Femtofox - Tiny, low power Linux node!

[chrome tide]

Got the boat in there also.. LOL

It's def not small!

The 250 is about 18' long..

Sorry 20' 6.8" long..LOL

It looks so small in front of the 5th wheel.. LOL

The 350 doesn't look much bigger, but the dually fills it out some..

[mild hare]

That's a sick setup.

[chrome tide]

It's nice. We are looking to upgrade now..

[fervent pier]

Go throw the clock on that and you've got a beacon in the night!

I've just about got the truck where I want it. Installed a longer water line so I could move my water cans to the back of the bed, not cluttering the moment you drop the tailgate

I moved all the Meshtastic gear into the orange box up top - EcoFlow River 3, UniFi Mobile Router and my FemtoFox

[quasi onyx]

nice

[quasi onyx]

i had sd with firmware installed, whats the best way to update?

do i just need to re flash the firmware?

nvm

i think i have the latest

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/a44kI2.png

[quasi onyx]

Hehe

[quasi onyx]

On my way to post 3 of em

[chrome tide]

@surreal iron This works great! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZSY1896

[surreal iron]

Seems like it might be awkward to make a spot in the case for it though, unless I just make a slot for the ribbon and we stick it to the outside?

[chrome tide]

doublesided sticky tape on the back of the SD card holder would do it.. If it was inside, it would need to be near the edge of the case for access.

[surreal iron]

Well it has a weird mechanism to insert the card, which needs access to the entire top of the thing.

What about something like this? https://a.co/d/jczl7uO

[chrome tide]

Oh yea, I struggled w/ that, so it would def need to be outside, or have a slot of the flip up bracket..

[chrome tide]

Yea, that was what I was looking for, but at 18 USD, that's a bit pricey..

[surreal iron]

It was just the first one I found. https://a.co/d/cNYLWUV

Probably can get them for $2 on aliexpress. 😅

[chrome tide]

Yea, and $50 for import taxes..

[surreal iron]

Oh, not bad. I thought it was $75.

[chrome tide]

LOL It could be, I was guessing..

[surreal iron]

Just order 1000 and sell 999 on Amazon for $15.

[quasi onyx]

haha

[nova frost]

They're surprisingly expensive on AliExpress ~10$ with vat.

So 8$

[chrome tide]

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807207514485.html

[dire shuttle]

If I have an I2C temp+RH module, an SHT41, I2C address 0x44. I've enabled I2C in femto-config and environmental telemetry in Meshtastic.
Should it just work at that point or am I missing some steps?

[nova frost]

Is it a more recent version of Meshtasticd than stock?

[chrome tide]

Ok, found my RTC modules, and poop one on the newer femtofox. How can I tell if it's actually working ?

Ok, so dmesg shows it..

[   33.612438] rtc-ds1307 3-0068: registered as rtc0
[   33.614032] rtc-ds1307 3-0068: setting system clock to 2000-01-01T00:00:36 UTC (946684836)

Ok, FIANLLY got to testing more on my femtofox.. I2C works when plugged into headers next to fox pins.. So it's something to do with the JST, or traces ?

[dire shuttle]

I kicked off an upgrade to Meshtasticd right before leaving for a few hours

So it was stock but should be up to date now

[floral marten]

Luckfox problems. ( it all femtofox are luckfox)

[chrome tide]

More like 1 Core CPU problems..

[dire shuttle]

Upgrading is so slow

I think it says something that it's been like 4 hours and I'm not completely sure it's going to be done

[chrome tide]

WTH, 4 hours ?

Mine only takes like 15, maybe 30 min..

if its an update from fresh install, maybe longer..

depends on inet speeds also..

[floral marten]

Ok, Luckfox and all the other 1 core small computers being used with the Femtofox. 🤣

[nova frost]

All Femtofoxen so far are Luckfox.
😉

[floral marten]

Isn’t the femtofox the radio base?

Because mine is running on a Pi4.

I just reread the GitHub and I guess the whole package is the femtofox. I guess mine is a FrankenFemto.

[nova frost]

It's a base, it's a hat, it's all things in between

Why do one thing well, etc.

[quasi onyx]

when u can do many things wrong 🙃

[dire shuttle]

That's just meshtasticd

[nova frost]

I'm scared to ask, but what else are you using it for?

[dire shuttle]

Nothing?

What I mean is that that's only attempting to upgrade meshtasticd

Not all the system packages

[nova frost]

Yeah, it usually doesn't take me more than half an hour.

[dire shuttle]

... I forgot a -y so it actually never finished

Maybe I'm using a really slow microSD. I didn't think it would matter because I figured any modern microSD is fast at this scale

[nova frost]

Yeah, no. Bad microsd are still bad.

[chrome tide]

Samsung Evo/Endurance are what I use.. I just got some SanDisk endurance to test also..

[dire shuttle]

It's got one of these right now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3WY8DR6
U1 means it has a max write speed of 10MB/s

[chrome tide]

I have had issues with PNY in the past, and stopped using them.

10MB/s ? That's slow as shit! The Evo is 160MB/s..

Oh, 100MB/s is still super slow..

The new evos are 180MB/s..

The endurance are 180-200MB/s..

[dire shuttle]

I didn't expect the foxes to be able to saturate any of them

[chrome tide]

Higher speeds still improve performance..

[nova frost]

I'm not sure which bit is faster than expected, but faster in both is useful.

[chrome tide]

@nova frost Any suggestion on figuring out why I2C ports aren't working for me, but headers next to fox do ?

[chrome tide]

This is what I recently purchased.. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P14QHB7

[floral marten]

If I’m not lazy today I will throw an OS on the 32GB eMMC microSD card that came with the Nebra helium node I bought (for the parts) and see how fast it is compared to what I am using currently.

One way to get speed (sometimes) and get longevity (almost always) is to get a very large card. More NAND means fewer overwrites per year. Partitioning them to a smaller size ensures that wear leveling will take place even if discard (aka TRIM) isn’t supported.

I should say most quality brands adhere to this. No name brands purchased because they are cheaper, all bets are off.

[nova frost]

Check continuity from port to header

Might be a solder blob gone wrong somewhere

[chrome tide]

Yea, that's what I was gonna do this morning..

I'm noticing that my 2.42" display doesnt work on my femtofox, but the BME does.. I think the display need 5v, but the board doesn't supply it from USB power ? Which is odd, since it's 5v from USB..

[nova frost]

Which pins are you plugging it into?

I2c supplies 3.3v

Well, the port I put on it does.

If you need 5v then you'll have to pinch it from the pin headers like everyone else.

[chrome tide]

VIN/GND/SDA/SCL on fox headers

[nova frost]

Kk, double check that it needs 5v and not 3.3, and then maybe try it with the 5v

[dire shuttle]

So I don't know that it's going to need four whole hours, but I ran this:
date; sudo apt upgrade meshtasticd -y; date
It started at 7AM Pacific, it's almost 9AM and it's still working. It claims to be unpacking linux-firmware

Not a package I expected a meshtasticd upgrade to need

[nova frost]

That's crazy.

I'll run a comparator later

[dire shuttle]

Yeah, it looks like it's upgrading everything, so this may be a PEBCAK:

femto@femtofox:~$ date; sudo apt upgrade meshtasticd -y; date
Sun Jul  6 07:00:28 PDT 2025
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libevent-core-2.1-7 libevent-pthreads-2.1-7 libopts25 sntp
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libinput-bin libinput10 libmtdev1 libwacom-bin libwacom-common libwacom9
The following packages will be upgraded:
  apt apt-utils binutils binutils-arm-linux-gnueabihf binutils-common dirmngr distro-info-data ethtool gnupg
  gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg gpg-agent gpg-wks-client gpg-wks-server gpgconf gpgsm gpgv libaom3 libapt-pkg6.0
  libarchive13 libbinutils libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc-devtools libc6 libc6-dbg libc6-dev libctf-nobfd0 libctf0
  libdebuginfod-common libdebuginfod1 libdw1 libelf1 libexpat1 libexpat1-dev libfreetype6 libglib2.0-0
  libglib2.0-bin libglib2.0-data libgssapi-krb5-2 libk5crypto3 libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 libldap-2.5-0
  libldap-common libnss-systemd libpam-modules libpam-modules-bin libpam-runtime libpam-systemd libpam0g
  libperl5.34 libprotobuf-dev libprotobuf-lite23 libprotobuf23 libprotoc23 libpython3.10 libpython3.10-dev
  libpython3.10-minimal libpython3.10-stdlib libsqlite3-0 libsystemd-dev libsystemd0 libudev1 libunbound8 libvpx7
  libxml2 linux-firmware linux-libc-dev meshtasticd net-tools openssh-client openssh-server openssh-sftp-server
  pci.ids perl perl-base perl-modules-5.34 protobuf-compiler python3-pip python3-pip-whl python3-pkg-resources
  python3-requests python3-setuptools python3-setuptools-whl python3-urllib3 python3.10 python3.10-dev
  python3.10-minimal python3.10-venv sudo systemd systemd-sysv tzdata udev vim vim-common vim-runtime
  wireless-regdb xxd
101 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 394 MB of archives.```

Ah, apparently I should've used apt-get install meshtasticd to upgrade. That makes perfect sense.

[nova frost]

The sfc menu has an upgrade function, btw

[dire shuttle]

Yeah, I'm inconsistently bouncing between "I need to run into dumb walls like this with my face for learning purposes" and "JFC please just work already I want to deploy this node"

[nova frost]

I'm consistently impressed with how well the sfc and usb-config functions are holding up in the face of the shifting structure of Meshtasticd

[dire shuttle]

That can be satisfying when it works out

[nova frost]

The only thing that is actually needed on it is a selector between alpha and beta branches.

[nova frost]

I made a config pen drive early days, and I still use it an embarrassing amount.

To the point Tim Apple could learn something.

[dire shuttle]

2h2m to accidentally upgrade everything, apparently

I think I've confirmed that the SHT41 I've got works:

...      bus.write_byte(0x44, 0xFD)
...      sleep(1)
...      print(bus.read_byte(0x44))
...
103
103
103
103
103
108
110
110
110
110
110
111
112
113

I picked it up and smooshed it right when it read 108 and it peaked at 113, then it slowly falls back down to 103, which appears to my ambient.

Edit: ...Uh. I think I didn't close the bus and now I don't have a handle for it.

[chrome tide]

I'm so confused... This same example BME and cable works on my original femtofox, but not the new one..

[dire shuttle]

Does it show up in i2cdetect? i2cdetect -y 3
3 is the I2C bus number. On mine the options are 3 and 4

root@femtofox:~# i2cdetect -y 3
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- 44 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
root@femtofox:~# i2cdetect -l
i2c-3   i2c             rk3x-i2c                                I2C adapter
i2c-4   i2c             rk3x-i2c                                I2C adapter```

[chrome tide]

femto@femtofox-2:~$ sudo i2cdetect -y 3
[sudo] password for femto:
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- UU -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: INFO  | 09:21:22 0
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]:
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: //\ E S H T /\ S T / C
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]:
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: INFO  | 09:21:22 0 Use /dev/i2c-3 as I2C device
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: INFO  | 09:21:22 0 Scan for i2c devices
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: INFO  | 09:21:22 0 No I2C devices found
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: INFO  | 09:21:22 0 S:B:37,2.7.2
Jul 06 09:22:37 femtofox-2 meshtasticd[1615]: INFO  | 09:21:22 0 Init NodeDB

[dire shuttle]

... wat.

[chrome tide]

I'm wondering if my BME is 5v only..

[dire shuttle]

What do you have on bus 4?

[chrome tide]

Nothing

[dire shuttle]

Some mentions of UU being a reserved address or something

[chrome tide]

When it works, it's the same tho..

And 68 is the correct address for BME280

[dire shuttle]

ChatGPT and Gemini both indicate that's a good thing

The "UU" signifies that a kernel driver has successfully attached to the device, and therefore i2cdetect is politely stepping aside, letting the driver handle all communication.

I don't get the same thing when Meshtastic finds my SHT41

FWIW, I already have an entry there and I'm not using a BME680

root@femtofox:/sys/bus/i2c/devices# ls
3-0068  4-0030  4-0030-1  4-0030-2  i2c-3  i2c-4
root@femtofox:/sys/bus/i2c/devices# cd 3-0068
root@femtofox:/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0068# ls
modalias  name  power  subsystem  uevent
root@femtofox:/sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0068# cat name
ds1307```

[nova frost]

Rtc

[dire shuttle]

Oooh

Address collision?

Switch buses?

[nova frost]

Well the other bus is taken for Rxen and something else

[dire shuttle]

No, I mean there's nothing on bus 4 for WillE

That's the other I2C port, right?

[nova frost]

No, both i2c ports are parallel

Off i2c3

I2c4 is taken for other pins

[dire shuttle]

Oh.

So if you don't have an RTC, you could probably shank that and it could work

But RTC+BME680= 😦?

[dire shuttle]

Any chance your other fox has no RTC?

[chrome tide]

Both have RTC..

[dire shuttle]

Hm.

[chrome tide]

BME680 does not work in native right now. JB is working on that..

[dire shuttle]

But if it uses an address that's already in use by the RTC...

[chrome tide]

RTC does not use the same address.. It uses 33 if I remember right..

[dire shuttle]

I don't have an RTC installed, but there's a driver configured for address 0x68 if I'm understanding correctly

[chrome tide]

Hmm... Interesting..

[nova frost]

Kernel reserves RTC

Ds3231 is i2c address 68

Bme680 is 77, apparently

[chrome tide]

Ok, so I have no I2C at the I2C ports, I have a shtc3 connected to 3v3 and i2c ports on fox headers, and if I move it to the I2C JSTs, it stops working..

So I think something is wrong w/ my board..

[nova frost]

Which board is it -pro or CE?

I have a CE from that batch around somewhere

[chrome tide]

Both my boards came from OSC..

They both have the USBC port on them, so Pro.

[nova frost]

Hmmm

Did you get a multimeter on them, a d confirm continuity?

[nova frost]

I thought I'd sent you a CE PCB as well?

[chrome tide]

You did. I need to build them. Just been busy looking for a new job..

[chrome tide]

I toned everything out, my next step is going to be measuring voltage at the JSTs..

[nova frost]

So they're connected end-to-end 🤔

[chrome tide]

SDL/SCA/GND are. but I don't get tone when testing v

[quasi onyx]

Uh oh

[chrome tide]

So here is the order of this output.. shtc3 on headers, then on i2c jst closest to fox, then back on headers..

femto@femtofox-2:~$ sudo i2cdetect -y 3
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- UU -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: 70 -- -- -- -- -- -- --
femto@femtofox-2:~$ sudo i2cdetect -y 3
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- UU -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
femto@femtofox-2:~$ sudo i2cdetect -y 3
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- UU -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: 70 -- -- -- -- -- -- --

3.18v on the 3v3 pin..

[restive scarab]

UU at 0x68 is the RTC so nothing else is detected or it should also show up at it's address

[chrome tide]

And here is headers to breadboard, w/ shtc3, bme280, and 2.42" OLED.. Tho oled still does not appear to turn on..

femto@femtofox-2:~$ sudo i2cdetect -y 3
[sudo] password for femto:
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3c -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- UU -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: 70 -- -- -- -- -- 76 --

[restive scarab]

0x3c is what my OLEDs use

looks like BME280 is 0x76 and 0x70 matches what's expected for SHTC3 so that all looks good

and just to be sure ... you have I2CDevice: /dev/i2c-3 in meshtasticd config.yaml / config.d/something.yaml ?

[chrome tide]

Yea, I have I2C enabled.

The issue is that when using the JST ports on the femtofox pro, no I2C is detected..

[restive scarab]

JST on my CE builds def works, skimming scrollback ... that's the one w/0V on the 3.3V pin?

oh 3.18V, huh

did you enable i2c on that one? grep -i i2c /etc/luckfox.cfg

[chrome tide]

So I just moved the pin from 5v to 3v3 on the headers, and the LCD is still working..

femto@femtofox-2:~$ grep -i i2c /etc/luckfox.cfg
I2C3_M1_STATUS=1
I2C3_M1_SPEED=100000

I2C isn't the issue, as I have 3 I2C devices working right now w/ jumpers to a breadboard..

[restive scarab]

so then something between the fox and the header on your board?

[chrome tide]

That's my current test setup..

[nova frost]

Can you take a close-up of the underside?

3.18v and no actual power is a classic broken wire

oh, good point, actually

can you check on the backside, pls?

like poke both ends of the 3.3v line?

[chrome tide]

@nova frost

[nova frost]

ok, at this point I would be checking continuity within the cluster, and then between that and the DS3121 header

see if there's a wire break somewhere in your connector, too

but a broken wire or something would let the voltage build up enough to detect it, but not enough to pass power

[chrome tide]

Are you talking about the cable that is plugged into the JST ? If so, it's a known working cable, as it was pulled from my working femtofox, along w/ the BME280..

[nova frost]

ok

just trying to think it through

hmmm

and it doesnt work in either slot?

either socket, even

[chrome tide]

correct, both JSTs don't appear to work.

[nova frost]

and both are giving 3.1ish volts on the pin?

[chrome tide]

I'm confirming now

3.14v

[restive scarab]

🤔

[opaque abyss]

Not the first swap pin error on the graphics

Might not be the last

[restive scarab]

yeah just don't recall seeing that particular one having been called out and poking at those pins

[nova frost]

Yeah, I messed them up

Sowwy

[chrome tide]

https://tenor.com/view/michaelscott-lol-laughing-theoffice-gif-2588023766626163604

[restive scarab]

haha no worries, tbf: I trust your PCB markings more than Luckfox but glad I checked

[lavish sorrel]

Did you buy fully assembled boards, get them printed with PCBA, or get them printed and assembled yourself?

[chrome tide]

Both boards I have I've gotten from OSC..

I do have some CE boards, but I've been to busy to build them..

[dire shuttle]

After all that fighting last time, I just plugged in a wifi adapter and had it work within seconds

By the time I could check its status, it was connected

[spring juniper]

chasing a weird power-off/on behavior....

1. node falls off wifi (I leave it on) after 24hrs or so but Meshtastic still working... it's still rx/tx'ing according to other nodes
2. unplugging solar and letting battery shut off, then replugging solar and charging up doesn't turn node back on

Thoughts...

1. could just be an angry $3 wifi adapter (next time I pull it down I will setup admin keys so I can enable/disable wifi)
2. I would expect the node to wake up as soon as 5V starts flowing from regulator - really not sure whats going on there (Keith's MPPT)
   Anything obvious?

[nova frost]

Mine falls off WiFi after 24 hours too. I think it's an incompatibility with some routers and Linux. It's the same on my rpi

Does your WiFi have a self-reset function?

[nova frost]

Re: point 2, the Femto takes much more power at startup than in normal operation. Idk what the 5v restart point is on Keith's board, but one or other side may be hitting a brownout cycle limit.

[spring juniper]

self-reset on wifi adapter? or access points

at 1.5V or 3.1V with hysteresis options for
3.1V at 3.3V or 4V```

Pretty sure I'm set at 3.1V and 3.3V.

2S1P LTO setup

[nova frost]

3.1v with 4v might be better.

Idk what the LTO curve looks like, tho

Iirc, it charges up to 2.5v per cell?

And is empty at 1.5, so is 2v the middle or 1/4 or 3/4¿

[dire shuttle]

So apparently SHT4x driver isn't included in the Linux version of Meshtastic. The source even says this, but I hadn't noticed:
; (not included in native / portduino)

Is there a way to add that without also breaking all the nifty fox scripts?

Nevermind, apparently it's just not an option on Linux right now unless you want to write your own driver.

[spring juniper]

It’s pretty flat from 2.6 to 1.5 per cell

[nova frost]

I'd set the LVCO-release on rising voltage to 4v (50% charge)

[nova frost]

Is it time to investigate external sensors sending data to Meshtasticd?

[lavish sorrel]

Sounds almost like a power save mode, but I've never dealt with that on Linux/my luckfox, only Esp32 devices

[nova frost]

I would very much like to turn it off.

[brisk ocean]

https://tenor.com/view/but-why-male-model-gif-11945749

[dire shuttle]

This specific sensor doesn't have a driver in meshtasticd

[nova frost]

Yep, but there are some in Linux for them already, that could be glued on.

[dire shuttle]

Ah, I see what you mean

[neon sandal]

Can some one help a man walking in the dark stubbing his toes? I found meshtastic and thought it was interesting but very limited by the 3-7 hop distance. Then I found TC2's BBS which improved the value greatly. But to get global/natiional news in a melt-down you really need ham radio operators to provide news for the BBS. Then I realized I could probably use a SDR dongle to grab the news automagically. So I mocked it up on my laptop and pulled the data off the RTL-SDR feed it to Sox then piped it to Js8call. Then I moved to a rpi 4b and started to work on getting it to work there. Done. Now to move to my femtofox. It just dawned on me that the Luckfox is a unique processor and none of the tools I have scavanged to make this work will work on the Luckfox. Right? So I am at a deadend and this project just stopped? Is there a cross-compiler that would convert the utilities I need to run on the Luckfox. Is there a low-enough power RPI that might substitute. Thanks and sorry for the long message.

[opaque abyss]

You could have the pi do the SDR work and pipe into a local MQTT server which the fox could read

meshtastic and MQTT are already easily interoperated

I believe you can also use the fox as a pi hat if you solder headers on, and the pi can use the fox's mesh radio natively. Sort of defeats the purpose of a low power mesh SBC, but you're losing that with an SDR anyway

[neon sandal]

Thanks but first you are confirming that the Luckfox is not going to run code intended for the RPI. Then it would be a matter of adding up all the power required by your idea and see if it is any better than a RPI 4B. Thanks I'll take a look.

[opaque abyss]

the fox and pi are pretty similar (of course foxbuntu doesnt have a lot of software sources that raspbian does), the big thing is the RV1103 is 32 bit only, and the pi 4 and onwards are 64 bit

with enough work you should be able to get any software that runs on a 32 bit pi zero to also run on a femtofox. it'd be a while, I went down that rabbit hole trying to get CUPS on the fox

[dire shuttle]

You probably want to look into Spudgunman's Meshing Around bot.

It probably wouldn't be hard to add in a module to consume a news API or feed

[lavish sorrel]

meshing around already has that

[dire shuttle]

I know it's got weather, but I must have missed news

[lavish sorrel]

i think it reads from a flat file, 1 sec lemme find it in the docs

[dire shuttle]

Oh, yeah, that's a thing

But you'd still need to do some glue work to get an RSS feed or something in there

Finding one that's 160-word summary of articles would be nice

[lavish sorrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/blob/0a260b28b62b5b2b936689b2afc7749c4402decd/config.template#L253

[lavish sorrel]

this is where you might want to employ an LLM

[dire shuttle]

Could be a good case of using a Pi-powered one

Wouldn't care about how slow it is, for once

[opaque abyss]

yeah if it takes 1 minute or 10 its whatever

[neon sandal]

Meshing around is too complicated for my village audience. I want a stand alone that I put up on a high point and most anybody could read news and bulletins and leave mail. I thnk the idea of using a zero 2 W connected to the RTL-SDR and connect the femto and TC2 via wifi to Js8call on the 2W might work, I need to inventory of both using wifi all the time and if the 2W would run JS8CALL. Thanks Infered. Don't want anything dependent on the internet or cellphones.

[lavish sorrel]

the pi5 takes a decent amount of time using ollama, a Femtofox would just say "no"

[opaque abyss]

yeah pretty sure ollama doesnt even make 32 bit copies

[lavish sorrel]

if you turn most of it off, they wouldn't know about the other stuff. Just the news would stream, in theory.

[neon sandal]

Getting the news off JSCALL is what makes it interesting to me.

[opaque abyss]

meshing around is a bit difficult to learn to program, but achievable. I wrote my own addon for printing nametags from my pi and my old label printer from when I did etsy

[neon sandal]

Ordered a 2w to find out. Thanks again I thought I was at a dead end.

[spring juniper]

naturally this problem is only happening on the fox on my roof, not the one on my desk. They are using different wifi adapters though so maybe thats worth comparing re: PSM settings

[dense latch]

if I remember correctly, the current CE PCB doesn't support the e80-900m2213s , is there a version that does?

[nova frost]

The PCB doesn't support it yet, but also the Linux native doesn't support it either.
I have a design which does support it, and it has been prototyped and is being tested by @nocturne birch, who has said that they will get support for the radio working. Once it's working, I'll release the new design.

@dense latch if you promise not to get mad if it doesn't work, I'm happy to share the design with you too.

I don't want to publish it yet, in case someone makes it without reading the instructions first.

[warm basalt]

Wi-Fi 6E 😮 https://www.nxp.com/company/about-nxp/smarter-world-blog/BL-IW693-WI-FI-6E-SOC

[dense latch]

it's "JLCPCB sent yet another 20USD coupon to one of my burner e-mails" season again, so yeah, how could I get mad?

and e80-900m2213s can be sourced for 2.29€ from the oficial ebyte store on ali, so unless it's somehow terrible, it seems like a reasonable choice for radio ATM

[twilit mountain]

It's also slightly more sensitive than SX1262. Big win.

[dense latch]

I was wondering if this panned out in real world usage

[nova frost]

Just ask the seeeeeeeeeeed t100000000e

[nova frost]

I'm not seeing them for quite that cheap, but I can see that they're cheaper than the 22db or 30db e22 modules.

[dense latch]

coins page discount, and I'll probably snag half a dozen from taobao(superbuy)

[dense latch]

isn't that limited by the internal antenna?

[nova frost]

Yes, but they get very good reception despite that. We assume it's so good because of the extra 2db for the radio.

[nocturne birch]

Heya @nova frost! 👋

I've been working on trying to get the LR1121 up and running on and off... it's been a bit 2 steps forward, 1 step back but im still persisting with it. Radio is recognised and most of the way initialising, but then it crashes meshtasticd. Currently trying to trace a RADIOLIB_ERR_NONE error.

Will post more as I'm getting closer, but if there's anyone else interested in this who has any experience with this kind of thing and is willing to help out I'd appreciate it!

[nova frost]

Paging @neat frigate and @restive scarab

[neat frigate]

you have IRQ wired to DIO9 and suplied a rfswitch.h ? need more log info

[nocturne birch]

WARN  | 12:32:01 0 LR11x0Interface(cs=16, irq=23, rst=25, busy=22)
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Start meshradio init
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Radio freq=906.875, config.lora.frequency_offset=0.000
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Set radio: region=UNSET, name=LongFast, config=0, ch=19, power=30
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 myRegion->freqStart -> myRegion->freqEnd: 902.000000 -> 928.000000 (26.000000 MHz)
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 numChannels: 104 x 250.000kHz
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 channel_num: 20
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 frequency: 906.875000
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Slot time: 28 msec
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Final Tx power: 22 dBm
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 LR11x0 init result -20
DEBUG | 12:32:01 0 LR11x0 Device 0, HW 19, FW 0.0, WiFi 0.0, GNSS 0.0
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Frequency set to 906.875000
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Bandwidth set to 250.000000
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Power output set to 22
INFO  | 12:32:01 0 Set RX gain to boosted mode; result: 0
meshtasticd: src/mesh/LR11x0Interface.cpp:249: void LR11x0Interface<T>::startReceive() [with T = LR1121]: Assertion `err == RADIOLIB_ERR_NONE' failed.
Aborted

You're getting further than me 😅

[neat frigate]

ok -20 init error. check you not swapped reset and busy or miso and mosi ?

[nocturne birch]

I'll swap them around, pls hold

Swapping reset and busy gives me -705

Just trying to figure out how to swap miso/mosi

[nova frost]

In config.d

[nocturne birch]

is it CS and IRQ?

[nova frost]

Ah, it's set by the hardware.

It's defined by the hardware tree.

(I think)

[nocturne birch]

My conf.d file is the one I think you had made @nova frost ?

  gpiochip: 1 # subtract 32 from the gpio numbers
  DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE: 1.8
  CS: 16 #pin6 / GPIO48 1C0
  IRQ: 23  #pin17 / GPIO55 1C7
  Busy: 22 #pin16 / GPIO54 1C6
  Reset: 25 #pin13 / GPIO57 1D1


  spidev: spidev0.0 #pins are (CS=16, CLK=17, MOSI=18, MISO=19)
  spiSpeed: 2000000

Does that still match up for this hw?

[nova frost]

It should do. I'm not at a computer that can open the schematics...

[nocturne birch]

I suspect all the pin numbers being different might be an issue? 🤣

[neat frigate]

it should be wired same as sx1262 just the yaml Module: lr1121 changes. and dont need rxen

[nocturne birch]

Ah kk -- will grab the values from that config

Success(ish)!

WARN  | 13:34:11 0 LR11x0Interface(cs=16, irq=23, rst=25, busy=22)
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Start meshradio init
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Radio freq=906.875, config.lora.frequency_offset=0.000
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Set radio: region=UNSET, name=LongFast, config=0, ch=19, power=30
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 myRegion->freqStart -> myRegion->freqEnd: 902.000000 -> 928.000000 (26.000000 MHz)
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 numChannels: 104 x 250.000kHz
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 channel_num: 20
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 frequency: 906.875000
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Slot time: 28 msec
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Final Tx power: 22 dBm
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 LR11x0 init result -706
DEBUG | 13:34:11 0 LR11x0 Device 223, HW 34, FW 33.0, WiFi 0.0, GNSS 0.0
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Frequency set to 906.875000
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Bandwidth set to 250.000000
INFO  | 13:34:11 0 Power output set to 22
DEBUG | 13:34:11 0 Set DIO RF switch
WARN  | 13:34:11 0 No lr1121 radio

A new error 🤣

Apparentl -706 is tcxo error

same result if I disable DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE: true in the config

[neat frigate]

you have a rfswitch.h file ?

[nocturne birch]

I don't think so, no

[neat frigate]

actually should not be issue

i have ch341 without

[neat frigate]

you need to power off after some LR11x0 errors

[nocturne birch]

will power cycle 👍

@nova frost yep looks like a match to the module

[nocturne birch]

Same after shutdown + remove power for 30 s + bootup + try again

I've got 2 on the test bench and both are doing the same

This is the full config.d file im running now...

  Module: lr1121
  gpiochip: 1 # subtract 32 from the gpio numbers
  DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
  DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE: 1.8
  CS: 16 #pin6 / GPIO48 1C0
  IRQ: 23  #pin17 / GPIO55 1C7
  Busy: 22 #pin16 / GPIO54 1C6
  Reset: 25 #pin13 / GPIO57 1D1
  RXen: 24 #pin12 / GPIO56 1D0 # Not strictly needed for auto-switching, but why complicate things?
#  TXen: bridge to DIO2 on E22 module
  spidev: spidev0.0 #pins are (CS=16, CLK=17, MOSI=18, MISO=19)
  spiSpeed: 2000000
  
General:
  MACAddressSource: eth0

since the error seems to be TCXO related I've been trying different options in DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE - false, true, removing the value and 1.8 all producing the same result

[neat frigate]

ok does commenting out CS help at all ?

[nocturne birch]

testing

[nocturne birch]

Same error, unfortunately.
I'm just checking the docs for the module to see if I can confirm the tcxo voltage incase its different maybe 🤷

[neat frigate]

mine working at 1.8

[neat frigate]

a firmware version value of 33 seems odd also - DEBUG | ??:??:?? 1 LR11x0 Device 3, HW 34, FW 1.1, WiFi 0.0, GNSS 0.0

[nocturne birch]

I've reverted to the 2.7.x alpha (just using the apt repo) -- so the fw version should be coming from that

I've enabled debug in the config.. is there something about that line that I should look into?

[nocturne birch]

I might have to tap out for tonight... 12:30am here 😅
Even with TCXO disabled im still getting that -706 error... so wondering if maybe it's something else causing it.
Tried a 3rd board just to be sure I haven't miraculously stuffed up soldering 2 of them and getting the same result there too.

Progress at least, which is awesome! I'll be back on tomorrow night to keep trying! 🚀

[restive scarab]

I'm also seeing 34 after updating to latest daily LR11x0 Device 3, HW 34, FW 1.1, WiFi 0.0, GNSS 0.0

it def seems close, once I sorted out my -707/-705 errors it came up, and I sat there for like an hour stunlocked the damned thing was finally working

but there's also E21 amp on the babelfox so I need to define both RXen/TXen and omit DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH so I got nothing for that

[nova frost]

Hmmm. Dio2 should perhaps be omitted, as the switch table should be doing the do.

Dio5, 6, 7 (as appropriate)

[restive scarab]

i added DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true to babelfox and commented out TXen, meshtasticd seems to start up fine

aaand heard just fine by another node, received message from it ok, but doesn't seem to be heard by the other node

2nd try worked 🤷

[quasi onyx]

One person asked about poe 😅

[nova frost]

Soon, but not now

And not on the ones you have now

[quasi onyx]

Yes, i know

[polar ingot]

does power.device_battery_ina_address work yet for device battery on linux? solarFox 2.0 is nearing completion

fancy ina3221 board, LifePO4 solar1 mppt, 3.3v buck/boost, 3 or 4 1800mah 18650s, smolfox with ht-62 module

[nova frost]

Not sure if that particular config works, but ina219 works

[polar ingot]

Yeah it doesn’t seem to pull the voltage from the ina3221. It just shows “plugged in”. But otherwise the sensors are working great still.

Haven’t decided what the best direction to put the battery through the ina is….. have it show negative while draining and positive while charging? Or the other way around?

[nova frost]

I can't remember exactly, but we made a diagram in #solar-power

[polar ingot]

i used this one: #solar-power message

which I believe is set up to be negative when dischargine and positive while charging.... although it flops after a certain currant.

[chrome tide]

I wish foxbuntu was like rasbianOS when it came to sudo, and only having to ask for the sudo password 1 time per ssh session..

[floral marten]

Can’t you just edit /etc/sudoers.conf (or add to /etc/sudoers.d/ ) like any other Linux? You can set it to not even ask a password for your user.

[chrome tide]

I've looked into it briefly, but I'm not that good with sudoers.conf..

[nocturne birch]

Heya @restive scarab thanks for the tip!
I tried with and without DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH and I'm still getting -706 😕

[floral marten]

I added this on my femtopi4

bill ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL```

In other words, as root, create a file on /etc/sudoers.d with the contents shown above (just the line starting with “bill” but change it to your username in foxbuntu)

That means that this user has access without being asked a password. This can be risky BUT it’s as secure as your login password. For a small little radio like this, I want easy. It’s not exposed to the internet.

There’s another way to set and adjust how often it asks for passwords but I don’t have that handy. Google is your frenemy.

[hushed spruce]

I think you can also restrict ssh auth to specific networks in the global config

[restive scarab]

Huh, I worked through -705/-707 which were IRQ/BUSY related but -706 = "SX126x received invalid SPI command" which is very odd, I'd expect -705 if it was a janky/loose wiring but it doesn't hurt to check that once more.

[floral marten]

My sudoers.conf on my Ubuntu box (not mesh related) has this line %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL and my user is part of the group sudo

from man sudoers sudoers uses per-user time stamp files for credential caching. Once a user has been authenticated, a record is written containing the user-ID that was used to authenticate, the terminal session ID, the start time of the session leader (or parent process) and a time stamp (using a mo‐ notonic clock if one is available). The user may then use sudo without a password for a short period of time (15 minutes unless overridden by the timestamp_timeout option). By default, sudoers uses a separate record for each terminal, which means that a user's login sessions are au‐ thenticated separately.

visudo can be used to edit the specific user more declaratively than hand editing files.

[restive scarab]

further hint: timestamp_timeout is how to accomplish the single auth per session... possibly as some sort of Default value for all suoders

[nova frost]

I'm getting flashbacks to when all this stuff was ruled out as too risky to put in sfc

[nova frost]

Try dio_as_rf_switch

Dio2 is sx12xx specific

Idk if it's aliased or not, but we're using dio5,6,7 remember

@restive scarab did you have to refer to a switch table, or is it all "just hanging out"?

[restive scarab]

it's for sure a security concern but there's a lot of bad choices (not just security ones) that made it in anyway 🤷

no switch table though, just "hangin' out" with E21 wired up to RXen/TXen

[nova frost]

Any interest in the gnicerf boosted radios, by an chance?

(it's the one at the bottom)

[restive scarab]

I am interested in all kinds of radios... that aren't XTAL 😄

[chrome tide]

Oh, ya, I can do that. I was talking about only making it ask for the password once per session..

[quasi onyx]

I wonder, should I use these on my nodes 🤔

[nova frost]

They add cost and complications. They're for experimenting/prototyping.

And future-proofing the Femtofox 😉

[quasi onyx]

Ye ye hahahah

[chrome tide]

@surreal iron Switched to the SD card extender you found and it works just as good as the other one I found, but is push/push for SD rather than slide latch..

I found a bug in femto-config. Specifically wifi config..

If you are using special characters in your password, it adds oddities to the password..

For example, my password is blahblahblah3030$$, and this is what it puts into wpa_sup file. blahblahblah30301464

[nova frost]

Is that in the latest image?

We had issues in the early days.

[chrome tide]

1.0.0

[nova frost]

hmmm

[chrome tide]

This is also an issue I have been seeing..

               Foxbuntu v1.0.0      Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS(5.10.160)

IP address: 192.168.x.226 192.168.x.152  Uptime: 3m

sync wifi to meshtastic is enabled. And if I disable wifi in meshtastic, it disables the wifi on the femto.

[surreal iron]

That's good, I ordered one from ali right after we talked about it, still waiting for it to arrive... Once I get it, I'll make a place for it on the case.

[chrome tide]

Mine came with screws, and 2x double sided sticky circles..

[surreal iron]

I was planning to set it up to use the screw just so it will maintain alignment. I'm pretty sure mine has screws with it as well. Probably won't be able to do it until I get back (in two weeks) from Open Sauce, but if you want to model the board in CAD, I will do it sooner.

[chrome tide]

You will have a better change to getting it done before I could even get a model started in CAD.. Enjoy Open Sauce.. Send me some goodies.. LOL

I'm really annoyed that most industries shun California.. LOL

Like there is no RRF for West Coast, LA area would be perfect for it..

[chrome tide]

WOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Femtofox w/ rotary, 2.42" LCD, and BME280...

[nova frost]

Post video?

[chrome tide]

Don't mind my testing devices mess..

well... That's odd.. where is the video..

I posted it from my cell before I posted the don't mine my mess post..

Hmm, says sending..

Oh, maybe to large for discord..

230MB.. LOL

[chrome tide]

Let's see if this works..

@nova frost ^^

[chrome tide]

@sonic wolf ^^

[sonic wolf]

Pupper is excited for you. 😄

[chrome tide]

That was my boxer playing w/ my wife's father's dog..

When I watched the video back, my husky/doberman mix Jump up looking around for the boxer, that is laying on the floor next to her.. LOL

[surreal iron]

So you’re saying I need to make a bigger case?

[chrome tide]

JB is the one doing it.. LOL He made support for that monster, but it just WORKs..

[surreal iron]

I have the display, but not the encoder. Is it I2C?

[chrome tide]

Yes!

[surreal iron]

I’ll grab one and make a fancy box.

[chrome tide]

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/5880/22596384

[quasi onyx]

dem

[nocturne birch]

Not sure if I interpreted this correctly but I tried...

• DIO5_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
• DIO6_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
• DIO7_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
  ...same result on all - -706 😦

[nova frost]

just DIO_AS_RF_SWITCH?

[nocturne birch]

Same again, unfortunately

[nova frost]

Hmmm

@restive scarab can you share your config.yaml please?

[restive scarab]

Only cause you said please 😀 ~ https://gist.github.com/porkcube/f845dcb3d4e902e2cfe44bdd1c5e659e

(Luckfox Pico non-mini on the babelfox/bad PCB hence the gpio chip shenanigans)

[nova frost]

Moving all this to https://discord.com/channels/867578229534359593/1394321556490027120

Try and get some focus on the foxus

[chrome tide]

Ideally we have visibility to the ws2812b onboard also for the enclosures..

[surreal iron]

Of course!

[chrome tide]

On the CE board, can it be powered from the serial jst where USB is on Pro ?

[nova frost]

No, unless you only want to run it off 3.3v

[winter eagle]

Curious if anyone is still selling complete boards. All of the linked shops show discontinued or sold-out.

[quasi onyx]

Ur from usa going from that flag

If u were in eu i think i would have 1

[nova frost]

OSC is on holiday rn.

I've kind of sold out, and got busy with work.

If you can wait a bit, I'll get some more back in stock - how many are you after?

[winter eagle]

Ah that explains it. Was worried the project was fizzling out, but I see form this discord it's alive and well!

[winter eagle]

I'd like a 2-3 at least. One for testing, a couple more to deploy remotely.

[mild hare]

Sorry. I have 30 left in us that I still need to test and package. But I'm "off the clock" until next wednesday.

[winter eagle]

Was tempted to try the DIY route but I've never ordered a PCB before; more of a hardware-curious software guy 😉

[winter eagle]

Awesome, I can wait that long.

[quasi onyx]

That one also has less features

[mild hare]

This weekend I will be at open sauce. Sharing a booth with a friend. Will have an outdoor unit on a tripod running MeshRunner BBS.

[winter eagle]

Right, unless you consider solder globs and burned off pads that mine would have as "features" 😉

[mild hare]

Community Edition doesn't have usb to serial built in.

[mild hare]

You can order assembled boards from JLCPCB, etc. It's not super hard. Was intimidating at first but it's not too bad.

[winter eagle]

Yeah I looked over the inctructions. Admittedly pretty intimidating, especially if as was mentioned there could be parts not available that would ned substitutions.

[nova frost]

Hardest part is that JLC are always swapping parts in and out, and if you stop partway through the order process, you have to start again.

A couple of weeks ago I was helping someone do an order because JLC had sold out of headers (if you can believe it.)

[winter eagle]

Great work on this BTW @nova frost . I envy your ninja hardware skills.

Curious if these boards include a filter, and if they can support the 2W radio.

[nova frost]

#nofilter

You can put the 2W radio on (it's footprint compatible) but with caveats.

I've got some HW work in the pipeline (heavily cribbing the work that Wehooper and Iris are doing) but nothing concrete right now, and probably realistically nothing for another 2-3 months.

[restive scarab]

most of the filters aren't designed for >1W too

[quasi onyx]

🙃

Finnish digikey tho 🤣

[restive scarab]

default-slot LF for 915MHz is also right outside the low end and MF/MS are just inside the high end, but it'll make you basically deaf to anyone using a private channel that hashes to a slot outside it's 5MHz bandwidth

868MHz might be better but for for 915MHz it's not so great

[spring juniper]

may I present... latest edition of my FoxBox

[quasi onyx]

dem

[mild hare]

I have stocked the last of my pre-tariff Femtofox Pros. However I will be turning on vacation mode on Etsy until July 23 because I have to attend Open Sauce 2025. So shipping wont happen until I return.

I need to spend more time playing with foxes than kenneling them.

[quasi onyx]

hahha

[nova frost]

Open Sauce Country.

[mild hare]

I thought I had 30, but out of 60 I did over 30 last time so was short, 1 dud and I put 2 on shelf. So 22 listed.

[violet osprey]

@mild hare are you all flashed with the event firmware

Will I be seeing your booth on our mesh?

[mild hare]

I heard there was custom at Defcon. That's all I know. Was planning on longfast and see if they survive. Is there a linux version?

[violet osprey]

@twilit mountain ?

[mild hare]

I'll have 2 or 3 with me so I'm down to experiment.

[violet osprey]

We already killed long fast in the bay

So the only ones using it will be unknowing foreigners

[mild hare]

Will be running MeshRunner BBS. If you see a pyschotic Mac Classic on treads with lowrider lights terrorizing everyone, follow it home and I'll be there.

[violet osprey]

We will just have a location beacon set to our booth with the name “come get flashed”

[mild hare]

Firmware required or can I just change settings to match?

[violet osprey]

Required

[mild hare]

Ok. What you southern cousins normally run in the bay?

[violet osprey]

Medium slow

https://bayme.sh/docs/getting-started/recommended-settings/

[mild hare]

I'll make sure to accommodate locals and tourists. Thanks for the head up. Been in pcb/cnc land so pretty out of the loop.

@violet osprey @chrome tide mentioned this working recently, not sure if you already know. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/5880/22596384?so=93623178&content=productdetail_US&mkt_tok=MDI4LVNYSy01MDcAAAGbpkslECQ02nGRHcitLR9tGJKw8p3xpyRVFu7slM7XBY5fdKSq8OgAScsmc31AfGwV42yjLRtui9NluKGPZKV-x2aD8U4VP-__BCAIp5dScw

[chrome tide]

JB made it work..

[mild hare]

Omnipresence. Man, I gotta learn that superpower some day.

[restive scarab]

Hrmmm that seems to be the Adafruit product #4991 that's definitely working... but without the Neopixel. It should work if it's the same MCU as the 4991 but worth double-checking

[chrome tide]

To be fair, I didn't look at the link. Just find the digikey link I sent AlleyCat..

That's the exact item I bought.

#1329096340700921898 message

[restive scarab]

k, yeah it's most likely to work as same SeeSaw library but it's slightly different than the product #4991 though looking at the image on Adafruit even #5880 which is supposedly no neopixel... has a neopixel 🤷

[chrome tide]

That's called being lazy.. LOL

[hollow narwhal]

Hey guys. Odd question. If I have some cheap generic Chinese anemometer. How would I get it to work with the FemtoFox

It would be amazing to have my ina3221 monitoring power, the bme280 proving weather stats and the anemometer actually giving us win speed at this peak. Would be awesome haha

[mild hare]

huh, what's the output?

Finally unboxed new usb tester. This is with no wifi.

Spikes to 0.5w for a second when sending

[spring juniper]

Basically 2x that with WiFi in my testing

[hollow narwhal]

I'll take a look in a second

[mild hare]

oh, I get it. I'd assume you'd need an external ADC and then maybe some python and map the voltage to m/s. I am only guessing based on a ph meter I messed with a while back.

Also looks like it needs external power (separate from sensor output)?

[hollow narwhal]

It does seem to need that. I bet it's trivial to make work. I'll take a look at what I might be able to get for the Femto to actually read it

Thing is now. I didnt catch the input.. I don't want to power a device that always sucks ma of power 😂

So we will see how much juice it takes to watch one of these

[nova frost]

Yeah, there's not a lot of IO left on the board, but luckily there's lots of i2c adaptors out there with reasonable python support (even if they're too obscure for a regular Meshtastic node).

[mild hare]

Have fox, will travel.

[quasi onyx]

looking good

[mild hare]

thx. It's "ok". No bandpass filter so thing may not even work in metro areas. Works good out in the boonies.

[quasi onyx]

fair

ill one day deploy a femtofox 😅

[mild hare]

Hey a tinyfox is technically a deployment. I still use mine.

[quasi onyx]

that one is currently sitting in a drawer :)

ill have to play with it more

[mild hare]

slap a battery on it and a little wifi dongle and put it in a candy box.

[quasi onyx]

i just need dongle that is supported 😅

[mild hare]

I just like it because it lasts longer than my pwnagotchi and has lora.

[mild hare]

oh I didnt send one? sooorry.

[quasi onyx]

no worries

i dont remember u sending one but i might be wrong 😅

ill have to check when i get home

[mild hare]

I don't remember either

[quasi onyx]

now that i think about it, u might have sent. i remember connecting over ip to it. anyway

ill see

[mild hare]

Admittedly I am a bit country, but just for the record my name here is supposed to mean this (and not banjos):

[fervent pier]

That's a lot of batteries!! Awesome work!

[mild hare]

haha thx. I stole the battery pack from one of my first builds because will be indoors for a couple with no sun. https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/s/V3RAMBi05s

Mistakes were made, but the battery pack is legit.

[fervent pier]

DId you manage to get the voltage readings into the FemtoFox of the battery pack?

[mild hare]

No INA or the new cool stuff

I'm on a campaign quest and this weekend is just a side quest so not as prepared as I would like. "Golden f***ing rule of the wasteland".

[violet osprey]

@mild hare are you at open sauce rn?

[mild hare]

@violet osprey Not yet, afternoon.

Alley is there and setup already though and we got neighboring booths

[violet osprey]

@surreal iron where you at

[quasi onyx]

We gonna get photos?

For us who cant attend?

[mild hare]

Booth E5

[violet osprey]

Check #events

[mild hare]

of course!

[violet osprey]

We are right next to yall btw

[mild hare]

Epic!!!

[violet osprey]

E12-13

[mild hare]

E4 is my buddy's psychotic robot, I'll be couch surfing there.

[quasi onyx]

@mild hare u did send me a dongle

[hollow dragon]

Aloha, when I run the GUI to upgrade - see's 74 items - upgrades none. Meshtasticd says it's up to date. any thoughts people??? Also, running updates is slooow hmm - I'm not experiencing this on RASP OS with MESH hats...

[nova frost]

If you've not changed the repo target, it will be upgrading on the betas

And it doesn't update everything because it's slow to do that.

And it only needs what it needs.

[hollow dragon]

That's what I kind a thought... Mahalo for the input

[nova frost]

#1329096340700921898 message

This is the instructions to move it to the alpha branch

Hopefully soon we will do an upgrade to the SFC menu to include this stuff.

[hollow dragon]

I've been thinking about running alpha- my femtofox runs meshing-around for a number of nodes scattered around the Hawaiian islands - so I try and be conservative with the node when it comes to big changes...

[nova frost]

Yeah, that's the thinking behind it being on the beta branch by default

[chrome tide]

@surreal iron I'm not sure if this is related to the extender or not, but since switching to it, I've been having some issues w/ my wifi module, so I have a replacement wifi module coming. Hopefully a better one.. I will test and update after.

[noble sequoia]

But where's the Femtofox with edge-launch N connector? 👀

[nova frost]

Send me a link to the edge-mount n-connector and I will build it.

[noble sequoia]

AFAIK, these guys are the only readily accessible manufacturer of them.
https://www.elecbee.com/en-523-edge-mount-n-type-connector-straight-female-bulkhead-receptacle

[restive scarab]

yeah those are the only ones i've been able to find (that aren't 5x+ the price)

[nova frost]

Footprint 👣 ?

[hollow narwhal]

What's your go to? @nova frost

[hollow narwhal]

I'm strapping my last one to a home made flying wing drone

[nova frost]

Not sure, tbh. I've got a few on hand, but nothing I've tested 😬

[hollow narwhal]

I was thinking of getting an i2c expander

There might not be a lot of i o on there but I want to add a lot of stuff to it and capabilities

Thing is I have no idea when they're going to be in stock again. And honestly I worry that tariffs are just going to put it out of my price range

We require a lot of nodes and I think a lot of us here are trying to deploy the cheap xiao nodes so that we can really bolster reliable coverage

But they're still useful for router nodes for us, even though they're completely unattended Linux machines on mountaintops that have brutal winters 🤣 without internet

[nova frost]

Let me make a list of ones I've got here. I know there's a couple have been used by others on here.

[nova frost]

See further up - Open Source Country is currently OpenSauce Country, and I can ship to the US, but it adds 20% vat on the price, plus tracked intl shipping.

[hollow narwhal]

Oh man. He's in cali. I'd be partying it up on the beach 🤣

[nova frost]

Can't. Too much cool stuff to see.

Plus it's like a half-hour drive from him.

California is one of the smaller states, right?

[mild hare]

lol. 4 hours away.

[noble sequoia]

It's like... 47th smallest, so technically yeah

[noble sequoia]

Don't see a footprint, but wouldn't be hard to make one.

[nova frost]

I can work with this.

Btw, how many of these silly things are you going to want?

Cuz adding a 5$ connector plus a 30$ shipping fee is going to make the economics a bit weird.

[noble sequoia]

Want or actually be able to buy/assemble?

[nova frost]

I'll tell you a secret: I've been meaning to make the antennode for a long time.

[noble sequoia]

If they're as reliable as my pi has been, I'd want a million. I can probably swing 3 financially

[twilit mountain]

You've been talking about the antennode for a while 🙂 Do it!

[noble sequoia]

I know! Why do you think I came in with the question lol. They'd be perfect for the half stealth enclosure design I'm working on now

[nova frost]

I mean, Femtofox isn't the stealthiest of setups.

[noble sequoia]

The board looks appropriately sized

[nova frost]

I'm just trying to work out if I can fit a Wio module inside the ground pins of the connector...

[noble sequoia]

Half stealth because antenna, but slick enough to be ignored by most people

[nova frost]

Then mount a pro-micro on the back and boom! Job done...

Iirc you can get n-connectors that screw down to the PCB.

[noble sequoia]

I stumbled upon these a while ago. Saw the commercial version on a roof and went "hey, a fake roof vent with an antenna poking out the top would probably get ignored"

[noble sequoia]

I was hunting for those. I could only find SMA or that other weird microwave connector

[nova frost]

BNC?

[nova frost]

You got any more polygons?

Talk about lamp shading...

[noble sequoia]

No, it's another threaded connector. Looks like sma but with more aggressive thread

[nova frost]

Above the solar panels is a good idea, tho

[noble sequoia]

Not my model. Mine is smooth, just don't have it on my phone

My thought process is that something like this antenna, everything in white, and the HOAs would never know.

[nova frost]

For ultimate stealth, could get an antenna sleeve longer than the antenna you want to use, and just solder it all solid inside the antenna tube.

[slate sandal]

any advice why I can't see incoming messages in the web UI? On another device I see ACK, but the web UI doesn't display anything. Femtofox 1.0 fw. Thx

[nova frost]

Are you connected by another means, e.g. phone, meshbot, Contact, etc.?

[slate sandal]

not at all, I just start femtofox and open the web ui via the IP address. everything works, only the received messages are not displayed.

I didn't install any other software that would interfere with Meshtasticd. I did a clean install today.

[weary shell]

HELP??? Femtofox community edition, Ebyte 900M30S radio. meshtasticd fails to start and getting messages in the meshtasticd.service journal.

Jul 19 15:40:53 femtofox systemd[1]: meshtasticd.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jul 19 15:40:53 femtofox systemd[1]: meshtasticd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'

I'm no Linux super user... I've checked that the mosi/miso/clk signals were going through.

sounds like an easily fixed timing issue but I dont know where to start.

[nova frost]

Have you done a first-time config using the sfc menu?

[nova frost]

Are you able to connect via the android app over network?

[weary shell]

Yes - it hangs when trying to start meshtasticd

[nova frost]

I've had a similar problem recently, I'm trying to remember how I fixed it.

I suspect I configured it using usb-config in the end

I've got a stick that I use on almost every fresh image, and it just seems to work.

[weary shell]

I haven'tb-configt

havent tried usb-config

[nova frost]

The only other thing I can suggest is to reduce the workload on it during first setup: use usb-config from the start, and don't add any i2c stuff until later.

[weary shell]

No I2C stuff.... I can rewrite the card and try over.

[nova frost]

But also a bad flash is possible - I've flashed and had problems, and a reflash has cured them.

Try usb-config

Once you get the hang of it, it's really handy

And it ofloads the logs, too

[weary shell]

This is #2 flash, and a different sd card also

Will do, thank you!

[nova frost]

The first one didn't work?

[weary shell]

The first time I made the image with WSL, second time I downloaded it from Github

[nova frost]

Ah, understood

[mild hare]

Just a thought, did you run through the femto-config wizard and set region?

Feels so legit in your hand. Nylon.

[mild hare]

Met some of the people I get cnc stuff from. They gave us tanks.

My buddy's robot got some fans. You may recognize a few of em.

Met some of my own heros.

Not really there for much Femtofox stuff, mostly for my fam to experience the culture and to have some fun. But the node is running strong and MeshRunner is super responsive even in an environment like that.

Star struck.

[weary shell]

Yes I did, but I coulnd set the region because meshtasticd wouldn't start

[mild hare]

Sega where I once worked, used to be right across from here. Got to show the kiddos my old work neighborhood since we are staying nearby. We used to joke that the $20 that came out of the ATMs at the Oracle towers were "yuppie food coupons" and had conspiracy theories that they never actually left the buildings.

[mild hare]

super weird, meshtasticd is set to auto run and successfully on a fresh image. I would do the following:

sudo meshtasticd```
and look at output to make sure radio is detected.
Saying this because once I didn't put kapton tape under the radio module on a custom build and meshtasticd wouldn't see the radio.

Hopefully the output can give some clues

Could be a list of things but that output should help

[brisk ocean]

That’s awesome 😎

[mild hare]

Heroes everywhere bending the knee to the future generation(s). Everyone is so damn nice, even bumping into people on accident, step on a toe, etc. Maybe just getting lucky, but it feels damn nice. Still one more day to go 🤞

Last pic of the night...

[weary shell]

You may be onto something...

'''

'WARN | 04:18:34 0 No sx1262 radio'

[mild hare]

boom

gut feeling

[weary shell]

I checked sck with a logic analyzer and saw the clock signal getting to the radio

so..... Ive used this radio a few times and havent had an issue. do I need to hot air it off and resolder it?

[mild hare]

could be software too even, the config(s) in /etc/meshtasticd may be wrong

[mild hare]

sudo femto-config has a place to choose

[weary shell]

A schematic would be nice to make sure all the signals are where they should be. I can guess at it though

[mild hare]

I would make sure TCXO is the config chosen in femto-config before debugging hardware

Also, I must admit, never built a CE board.

[weary shell]

I think I have the right one selected

The RXEN and TXEN pins on the radio have some fet's hooked to them that I dont understand but I'm hoping the rest of the components (Caps and resistors) are just for filtering. MOSI/MISO/SCLK should go directly to the MCU

The VCC and GND's have already been checked

I'll check this out tomorrow on Monday - Thanks for the direction!

[mild hare]

You hand assemble this?

[chrome tide]

Ok, question, could a bad power regulator, be causing issues w/ the luckfox ?

[mild hare]

Last thought of the night on this, CE edition with all the different footprints? If so, if it were me, I'd hot air it off and cover all the other radio footprints with kaptop and re-flow the radio back on.

[chrome tide]

Like the KPs I'm seeing..

[weary shell]

@mild hare yes, hand assembled and reflowed on a hot plate

[mild hare]

No kapton under the radio gave me same symptoms u have. Different board, but yeah.

[weary shell]

I didn't have any kapton but it isn't hard to find. I'll try it and come back after.

[mild hare]

I mean depending on how hacky you wanna get many things could work. But you obviously got some chops. G/L and report back.

[weary shell]

@mild hare I'll take that as a compliment! Thx

[nova frost]

https://github.com/femtofox/Femtofox_Community_Hardware/blob/main/Assets/Schematic_FemtoFox-CE_Rev1.1_2025-01-15.pdf

[quasi onyx]

taking forever to update 😅

[weary shell]

@nova frost I'm not sure why I couldn't find that... I must've not been looking hard enough. Thank you!!

[nova frost]

The advantage of the CE is that you (usually) have a spare PCB or two to work with.

Early on, I did have an idea to pair every purchase with a spare CE PCB.

[weary shell]

I do have a couple 🙂

[restive scarab]

i've been running femtofox_SX1262_TCXO.yaml on my CE for months now without issue, with kapton under the E22-900M30S because... yeah too easy to inadvertantly short something but should be detectable with a meter following the schematic and checking across pins

[quasi onyx]

How long of a ethernet cable can work with this?
Might install a femtofox in a ham mast 😅

[opaque abyss]

Ethernet is rated for 300 feet

[quasi onyx]

Also probably should get a better microsd card 😅

So should stay under that got it

[opaque abyss]

300 feet for full speed rating (gigabit for cat5e), but the femto only has a 10/100 so you might be a lot further

But if you have a mast taller than 300 feet you've got lightning to worry about and should use fiber

[quasi onyx]

Hmmm.....

Nothings set in stone anyway :)

Were gonna plan this well before doing anything so don't need to climb more than necessary

[mild hare]

Genius behind the MPPT sauce

@nova frost

Peeps who printed my first unicorn portable nodes

Rideable drone.

Because it shouldn't exist, and it does.

And a special request, this one goes out to...

@nova frost

And the person who gave me my first T-1000e last year at Maker Faire. The face I have is what happens when you are in maker heaven for 10+ hours a day, it's not a stroke...

Family network of T-1000e badges with gps updating on MediumSlow was amazing. And the FemtoFox Meshrunner BBS node ran perfect and responsive the whole time.

even with the pcb badge in front of the T-1000e, thing was rock solid. 5G was congested as all hell. Mesh was fast.

I also got 4th place in the nerf time attack target shoot challenge.

ok, maybe I'm a little country 🔫

Crazy this in front of lanyard node and worked fine. Them sensecaps still surprise me regularly.

[chrome tide]

Did you see Jeff Geerling ?

[mild hare]

Ok, super fried and got next generation in tow so skipping after party. So last thoughts, more famous people stopped by to autograph and hang out with the mac bot. There is something special about it, it's cultural and something most of us can identify with on a deep subliminal level. I saw meshtastic nodes scattered all over on various tables, not meshtastic or related tables, just makers using meshtastic. Mostly @heady parrot cases. A single or a pair just laying on front or back tables. Also, many many people I talked to knew about meshtastic.

[mild hare]

Honestly not sure, friends were having to explain who some of them were. I recognized cnc kitchen, backyard scientist and some of safety third. Also a guy does uk space stuff. I'm bad about knowing who they are unless I have directly learned from them. 😅

I didn't visit any stages except taking the kids to the pro lego guys talk.

[mild hare]

Oh, and of course I left it out because I'm sure it's covered elsewhere, the meshtastic crew was awesome and had a good presence! And super helpful.

[nova frost]

That's the son of that youtuber, right?

[chrome tide]

That's Jeff Geerling

[mild hare]

🤷‍♂️ I don't think so.

[chrome tide]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Ec_XZBFMU

https://www.youtube.com/c/JeffGeerling

Those are his 2 channels that I know of..

I'm beat, gonna crash out..

[quasi onyx]

its 30 meters

[violet osprey]

We are all here for Jeff geerling dad

I was talking to him while someone else at the booth was chatting with geerling

He’s fun to talk to since he’s an RF guy

[quasi onyx]

one day 😅

[mild hare]

Should be fine

[quasi onyx]

ofc wont be at the top

well see

[mild hare]

@violet osprey Forgot to show you this in person

🦊

[quasi onyx]

fox indeed

[mild hare]

Almost forgot, got some goodies from Pratik @ MakerNova.

[quasi onyx]

nice

[mild hare]

Ok final thought of the adventure. Everyone was incredibly kind. Thousands upon thousands of people. And everyone, at least around me, including the people who I bumped into, bumped into me, who were in a hurry, who made a hole for me when I was in a hurry, when things broke, when things went wrong, took too long or didn't work out... were kind and respectful. Maybe I had a lucky bubble for two days straight. Or maybe just maybe, smart/creative people are usually kind.

[chrome tide]

Yea, his dad is am AM radio tower operator.. Being able to pick his brain would be fun..

[slate sandal]

How do you connect to femto if you want UI, android or webUI? Is there any other way to connect? I don't use android and webUI is quite slow.

[nova frost]

Contact over SSL is fun.

But android is my method.

But really, it's meant for being under a solar panel, dispensing BBS over LoRa.

[restive scarab]

MeshSense works well as also uses the API over TCP/IP (just be sure to disable the auto-traceroute which is enabled by default)

[weary shell]

No dice on the reflow with Kapton, or a reflash and using USB setup. Nothing has changed... Maybe I have a bad Radio chip.

Just rang out the signals IRQ, BUSY, NRST, MISO, MOSI, SCK, and CS successfully.... Looks like I'll change the radio chip out and see if that helps... Tomorrow... 🙂

[mild hare]

Honestly, I'm usually just in the linux console. But on occasion I use android too.

[mild hare]

Last of what I have should be available Wednesday on Etsy.
The Femtofox node treated fam and me really well in a strange and alien environment.
Got the gears spinning quite a bit.
Took the slow way home to do some extra thinking away from my tools and the internet.

https://youtu.be/AR2FRVQn8ZE

[weary shell]

"Swing and a miss" - No change in symptoms with the radio module changed, I'm about to give up on this.

[nova frost]

Can you post some pictures?

Maybe we can spot an error.

[weary shell]

As it is currently

I would think that even if the TXEN and RXEN signals were messed up, Linux would still find the module via MOSI/MISO/SCK???

I did check VCC at the module and it's about 4.6v

I still think its software related. CE edition the same as Non-CE?

I flashed foxbuntu_v1.0.0.zip on an 8gb PNY SD card, and I've also made the image myself with WSL - All the same results.

Jul 19 15:40:53 femtofox systemd[1]: meshtasticd.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jul 19 15:40:53 femtofox systemd[1]: meshtasticd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'

Ignore the dates, it's the same code.

Jul 22 10:55:25 femtofox systemd[1]: meshtasticd.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jul 22 10:55:25 femtofox systemd[1]: meshtasticd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'

[nova frost]

Ok, first thing I noticed is that you've populated D1, D2 and D3 - these are an either/or part.

We're these made by JLC, or by your own fair hand?

I can't see the markings on R1 and R2, but are they 100k resistors?

[weary shell]

JLCPCB was more than OSH Park - The purple PCB folks, so these boards were made in Oregon, not by me 🙂

Yes, they are 100K

well.. They should be... I have to go to work, but I'll look into the resistors more when I get home tonight

010 means 1 ohm in my book....

😕 first time using LCSC instead of Digikey....

I think I have some 0603 100k resistors handy

Tomorrow

[nova frost]

Could be ok

I have never bought just 5...

[weary shell]

I've got a few stashed around, but 5 was the least number I could buy from LCSC - and I have more of the FET's too in case. but I dont think the TXEN and RXEN hinder communications via MOSI/MISO. I've done two other projects with the 900M30S modules and never had a problem.

[weary shell]

sucks having 61yo eyes.... I guess it could, and will be, worse 🙂

[nova frost]

If that's a serial adaptor attached to uart2, don't also plug in the usb to power as well.

[weary shell]

The serial adapter is plugged in providing 5v, the USBC has and OTG cable and a Wi-Fi adapter plugged in. I can unplug it but it doesn't seem to matter

@nova frost good eye on the solder blob, I'll clean that off when I get home

[restive scarab]

Hrmm, is that a v1.0 board? I don't see J1 near C4/under the RTC

yeah and no LDO header by D2/UART[2|4]... that def looks subtlely different than my v1.1

[nova frost]

That was just a fit of paranoia on my part, when I got a whiff of inadequate 3.3v power supply on the RPi.

[restive scarab]

better safe than (sorry i messed up the pcb and now you need to do it all over again)

[weary shell]

I just looked at my files and it is indeed a V1.0 board.

[weary shell]

There is no J1 and the RTC is hiding the caps

[restive scarab]

yeah, wasn't 100% on the differences but seems to just be the LDO/J1 so def try swapping out the resistors on the mosfets for 100k (which I used on 2 full femto builds and 2 hats I build as pihats w/E22-900M30S radios)

[weary shell]

@restive scarab I should be able to measure their resistance in circuit somewhat easily. If they are indeed 1 ohm resistors, the MOSFETs are likely dead too from over current.

[weary shell]

Measured 76K in circuit from RXEN to 3V3 and 98K from TXEN to GND - I'm confident they are 100K ohm resistors.

[nova frost]

Even if they were swapped, it would still boot

Do you have any working models?

[weary shell]

@nova frost no, this is my 1st. Do you have a proven image if I provide a Google Drive share? It boots, it just can't communicate with the 900m30s

[nova frost]

The image on the repo should work with it, if it can talk to it.

The first boot can be a bit hairy, especially on a slow/bad SD card

But once it's got setup (especially on a wired network) the image is happy even on the old firmware.

[restive scarab]

i've had occassional issues with SPI connection across a few of my luckfox devices (and not just w/E22) but it's gotten a lot better lately. I find it far quicker during diagnosis to switch to meshtasticd user / sudo meshtasticd removing systemd/journalctl. when it fails to find the radio process should* die on it's own *if not then ctrl-c, and then i'll try again, and if it works great, if not then i'll run sudo gpioinfo to be sure the pins are free/unused by portduino and usually it starts to work at that point or one more attempt/crash/retry

[weary shell]

This one ok??

I'll reflash it fresh

[weary shell]

I've actually played with Linux for years, but I'd still call myself a beginner, thanks for the pointers, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea where to start with the Linux side of troubleshooting.

[restive scarab]

hah yeah, despite using linux for decades it sitll has plenty of tricks to teach me (e.g. last week I learned of fold which perfectly solved a txt wrangling/mangling problem)

and I use a PNY 16GB card in a couple foxes, have treated me fine though the one w/Sandisk Extreme does feel a little bit snappier when doing anything that involves the SD card (which is just about everything)

[weary shell]

results of 'sudo meshtaticd'

Results of 'sudo gpioinfo'

[weary shell]

I do have a couple of Sandisk Extremes too

[restive scarab]

hrmmm, that gpioinfo output looks like it's from when meshtasticd isn't started/running, I see this with it running:

    line   0:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   1:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   2:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   3:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   4:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   5:      unnamed  "portduino"   input  active-high [used]
    line   6:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   7:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   8:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line   9:      unnamed  "portduino"  output  active-high [used]
    line  10:      unnamed  "portduino"  output  active-high [used]
    line  11:      unnamed  "portduino"   input  active-high [used]
    line  12:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line  13:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
    line  14:      unnamed  "portduino"  output  active-high [used]
    line  15:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high```

[weary shell]

It's definitely not running 🙂

[restive scarab]

another thing that might help is editing /etc/meshtasticd/config.yaml and changing LogLevel: info -> LogLevel: debug which will add a little more info to running process but something is definitely funky and has me scratching my head

[weary shell]

Let me go look

Just curious... I haven't used this MCU so the pinouts are foreign to me...

Ebyte E22-900M30S, E22-900M22S with or without external RF switching setup

HT-RA62 (Has internal switching, but whatever)

Seeed WIO SX1262 (already has TXEN-DIO2 link, but needs RXEN)

Will work with any module with or without RF switching, and with TCXO

Module: sx1262
gpiochip: 1 # subtract 32 from the gpio numbers
DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE: true
CS: 16 #pin6 / GPIO48 1C0
IRQ: 23 #pin17 / GPIO55 1C7
Busy: 22 #pin16 / GPIO54 1C6
Reset: 25 #pin13 / GPIO57 1D1
RXen: 24 #pin12 / GPIO56 1D0 # Not strictly needed for auto-switching, but wh>

TXen: bridge to DIO2 on E22 module

spidev: spidev0.0 #pins are (CS=16, CLK=17, MOSI=18, MISO=19)
spiSpeed: 2000000

It appears to my untrained eye that the CS/SCK/MOSI/MISO pins are wrong in /etc/meshtasticd/config.d/femtofox_SX1262_TCXO.yaml ???

[mild hare]

Going to be a few hours but when I get home I can double check the config.

[nova frost]

If you haven't changed them, they're correct

[weary shell]

I haven'tt

changed them

[nova frost]

Yep, so they're pretty random to work out... But e.g. IRQ on pin 17 of the board, is pin 23 to the MCU, which is pin 23 on gpio1, or pin 55 in total.

[weary shell]

I'm not familiar with this mcu. https://www.waveshare.com/img/devkit/Luckfox-Pico-Mini/Luckfox-Pico-Mini-details-inter.jpg

[nova frost]

https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Femtofox-Pinout

Ug

I see a mistake...

But it's a docs-only mistake

[weary shell]

I had to walk away for a sec... 🙂 The weather here in Washington State isn't always this nice.

[weary shell]

so GPIO1_C3 would be 32 + ((2X16)+3) = 51

but what does the 51 mean? Is that the internal pin number for the RV1103?

Look at that.... It does match https://github.com/femtofox/femtofox/wiki/Femtofox-Pinout

[nova frost]

Yes, so you take 32 from it, bang it in config.yaml and bingo bango... Nm.

[restive scarab]

yea your config is correct and matches my working CE board:

Lora:
## Ebyte E22-900M30S, E22-900M22S with or without external RF switching setup
## HT-RA62 (Has internal switching, but whatever)
## Seeed WIO SX1262 (already has TXEN-DIO2 link, but needs RXEN)
## Will work with any module with or without RF switching, and with TCXO
  Module: sx1262
  gpiochip: 1 # subtract 32 from the gpio numbers
  DIO2_AS_RF_SWITCH: true
  DIO3_TCXO_VOLTAGE: true
  CS: 16 #pin6 / GPIO48 1C0
  IRQ: 23  #pin17 / GPIO55 1C7
  Busy: 22 #pin16 / GPIO54 1C6
  Reset: 25 #pin13 / GPIO57 1D1
  RXen: 24 #pin12 / GPIO56 1D0 # Not strictly needed for auto-switching, but why complicate things?
#  TXen: bridge to DIO2 on E22 module
  spidev: spidev0.0 #pins are (CS=16, CLK=17, MOSI=18, MISO=19)
  spiSpeed: 2000000

the portduino pin #s don't match the board's physical pin # and GPIO # hence the mental gymnastics with -32 from the GPIO (because gpiochip 0-2 have 32 i/o lanes, and 4th only has 24) and it gets really hairy when you start having to work across different gpio chips

e.g. Babelfox config after you finish installing jumpers for the miswired PCB 🙄

[weary shell]

I'm really confused.... But thats OK, I've got a logic analyzer (Little cheap 8ch) and will hook it up tomorrow and do some listening. I'm guessing I'm too far into the weeds here, but it's fun to learn a different MCU.

[spring juniper]

I’ve killed two of these PNY Elites. I’d be suspicious!

[chrome tide]

Samsung or SanDisk for life!

[opaque abyss]

samsung extreme for if it matters, sandisk extreme for when it doesn't

[chrome tide]

I use Sansum Evo and Endurance and SanDisk Endurance SD cards..

The evos are budget cards, the endurance are $$$$

But you can find them on sale sometimes.. I picked up 2 SanDisk Endurance Pro for 19 USD..

[weary shell]

Lets put the microSD card issue to bed in my case - its not the card. Cheap card, PNY, and now a Sandisk Ultra have all produced the exact same results.

I've got half a dozen Rpi's running in the house all of the time and I've had one SD card fail in the last 10 years using a combination of Sandisk and PNY.

[opaque abyss]

My home pis run on anything. Took one to a meetup and the hot car killed the sd card mid transit (it wasnt even running)

I get the super duper extreme endurance cards meant for gopros and dashcams if an sd card is going anywhere outside now

Which I should swap out on my own fox actually

[weary shell]

Here is the results of the logic analyzer after running sudo meshtasticd - CS Goes low, we see a clock pulse, and the MOSI (Master Out) transmits something (On the right) and the SX1262 answers back on MISO (Master In). With my rudimentary knowledge of SPI, I dont see a problem here.

I'm going to have to think about this 🙂

[nova frost]

What are the other pins doing?

Does Nrst go low at the right time.

[weary shell]

I can probably check that tomorrow 🙂 I'm headed off to work

[chrome tide]

@nova frost Do you think the femtofox will work on a Nebra ? Only the first 24 pins of the CM3 are mapped to the pin header that it could sit on.

[nova frost]

Possibly, I've not checked the pinouts. If they match the match...

Femtofox is also a hat

[chrome tide]

Yea, I know. But like MeshAdv won't work on it, cuz chris is using pins higher than 24..

[nova frost]

Well, it matches both the waveshare and the meshadv pi hat, so it will suffer the same problem.

[chrome tide]

So it won't work then. :\

Gonna have to spend another 120+ for radios for my 2 new Nebras..

[nova frost]

Well, or just use jump wires?

[noble sequoia]

I'm running like 16 of them in various devices. 🤷‍♂️ YMMV apparently

[chrome tide]

They aren't good for rPi, or devices that have their power just removed w/o a clean shutdown.

[noble sequoia]

I'm talking about mostly rpis.

But uhhhh.... I also don't just yank power because I'm not an animal? sudo shutdown takes seconds

[mild hare]

sudo halt on these. Also I yank power like I'm starting a chainsaw.

https://a.co/d/g5lgqNM

[chrome tide]

I have 2x 32GB. First time buying them.. I'm more of a Samsung evo/endurance guy..

So far I've had to reflash it 3 times..

[mild hare]

I am on same card I started with in November.

[chrome tide]

To be fair, it's on the board that has power issues..

Wondering if I can replace the voltage regulator and that fix the issue..

[mild hare]

I used to flash before every commit. And until outdoor enclosure I just used the power from the serial adapter. Until the pro came out, then just the usb-c on the femto board.

[mild hare]

Dont do it, Imma swap ya. Prolly tonight.

[chrome tide]

Yea, I'm waiting. 🙂 It was just a thought I had..

[noble sequoia]

Clearly, you can afford to replace parts and storage. I am a little more budget constrained 🙃 I treat my hardware nice and it lives a long life for me.

[chrome tide]

That has nothing to do with it really.. It's durability.. I've accidentally killed power to my rPis, cuz they were being powered by the 3D Printer they run. So to prevent that, I purchased UPS Hats for the ones that were powered by the printer they ran.. But it's still good to know that the SD won't be corrupt from forgetfulness..

[noble sequoia]

But the card itself is just storage media. As long as it's a decent controller (which the PNYs do have), the card isn't the problem there.

[chrome tide]

The PNYs I've tested, did not last more than a month for me..

But to each their own..

[noble sequoia]

And mine are going on 6+ years

But I also purchased them in bulk packaging direct from PNY? Not sure how much PNY suffers from the counterfeit market, I know SanDisk does MASSIVELY

[mild hare]

Really I just forgot a bunch of times during development and then it became habit after I realized it wouldnt die.

[noble sequoia]

Hey, that's a slick card holder. Link?

[mild hare]

man, I didnt pay this for it though, pre-tariff.

I just found this on AliExpress:
$32.65 | Micro sd card IP67 extension cable Micro SD TF Card Flex Extender FPC Waterproof Cable For Cabinet Chassis Case Frame
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mLHjzTh

[noble sequoia]

Surprised that FPC doesn't cause timing issues.

[mild hare]

It's been rock solid.

[chrome tide]

What's the timeline for an updated Foxbuntu image ?

[mild hare]

Pretty soon, just apt update, meshtasticd and a couple tiny things.

[chrome tide]

No updates to the OS ?

Or scripts ?

[noble sequoia]

🤔 could foxbuntu theoretically run on any other hardware?

[mild hare]

Nope. And our script person is out for a bit.

[chrome tide]

I can update the script for the part that I'm refering to..

I'll submit a PR for that, if needed.

[mild hare]

The scripts are worth copying to other OSes for sure. The SDK luckfox provides is dated.

[mild hare]

I can take a look when I do it.

My hands are so full. 🐦‍⬛

[noble sequoia]

I'll take a look later. Would be cool to build a Foxbuntu Zero variant for Pi 👀

[chrome tide]

I know, that's why I'm offering to submit a PR. Who and merge it ?

[mild hare]

It would. 🕵️

ok, gotta finish one more pcb jig. Almost got speeds and feeds dialed on this "desktop" cnc.

[noble sequoia]

On that topic, I need to re image my home base Zero2W node. Something makes meshtasticd lock up after around 26 hours running. No faults in the logs, just like it was halted at the system level. 🤷‍♂️

[noble sequoia]

Genmitsu 3030?

[mild hare]

4030v2 but with 1300 x 1300 extension and spoilboard, makita, air and other stuff. Still learning it.

[noble sequoia]

Shoooo, fancy. I have a bone stock 3030. I've only used it for plastics so far

[mild hare]

3030 is nothing to sneeze at. With some work you can do wonders.

[noble sequoia]

What I really need to find, for my most profitable side business, is a chonky mini lathe. Like a good ol' 70s bench top

[mild hare]

I dont have a use for one so it's on my "retirement hobby" list

[noble sequoia]

I build flashlights, and custom hosts (the main body) is the only thing I'm currently lacking

[noble sequoia]

🥳 the store is back 🥳

[mild hare]

I forgot to click it yesterday.

[noble sequoia]

What's the actual build size for the Foxbuntu image?

I see it in the release as a 1000MB archive, so around a gig currently?

[mild hare]

About 4gb pretty sure.

pico can only handle 128gb card max

[fast adder]

I strongly advise getting SD cards from adorama or B&H. Sandisk high endurance from Amazon are likely fake. I got burned too many times.

[noble sequoia]

That seems bloaty for basically only running meshtasticd. Not being offensive, just curious about the size

[mild hare]

it's not just meshtasticd

it's ubuntu. But there is buildroot sdk at luckfox for the pico but that aint us.

[mild hare]

know what I'm saying? if you wanted just meshtasticd, then buildroot.

[noble sequoia]

I've made slim (like 100mb) Ubuntu distros before. What else is being included?

[mild hare]

The kitchen sink. And all the drivers.

Was never meant to be "just a node". It's a playground.

I had fun!

[fast adder]

The last sandisk sd card i will ever buy on Amazon had this on the back

[mild hare]

I guess I got very lucky

[fast adder]

One of the three failed almost immediately, I just binned the others.

[noble sequoia]

Copy, I didn't realize it was intended as a full fledged build on such minimal hardware. I wonder if a "lite" variant wouldn't find use for many people

Should also be more performant

[nova frost]

Aside from our friend further up struggling to get it to work, I'm not sure what additional performance is required.

The base requirements were running meshtasticd and full-fat python for scripting & bots

[noble sequoia]

It can always be faster 😎

[nova frost]

Red edition wen?

[noble sequoia]

Why do people put turbos in Smart ForTwos?

🤣

[chrome tide]

Yea, I had one of those before the HEs I bought.. I blame @nova frost and @mild hare for them.. LOL

[mild hare]

🐦‍⬛

[noble sequoia]

Just read the chroot, I get it now. 👍

pdxlocations control has been superseded by contact

[mild hare]

Hey I tuned a honda once...

[noble sequoia]

From what I see, this would improve UX and should only be a matter of changing package name

[mild hare]

I'd have to eyeball the scripts too

[spring juniper]

OK so... embarassing but feels necessary to share a fun debugging experience

ive been chasing why my roof node femto keeps shutting off for like 2 months

swapped many things, MPPT controllers, batteries, boosts, diodes all kinds of things

same story, everything fine in homelab, go on roof, all good, setup, all good, come back down, wait between 15min - 24hr and poof it goes offline
wait a few days because of annoyance, go up on roof retrieve, blah blah all checks outs
rinse and repeat

fast forward to yesterday, messing with a new build in lab accidentally reverse polarity on my workbench Solar input to mppt

node goes out ... realization hits me

a) I only go on roof when its not a million degrees
b) my panel leads are apparently reversed
c) my 15m-24h outage delay was the amount of time between when I'm on the roof vs when the sun strong enough to charge

[mild hare]

Thanks for sharing!

[spring juniper]

tldr use that multimeter

[nova frost]

Ok, and if you were buying a node with an inbuilt solar charger, would you want reverse polarity protection, or a full-bridge rectifier?

[nova frost]

(only slightly joking)

[spring juniper]

RPP definitely, but a rectifier would be awesome too

[nova frost]

Heh, you're not going to like it. It'll cost half a volt, minimum, and that's going to be 1W at 2A charge current. If you've got a 9V panel that's another 5% loss, but if you've got a 5v panel that's 10%.

[fervent pier]

Gotta take that FemtoFox on vacation!

[nova frost]

PR wen?

[fervent pier]

ha there's nothing to PR here - it's simply a little set of scripts I have to manage things easier

[noble sequoia]

You're thinking with 1940s tech. MOSFET rectifiers are the future 😅

"zero IQ rectifier" seems to be the standard term used now, if you're curious

[nova frost]

oh, I'm well aware - was looking for a 15c part to do the job, tho

[noble sequoia]

$6 part is fiiiiine

[nova frost]

My board already has 4x 60c mosfets

and yet strangely has very poor RPP

voltage sense lines don't appreciate negative voltage...

might be time to revisit e-fuses

[forest current]

I exist 😂

[mild hare]

Hey dude! lol. Grab a shovel!

[floral marten]

Is Foxbuntu 1.0.0 Beta the latest?

Putting my LuckFox back on my Femto Hat and back to the full package.

[quasi onyx]

yup

[nova frost]

Yes, it needs updating after first boot.

Sorry 😦

@forest current you fancy adding an option to the sfc menu to allow switching from alpha to beta repo?

[forest current]

The sfc menu is the curses thing nagu built right? I can take a look, but is the repo for meshtasticd or for something else?

[nova frost]

It's in the Foxbuntu repo

Oh, the source for updates?

[forest current]

When you say switch from alpha to beta repo

yeah is that for meshtasticd or something else, alpha repo of what

[nova frost]

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:meshtastic/alpha
sudo apt update

I know what you're thinking: can't we just type that every time?

[forest current]

nah just wanted to make sure I knew which repo we were talking about

Now to find out what sfc is an alias to...

[nova frost]

But for the menu, it needs:

1. A check for the current source
2. the option to swap to the other one
3. the option to roll back

[forest current]

as there doesnt appear to be an sfc script in the repo

assuming femto-config

[nova frost]

Sudo femtoconfig

I got tired of typing it

It's aliased in the shell

By default

You could also add the backup and restore scripts?

They'd need tuning for new Meshtastic, tho

[forest current]

ah yeah who was it that nailed down the process for that

[nova frost]

I don't recall

[forest current]

ali3n? or pdxlocations guy

[nova frost]

Oh

Hang on

[forest current]

@fast adder or @lavish sorrel

one of yall did this I think