect to mine

[restive scarab]

it's labelled UART2 on the PCB (have a blank in front me atm)

[pallid basin]

What does the second led do on the luckfox? I’ve seen it light up but I don’t recall what I was doing at the time

[restive scarab]

that i'm not 100% on, seems like left of the usb-c flashes during boot or holding the button, otherwise right of usb-c just flashes indicating.... stuff

[opaque abyss]

You might need to use the m-pwrd logo there

[lavish sorrel]

ACT is activity, so that can be disabled in the femto-config, USER is what flashes at the end of a boot to let you know if there was a trouble code or a success code. lemme dig out the docs

[lavish sorrel]

https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Boot-Codes

[restive scarab]

finally got around to getting Femtofox PCB as PiHat sorted... parts exactly as Tom said but it is one pin off from MeshADV so there's no actual existing config but was easy to figure out:

Lora:
  Module: sx1262
  DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
  DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE: true
  CS: 21
  IRQ: 16
  Busy: 20
  Reset: 18
  RXen: 15```

(for an E22-900M30S at least)

[frozen cloud]

https://buymeacoffee.com

[nova frost]

Which pin is off, sorry?

[nova frost]

https://buymeatea.com/

[mild hare]

https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/commit/f5a903cfe6e8ccf7aedffe3c2e95a5bffc014458

https://tenor.com/view/simpsons-homer-simpson-gif-13518564799186478937

[restive scarab]

RXEN but also removed TXEN and added DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true

[nova frost]

Ah, yes, definitely need the dio2 as switch

Ty for pointing that out

But Rxen isnt needed?

[restive scarab]

I just changed to match what I had noted ohming everything out, and then looked at the existing cfgs and MeshADV was sooo clooooose

[pallid basin]

Fair. I had the wordmark already in CAD, but might have to abandon it before publishing. Sad thing is, the Wordmark can be used as a passive air vent because it doesnt have any "closed counters". -- The M PWRD logo is not as useful.

[fiery finch]

@pallid basin can you add a "made for" above the logo? Something to differentiate it from being "official femtofox" gear?

we'll be linking to projects like yours, btw

God that does look great though

[pallid basin]

My concern is with printability. I already had to simplify the logo a little to make it printable. Let me think about what can be done, but I'm happy to remove it if you don't want it. The files will be freely provided on Printables once I make the button pusher work better

[fiery finch]

no, I love it

Let's think if there's anything we can do just to clarify that

maybe a PWRD

[pallid basin]

I'm going to have to ditch the meshtastic logo on the back.

let me see what i can do. 🙂

I just posted to #trademark on how I don't like PWRD hehe

[fiery finch]

I understand

I really love it

so cute

[pallid basin]

I wasn't venting this case like I did for my Pi one.

but I like that the simplified Fox logo (and the Meshtastic wordmark) both should work as punch through vents

[fiery finch]

I love the light pipes

[pallid basin]

I do that on lots of my stuff. Really easy to do with clear filament cut to length

[fiery finch]

That's all that was needed?

adding to foxbuntu

[fiery finch]

@pallid basin forget the change to the print. Just make sure there's a little disclaimer and link to the project in the download/repo/site/whatever

[pallid basin]

yeah, I blew away my configuration accidentally by re-runnning femto-config 🙂

[pallid basin]

of course! always the plan.

I really don't like the M-POWERED logo. Not critizing, as I'm not a designer. But I think there are more considerations than just "slap PWRD in Ubuntu 500 font and call it a logo"

I am really not a designer, but I was thinking something like:

[warm geyser]

other than I think your angle in the W is off (it's 69 degrees in the regular logo, lol), I like it. I wonder if the PRD should be pointier, maybe? dunno

I hadn't put my finger on it, but I do agree that the PWRD text seems a bit incongruous with the main text

[fiery finch]

Most things should be pointier

[nova frost]

I prefer the full m-powered

I tend to only use the trunc. version for really small places

[nova frost]

Make the //\ all the way through, and the other bits as just embossed

Vent preserved!

[pallid basin]

yeah, I wasn't even venting the FemtoFox case, so its all just a bunch of me complaining 🙂

Just that I think some thought should be put into how these logos are used. They can be both pretty, and functional.

My other case I never published, just shared with a few people in discord.

(other than it being available on onshape)

[warm geyser]

yeah, I mean, may as well have them be functional, it's true

[pallid basin]

yeah I narrowed the W because it was a very wide W otherwise, but it does look uoff.

[forest current]

just call it Fox Powered

and make the fox ears the lora pattern lol

[pallid basin]

I tried that actually with the LuckFox logo and didn't like it.

[pallid basin]

not terrible I guess.

[fiery finch]

Thickness needs to be the same

[warm geyser]

hm, yeah, I see what you mean about the width. but I do like it just being a flipped over version of the M, haha

[pallid basin]

yeah I know its just a quick mockup

[fiery finch]

I like it

[pallid basin]

In the end, these still reply on a small feature size to connect the inside of the PRD

even embossed, I like the fact that you can have a poorly calibrated 3D printer and still execute the original wordmark pretty easily, but its neither here nor there.

[forest current]

what about something in this vein

(this is my pseudo mspaint creation please hang it on the fridge of shame)

[nova frost]

I've given up on getting fox ears right. The lugs on the Smol/zero board drive me insane.

Squares and rectangles from now on

[fiery finch]

Alright, I've added i2c support to the menus.

will be in next release

you can enable or disable it

not enabled by default, because it causes slowdowns and errors to console if you query i2c when nothing's connected

but support for configuring it via usb-config is in

[restive scarab]

nice, I did notice when poking around in 0.97 that one i2c bus scanned at expected speed and the other was oddly slow but haven't really touched it since as DS3231 just work and that's all i cared about at the time

[fiery finch]

we just have the one bus

i2c-3

it's very slow if empty for some reason

if there are any devices connected, it's nice and fast

shrug

[restive scarab]

so wait, then what's i2c-4 (the one I noticed scanned slower)

[fiery finch]

no idea

probably unused

[restive scarab]

heh, probably not exposed

[fiery finch]

which is why it's slow, because it's empty

same issue

[restive scarab]

yeah, it shows up in i2cdetect -l

[fiery finch]

[19526.565904] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19526.775793] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19526.985815] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19527.195812] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19527.405809] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19527.615790] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19527.825797] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19528.035777] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19528.245768] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19528.455759] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19528.665770] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19528.875754] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19529.085742] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19529.295719] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19529.505720] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19529.715707] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19529.925706] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19530.135698] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19530.345707] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19530.555815] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3
[19530.765703] rk3x-i2c ff460000.i2c: timeout, ipd: 0x00, state: 3

that's what you see in serial console if you scan an empty i2c bus

about 3-4 per second

for the entire bus

[restive scarab]

that def lines up with the slowness i slow, though I don't remember if I saw the dmesg over serial output, don't think I was looking it for though as was connected over ssh and now that things are working so well don't have UART2 setup to monitor anymore

[fiery finch]

we missed the issue for a long time

because we were only looking at ssh

when we saw it I was sure it was a new issue

turns out it was always there

which is where I stopped caring

[mild hare]

I just looked at the dts and we only have the i2c-3 (from factory) in there so it's the only one exposed.

[pallid basin]

Can you upgrade foxbuntu or do you have to re-image the SD card?

[chrome tide]

re-image right now.

[mild hare]

I mean, it's Linux so you can upgrade it etc but for our changes you either need to look at the git and make manual changes or re-image. We know the need for an upgrade system to keep our changes updated on installs though. We'll get there.

I look at git and hand put them in and it's annoying.

[lavish sorrel]

Working on a means to make this less painlful.

Not by upgrading but by backing up

[pallid basin]

cool, just wanted to be certain.

[twilit mountain]

Package all the pieces as debs 🙏 and use PPA (then just apt upgrade to get new changes)

[fiery finch]

wait! Don't delete that!

[frozen cloud]

Friendly reminder that todays date is 3OH!3 so tell your boyfriend if he says he got beef, I'm a vegetarian and I'm not f-cking scared of him

Ok

[fiery finch]

I only saw the first few words but I was fascinated

wtf lol

[frozen cloud]

@fiery finch

this popped up on my phone notifications and I copy and pasted it and didn’t realize I was in here that’s why I deleted it rather quickly

[nova frost]

I was thinking about this more.

For those without a b-series board.

I2c flash?

[lavish sorrel]

I fully intend to do a USB variation. Was debating on ways to check to see what storage is mounted before it ran.

[lavish sorrel]

I didn't even think of that... not a bad thought but not sure about support though

[nova frost]

At24c02 has 2k of memory

[nova frost]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005676146387.html

https://github.com/RobTillaart/I2C_EEPROM/releases

[fiery finch]

That barely explains anything 🙂

[nova frost]

Fscking Rob Tillaart ftw!

[fiery finch]

ahh it's lyrics

[mild hare]

Oh man. We gotta chat about this!

[twilit mountain]

We can do that sometime 🍻 It's not so terrible really

[frozen cloud]

Yes sorry

[nova frost]

Sometimes I have to remind myself that my mental image of you living in a cabin in the mountains isn't right, but things like this don't help 🤣

[fiery finch]

Ugh I wish

Here I am living in a concrete jungle

[opaque abyss]

I wonder if we can upgrade from git via ansible

[mild hare]

Huh, I use Ansible at work. You thinking playbook? That would be wild.

[opaque abyss]

If it works for Jeff Geerling and Apple it'll work for this

I honestly have never really used it but it cant be terribly heavyweight

[nova frost]

He's on here sometimes

Jeff, not Tim Apple

Well, I don't know actually

[opaque abyss]

We cant say for certain Tim Apple isn't not here

[twilit mountain]

Honestly... you absolutely could. But it's not the right way to do it really.

Packaging up all the pieces as debs 🙏 now you're a real distro

[fiery finch]

@chrome prairie hey 🙂
Any progress with the 3.3v testing?

[pallid basin]

Meh|Powered. 🙂

[pallid basin]

https://www.printables.com/model/1215810-professional-ultra-slim-case-for-meshtastic-femtof

[mild hare]

@pallid basin Thank you man.

[pallid basin]

I wonder if anyone will get the Amazon click-baity title joke but me 🙂

too bad the LEDs aren't in the right place to make the eyes blink

[mild hare]

Of course I have the one question you don't want to hear. Got it without supports? I do resin.

[pallid basin]

sure 🙂

you mean the mouse ears

[mild hare]

Yeah, ain't no warping when the bed is cold. 😉

Well done though

[pallid basin]

let me know how it turns out

[lavish sorrel]

Printing on a Bambu X1C now.

[pallid basin]

Added mouse-earless versions to Printables in case thats your jam.

[lavish sorrel]

I just realized this is for an n-type antenna, any plans on doing an SMA version?

[lapis edge]

Lol my current case is ridiculously less elegant/functional. Can't wait to print this! BTW - anyone know if running it off the LM2596 -> 5v for a few days is a bad idea? Planning to switch to USB power when some extra parts get here

[lavish sorrel]

How high is your Fox mounted above the PCB? That USB hole in the case looks like it's in obit above my board

[mild hare]

Nice!

[chrome prairie]

No, too busy this weekend

[nova frost]

@pallid basin yeah, if you could do one with the usb hole lowered by 8.5mm that'd be great

Some are on sockets, and some are... not

[pallid basin]

Ok. Didn’t realize there were variants.

[pallid basin]

Here is the variant with the board lowered 8.5mm per @nova frost I don't have a variant like this, @lavish sorrel so you'll hav to let me know if it needs further adjustment. Also a longer button pusher

[lavish sorrel]

I'll print it as soon as I get home from work. Thank you for this. Other than that small thing, the case fits perfectly.

[fiery finch]

@fast adder so what's the status of the tool right now?

any issues preventing integration?

[pallid basin]

If you need further adjustment to the height let me know. Once we get it right I’ll post the file to Printables

[pallid basin]

Here's an SMA variant. (no mouse ears you can add them yourself. I just put a 6.75mm hole)

this also has the low-board mounted position

[nova frost]

If you emboss a hexagon ~8.3mm AF in the inside of the case, that helps hold 90% of sma connectors, I've found

This looks awesome, btw.

[pallid basin]

Low module, SMA with HEX

[fast adder]

Setting Admin Key now "Works on my machine". The whole app could use some testing and error handling. Repo needs a name...

[fiery finch]

Mesh Configurator

MeshConfig

meshConf

I guess all my ideas are just centered around making it progressively shorter, huh

[fast adder]

Short is good

[fiery finch]

Meshtastic Configuration Tool

MCT

that might be afoul of trademark

Configuration tool for meshtastic. CTM

[opaque abyss]

Specific Unnamed Mesh Configuratorinator (SUMC)

[fiery finch]

hmmm

still needs work lol

Configuration Or ReNaming BAtch Line

CORNBAL

[opaque abyss]

These are reading like KND operations

[fiery finch]

@fast adder Config For Mesh. CFM

[forest current]

Specific Unnamed General Mesh Allocator

SUGMA

[opaque abyss]

Library for Instigating General Mesh Adjustments

[mild hare]

https://tenor.com/view/um-no-speechless-nathan-fillion-gif-13771019

[nova frost]

Yet Another Configurator

Yakyakyak

[fast adder]

@fiery finch Keeping it simple
https://github.com/pdxlocations/control

[nova frost]

Ideally this would be taken under the project wing, no?

[fiery finch]

good move

[fiery finch]

didn't you add note?

oh interesting.
is_managed, "Enable managed mode", "Enabling Managed Mode blocks smartphone apps and web UI from changing configuration. [note]This setting is not required for remote node administration.[/note]Before enabling, verify that node can be controlled via Remote Admin to [warning]prevent being locked out.[/warning]"
results in:

it dupes it

[fast adder]

I'll have a look at that logic. It's weird.

[fiery finch]

load config = crash

[fast adder]

have you saved a config yet? maybe looking for a missing directory

[fiery finch]

possible! I have not

yeah, that's the issue

[fast adder]

still should handle that case

[fiery finch]

after saving one, it works

but saving should also, you know, tell you where the file was saved

[fast adder]

    color_mappings = {
        r'\[warning\](.*?)\[/warning\]': ('settings_warning', True, False),  # Red for warnings
        r'\[note\](.*?)\[/note\]': ('settings_note', True, False),  # Green for notes
        r'\[underline\](.*?)\[/underline\]': ('settings_default', False, True),  # Underline

        r'\\033\[31m(.*?)\\033\[0m': ('settings_warning', True, False),  # Red text
        r'\\033\[32m(.*?)\\033\[0m': ('settings_note', True, False),  # Green text
        r'\\033\[4m(.*?)\\033\[0m': ('settings_default', False, True)  # Underline
    }

These are the modifiers, pretty easy to add more

[fiery finch]

I coulda sworn you fixed the device_ui not being translated

but it's not working right now

[fast adder]

the fix is in the ini, just make the header lowercase

(and add some help text, it's been empty)

[fiery finch]

Yeah

also, you should add a blacklist file, where we can put settings that shouldn't appear in the menu

The issue with device UI is that I don't know what that is

there's no such menu in the apps I think

or in the docs

[fast adder]

it's used for 2.6

MUI I think

[fiery finch]

That explains a lot

[fast adder]

but i do have an ignore list
https://github.com/pdxlocations/control/blob/f86670adf4d61d0b6f02cb7bea7353f15b28d518/menus.py#L26

for depricated fields

[fiery finch]

alright, good to know

yeah I'm still not sure what to put in the helptexts

my one and only t deck got chewed by a doggo

[fast adder]

Nooooooo

[fiery finch]

device_ui > language = crash

[fast adder]

There is some very limited info here: https://github.com/meshtastic/protobufs/blob/master/meshtastic/device_ui.proto

[fiery finch]

I'll wait for a real doc

[warm geyser]

it's basically all the settings for the MUI itself, yeah

in general only stuff you'd edit from within the MUI interface, I guess

except perhaps in some sort of setting-up-in-advance process, I guess

[fast adder]

I can add it to the ignore list, at least for now

[nova frost]

Second ignore list?

Not deprecated, just not relevant

[fiery finch]

I mean, I'd leave it in

just won't have helptext

[fast adder]

I've found the issue, looks like any long list will crash it. Jut need to fix some window sizing.

[nova frost]

True. Might want to setup a t-deck like this.

[fiery finch]

yeah

[fast adder]

Ok, it stays!

[fiery finch]

or linux based mui]

[warm geyser]

(just illustratively)

[fiery finch]

we should only blacklist stuff that is confirmed to have no value, right @warm geyser ?

(sorry I need someone to automatically back me up)

(just say RIGHT, NAGU!!!)

[warm geyser]

yeah, I think that's right

[fiery finch]

(you're always right!)

[fast adder]

skip_fields = ["sessionkey", "ChannelSettings.channel_num", "ChannelSettings.id", "LoRaConfig.ignore_incoming"]

[warm geyser]

if there's no docs then people can change it at their own risk, haha

[fiery finch]

I think device_ui > version can be blacklisted

right?

[fast adder]

Right Nagu™

[fiery finch]

(you're always right!)

[fast adder]

I sadly haven't flashed 2.6 on anything yet

[warm geyser]

yeah, I think version can be blacklisted

that's probably just used internally by device-ui

can unblacklist if somebody finds a use for it, haha

[forest current]

looks like your t-deck turned into a t-bone

[fiery finch]

boooo

[mild hare]

Btw, just verified the trick. sudo dpkg --clear-avail sudo apt clean sudo apt install whatever
Makes the building dependency tree hurt less.

[nova frost]

Is this... Safe?

[mild hare]

Only one way to find out!

[forest current]

presumably its clearing its entire catalog and just fetching a fresh one, so its skipping all the delta calculations/merging

[lavish sorrel]

This fit is PERFECT.

[fast adder]

done

[fast adder]

fixed

[fast adder]

probably fixed

[fast adder]

done

[fast adder]

fixed probably

[pallid basin]

I posted a bunch of new variants of the FemtoBox:

https://www.printables.com/model/1215810-professional-ultra-slim-case-for-meshtastic-femtof

N/SMA antenna, Mouse/No-Mouse Ears, Display/No Display variants.

[fiery finch]

ooooh!

I love the logo embossed on the print

[pallid basin]

Just realized it’s reversed!

I have to recreate these all again I guess. Hehe

[fiery finch]

lol

[pallid basin]

ok fixed

[chrome tide]

Nice! I need to print this..

I just need a basic box

[fiery finch]

@fast adder new builds of foxbuntu will use Control as their meshtastic settings menu.
Management and upgrade of Control is done in the Software menu. When we work out foxbuntu upgrade, it will also upgrade Control.
Because Control uses the API, it conflicts with BBSs and the like, so when control is launched via the menu, it checks for installed software packages that have "full control meshtastic software" listed as a conflict, and if that software package has a service that is currently enabled, it stops that service, then restarts it after user exits Control. Until a mechanism is worked out to allow multiple API users simultaneously, this is the best I could come up with (nudge nudge @warm geyser)

[fast adder]

That sounds like a decent solution for now. Cool!

[chrome tide]

interesting workaround

[fiery finch]

I don't know what else to do

I can't see the BBS's handling it gracefully, right?

They'll either fail completely, or keep trying to reconnect, kicking Control off

[nova frost]

I had an idea

What about having a SIM radio node as administrator for the radio node?

BBS still works, even if it's being admined by another node?

[fiery finch]

whaa

so use local remote admin to control the node?

[nova frost]

Yes

[fiery finch]

That...

hmmm

[nova frost]

One to think on?

[fiery finch]

that's a very creative idea

it'd be resource intensive, on a fox

and slow

and fiddly

I think it's a good idea, but not a workable one

I'm not sure if a simradio node could even remote admin

[nova frost]

🤷

They can be admined by mqtt, cnt they?

[fiery finch]

nope

or well

hmm

I don't know

[chrome prairie]

5V in

[mild hare]

Nice!

You doing 3.3v too?

[chrome prairie]

Yes, I already did the power measurements

I’ll make the graphs soon

You just should not use 3v3 on anything but the highest tx power and it’s still bad

Running it right off a battery is not great, 4.8V is fine

nicd would work well if you really don’t want a boost

[lapis edge]

This guy went up on the roof earlier. Now working on my second fox to put in the case by @pallid basin

[opaque abyss]

dessicant is smart

[lapis edge]

I've used the packets before but this is my first go with the color changing silica beads. Very curious to see if they end up getting saturated over time

[chrome prairie]

DC_OUT gives the reading at the power sensor, then you add the s21 and mainline losses

@mild hare NiCd and SPV1040 charger would go crazy

and then you truly dont need a boost

[chrome prairie]

toolchain broke but

now with overvoltage protection up to 100V and reverse polarity protection on the PV input

oh this is actually stupid tho

rip redoing this

[forest current]

Windows 98... Now it feels professional 😂

[chrome prairie]

oh thats just the nicd dischrage curve from google

i use arch btw (i just broke my pcb design toolchain with yay)

[mild hare]

It amazes me how many times I go into some industrial setup with giant machines that cost a drift car or many many mortgage payments and see some windows 98 or xp machine running the show from a once beige and now yellow ATX case sitting in the corner.

"the software license"

[chrome prairie]

the average power seems to be around the same no matter what the peak power is, but i am logging that as well

[quasi onyx]

nice

[nova frost]

If we cut the over-voltage to 30V, can we have AO34XX mosfets on the topside?

I know inductors are spicy when working, but is 100V likely?

[chrome prairie]

No

And I’m replacing that ic with just a zener and pfet

[chrome prairie]

I don’t understand why

[nova frost]

Cos they're cheap and small?

[chrome prairie]

The new configuration should all fit on topside but I’m redoing all this anyways

Current and power rating is low

[nova frost]

Ok, it's just anyime I see a big power MOSFET I ask myself if it's really hauling enough the current to justify it.

And they can be put in parallel if needed

And they're small, so can spread them out.

I've done 3d printing so I know the value of a chunky MOSFET to prevent fires, but a genuine AO34XX can haul 1-2A comfortably within it's rating.

However, I bow to your experience and expectations of heat output. 🙇

[chrome prairie]

You’re free to add whatever get you want, I’m looking at lower voltage higher current panels for my build

The GitHub has all the design files

[nova frost]

This was all in reference to the nce0106R - I should've made that clear.

I'm looking at those 3v panels I showed yesterday

[lapis edge]

Case by @pallid basin is a perfect fit. Small changes for my non-standard CE fox were moving the side USB opening to where the Ethernet port should be (I didn't include Ethernet and wanted to hardwire a dumb USB C female to the 5v pins). Also raised the non-socketed USB-C port a few mm to accommodate my low profile sockets. Fit is terrific!

[lapis edge]

Just need to dial in the button pusher length and find some clear filament for the LEDs. I would also love to move that USB adapter/WiFi dongle so I could set it down flat. Currently researching if there's anything I can do with UART or the Eth pins to connect a receiver on top by the 915 antenna. Plan B would be some sort of 90 or 180 degree USB adapter to at least reduce how far it pokes out on the bottom below the board

[fiery finch]

That looks really good!

I recommend a bit of kapton to hold the ipex down

[fiery finch]

As little strain on that as possible

[lapis edge]

Great call. I usually wrap a ridiculous amount of kapton when I use these chunky pink wires but this one seemed to go on more securely than most. I think one well-placed strip should do it. Thanks for the reminder!

[fiery finch]

I always go around and under the pcb

v2 may have wifi onboard

or easily added with a quick solder

[lapis edge]

BTW - I'd planned to solder wires directly to the OLED through holes after testing, but there was plenty of room above the E22 for the breadboard jumpers after I bent the display pins down about 45 degrees. When I open her up to secure the ipex I also need to remember to add some kapton over the components on the back of the OLED just in case.

[fiery finch]

yeah gotta avoid them shorts

🩳

[nova frost]

These exist

[mild hare]

So does this (STL for my phone and I already have the keyboard)

[twilit mountain]

Now make it with a fox

https://specfive.com/products/spec5-nomad
A sane Fox version of this thing is what I really want 🙏

And a dual-radio version of course (still need to get back to my Lyra testing)

[mild hare]

I'm on team "phone already has these features". But my friend is a hard core blackberry lover and always yells at me when I say it

[twilit mountain]

T-Deck exists, Fox exists. T-Fox should exist. It's that simple ❤️
I need a 1000 nodedb and that TFT UI.

[fast adder]

preaching to the choir

[mild hare]

Ok you got me there.

[twilit mountain]

I don't think anyone's gone too crazy with the Luckfox TFT screen stuff though yeah? I sure haven't.

OLED sure 👍 But not a "real" screen

[mild hare]

1 SPI already used for radio.

So a lyra with a wio, a touch tft and and an i2c keyboard?

[twilit mountain]

And a wifi module jammed in there somewhere

[nova frost]

https://tenor.com/view/make-it-so-jean-luc-picard-star-trek-the-next-generation-make-it-happen-gif-23455354

[nova frost]

None of us are sane. Just varying shades of crazy. Crazy like a fox...

[lapis edge]

Have some on the way (and some like these) but would still rather it sit flat. I may eventually try to make a "sideways" case (with the SMA coming out where the Ethernet port would be) so at least my dongle(s) will stick out to the side.

[opaque abyss]

How would you even hook up a tft display to the femtofox? I dont think i2c has the bandwidth for a "real" screen with deditated gwaphix

[twilit mountain]

https://wiki.luckfox.com/Luckfox-Pico/Luckfox-Pico-Ultra-RGB-Screen
Looks like it might only be supported on the "Ultra"

Meanwhile the Lyra has a standard 2-lane MIPI iface 🙂 https://wiki.luckfox.com/Luckfox-Lyra/Introduction

[nova frost]

What's the mipi on the Pico mini for?

Apart from disrupting decent PCB design...

[twilit mountain]

Think that's a camera input only

[nova frost]

Ah, ok

[twilit mountain]

MIPI DSI == displays, MIPI CSI == cameras (my understanding)

[nova frost]

Oh, all the ai camera doodads.

[twilit mountain]

Yeah that's what the luckfox is "for" 🤣

AI Camera BS

F that, hold my mesh

[pallid basin]

With an N-female bulkead pig tail, the connector gets really close to the pi header pads, so I put kapton over the pads just to be safe

[lavish sorrel]

Is there a CM4/CM5 form factor of the Fox? Wonder if it would fit in a uConsole

[mild hare]

@nova frost that one that has the stuff on the bottom maybe?

[nova frost]

No, not the right form factor

Although if luckfox/spotpear were poked right, I'm sure they'd make a cm format one.

[pallid basin]

Is there a reference schematic for the RV1103?

Jlcpcb has them in stock. The RV1103a in stock for PCBA

[nova frost]

Do they cost more than a complete luckfox by any chance?

[lavish sorrel]

Have they made any concessions for the femtofox project?

[nova frost]

We're too small 😭

I'm still not sure who is buying all these things

[nova frost]

Some of those clockwork Pi modules are similar-ish chips to the RV1106

[chrome tide]

Why have these enclosures not been posted ?

[fiery finch]

Designer is @pallid basin. I think it's a work in progress but he said he'd post on thingiverse

We'll also link to it

[pallid basin]

https://www.printables.com/model/1215810-femtobox-professional-case-for-meshtastic-femtofox

Cc @chrome tide

[fiery finch]

That was fast

Bravo!

[pallid basin]

RV1103G1 $4.54 in small quantities

[chrome tide]

Oh yes. I remember seeing this one, and said I needed to print it..

[pallid basin]

It was already posted 🙂

[restive scarab]

the hat perfectly fits a 3B

[fiery finch]

Even faster then

[lavish sorrel]

This is more of what I was referring to:

The black board is a carrier board for the CM4 (and I think 5 too)

[restive scarab]

if it breaks out the standard 40pin underneath it'd work

[lavish sorrel]

After scratching the surface (more like window licking) of the development process the Femto team goes through... I assume nothing.

That's the larger board

[restive scarab]

OH Clockwork... I swear I've seen someone with a meshstick they wired up inside one

[lavish sorrel]

I think it was @fast adder or @neat frigate

[restive scarab]

I need to make a single sided board for xiao + wiosx1262 to fit my hackberry, everything i've tried is too tall so waiting for CH3401As to show up to finish a meshstick and see if that'll work

(probably also be too tall anyway)

[fast adder]

#1198305448051351693 message

[nova frost]

What do you mean by too tall?

What dimensions are you working within?

[nova frost]

Please tell me this is working? 🙏

[pallid basin]

When I sudo shutdown -h now it does shutdown but then reboots rather than halting.

[nova frost]

I think it's sudo halt

Lemme check

[pallid basin]

that works

I've just always done sudo shutdown -h now so it was my reflexive "shutdown" command

[nova frost]

[210289.027776] reboot: System halted

58 hours uptime, gone like that...

[pallid basin]

aww

[nova frost]

nah, it needed poking

https://tenor.com/view/do-something-comeon-stickman-bored-gif-22722853

[restive scarab]

it, and the 2nd one I built, are working AMAZING sir 🫡

[pallid basin]

trying to debug my wifi and saw this in the log:

Nov 21 15:57:28 femtofox dbus-daemon[240]: dbus[240]: Unknown username "whoopsie" in message bus configuration file

[restive scarab]

basically it's ~65mm length x ~22mm wide x ~6mm tall - https://github.com/ZitaoTech/Hackberry-Pi_Zero/blob/main/3D-Modell/Hackberry_LowerCase_fits_for_3_version.stl (that middle area)

heh, quick grep for whoopsie in /etc/... didn't find anything, though still on 0.97

[nova frost]

You want a node to fit in there?

What do you want to put in the extra space?

A second node?

https://github.com/NomDeTom/NiceRa

[restive scarab]

haha I tried sidekick v2 first, the 6mm height is the biggest constraint

[nova frost]

If you back-to-back the boards and use 0.8mm pcb, there should be space

I've just measured my seeeeeeeeeeed based one and if I removed the headers and spacers, it would be 6mm

Failing that, you could delid the LoRa radio, like an animal mechanical keyboard enthusiast

And remove the ipex and solder the antenna t the pin

[pallid basin]

what's the recomended WiFi dongle? (TPLink? Which one?)

Nano AC600?

RTFM Jake (TL-WN725N) hehe

[fiery finch]

And if you find another wifi adapter that works, let us know so we can document it

@mild hare is working on a solution that will allow many more wifi chipsets to be used. Hopefully there'll be a breakthrough in the next few days

[pallid basin]

The RTL8188CUS I have works but intermittently. Going to try something else

I ordered an AC600 to try

[nova frost]

Is that a bare module or a usb plugging one?

[pallid basin]

Very old USB dongle like used to be part of Pi2B kits

[nova frost]

Oh

[forest current]

https://askubuntu.com/questions/135540/what-is-the-whoopsie-process-and-how-can-i-remove-it

[fiery finch]

uhhhhhhh what

[opaque abyss]

Anyone stuck one of these on solar yet? Wondering if I can get away with a 6w panel

[forest current]

yes and yes

for the 6W specifically

just make sure you have enough battery

im running 4x 18650's and i wouldnt go any fewer than 3

[quasi onyx]

21700 🙃

[mild hare]

I'm going with 12w. Still sitting on the bench though.

[lapis edge]

It's not stupid if it works, right?

[nova frost]

I'm starting to wonder if I put the fox on the board the right way round...

[fiery finch]

6w sounds iffy to me

I know @craggy mulch has done some work on this

[pallid basin]

When's the next foxbuntu release?

[nova frost]

[pallid basin]

hehe, anxiously waiting for that tun/tap module 🙂

[forest current]

6W is sufficient for northerly climates (which is what I calculated to see what the minimum is). if @opaque abyss is south of chicago then itll be more than sufficient

especially if not even using wifi (i calculated for wifi)

[opaque abyss]

Unfortunately, north of chicago

[fiery finch]

really? facing south at proper angle for latitude?

[forest current]

facing south at roughly 45 degree tilt

[forest current]

how far north?

[opaque abyss]

MN can get some brutally short sunshine hours in the winter

[forest current]

im also north

ah yeah ok im WI

so about the same factors

[fiery finch]

https://sunsolartilt.com/pages/calculator

[opaque abyss]

I have a 6? Watt soshine panel on my HQ node with a 1w LNA

[fiery finch]

enter your location, get the correct angle to use

[opaque abyss]

I'll have to ask the guy who I've got it from

[fiery finch]

45 is usually less than ideal

[forest current]

yeah i used ai to help crunch all the numbers

[forest current]

correct but i used 45 as a baseline, meaning ideal will be better

[fiery finch]

absolutely

[nova frost]

Unless you're 45°N or S...

[forest current]

basically actual requirements based on all factors for this area, is about 3W, but then naturally you want 1.5-2x to breathing room

[opaque abyss]

alright my current solar node is a 1W amp (same tx power draw as the femto) with a 6W panel facing directly up. No tilt

besides the idle power draw (rak19007 so just about nothing) its about the same as the femto

[forest current]

yeah facing directly up is ok for rak's but not for anything else

[opaque abyss]

now, will that 0.3W idle kill it?

[forest current]

you def want a tilt. i settled on 53 degrees as slightly better in winter and slightly worse in summer

[pallid basin]

welp, that was a waste of $12. TP-Link AC600 wireless Realtek RTL8811AU [Archer T2U Nano] doesn't seem to work

gotta go log diving now

[fiery finch]

We're working on a solution. no promises.

[forest current]

plus you have to consider snow. more vertical means less snow accumulation and faster melting

[fiery finch]

I say we, I mean OSC

[pallid basin]

when I plug it in I get Mar 7 13:34:38 femtofox kernel: [ 408.644018] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 3 using xhci-hcd

I've seen that before

[mild hare]

MT7601U was the first wifi adapter to ever be made to work in foxbuntu. I still use it.

[forest current]

also shouldve asked, southern central or northern MN?

6W might maybe struggle in Duluth but be fine in Rochester for example

[pallid basin]

oooh! 🙂

[opaque abyss]

twin cities

fairly central to the state, I'm in the northern burbs

[forest current]

yeah you should be fine, angle the panel south, tilt around 53 degrees (slightly more vertical), or even closer to 60 because sun is plentiful in summer anyway, and youll be good. if you plan to hit the wifi hard and heavy increase the panel size.

[pallid basin]

if there's a 8812au.ko floating around I'd be willing to try it 🙂

[opaque abyss]

and honestly the 6w panel kinda rocks, it was intermittetly powering my amped HQ node after it fell in a bush and was only getting reflected power from the white siding

[fiery finch]

not quite yet

hopefully (hopefully) more info next week

[opaque abyss]

no wifi except for updates. I want to get it set up so I can run updates from my phone via a hotspot connection in the field. I read somewhere you can toggle wifi via remote admin in the mesh somehow??

if true then thats one step closer to field solar nodes. I want to populate my whole mesh with BBS'

[pallid basin]

I also have a RTL8188FTV that seems to behave in the same way.

[forest current]

unless it was removed ( @mild hare ?) yes, wifi-mesh-control allows you to toggle wifi via remote admin

[forest current]

ayyy thats what im going for too!

[mild hare]

It's still in there

[opaque abyss]

we got a message from the twin cities to Hudson this morning

perhaps we can bridge our meshes with enough BBS syncing in a few years

[forest current]

hey thats pretty good

[forest current]

given the max hop count it wouldnt happen directly but thats what ive been looking into the Lyra for (dual radio) to act as a bridge

theoretically you could talk from minneapolis to milwaukee, given key node placement and a bridge node

[opaque abyss]

our game plan has been to set up multiple BBS units with sync enabled. If they can sync across a few hops reliably then we can just use the mail function to send messages more than the 7 hop cap

Ive heard that after a hop or two the syncing is pretty unreliable though so I'll need to set up some test units. If I can get the femto on solar then I can use my pi hat at home

[forest current]

right, the dual-radio Lyra in conjunction with modified local mqtt by @fast adder could accomplish that. youd effectively be able to do 7 + 7 hops (14)

[opaque abyss]

does it just have an onboard mqtt server to link the two radios then?

and reset the hop count

[forest current]

yeah, which refuses to set the mqtt flag so other nodes dont drop it (in this specific use case this is fine imo)

doesnt reset the hop count and honestly im not sure if youd want to (wayyy too easy to abuse)

[opaque abyss]

I assume the second radio is another channel thats only used for bridging then? like a highway for packets

[forest current]

but one radio, if you can hit it in 7 hops, then passes it to the other radio which gets its own 7 hops

[opaque abyss]

and dual radios are just on/off ramps

I imagine if both radios were longfast defaults itd just send the same packet in a circle

[forest current]

that was my thought yes, although you could just do same mode on both. my idea was one of the two:

1 radio for longfast (normiechat) and 1 for shortfast (bbs sync backbone)
1 radio for longfast freq slot 20, 1 radio for freq slot 40 (or whatever)

[forest current]

no because the first radio would refuse to rebroadcast as the packet id is the same so it would see that it already saw it and ignore

which would make it a directional bridge basically, as if the packet comes from lets say minneapolis, and hits the dual-radio repeater in dubuque, then only nodes east of it would rebroadcast as everything west of it already saw it and would ignore it