Less than $3 WiFi chip

Some chips require different voltage levels that are above 3V3, so I guess it was added to the socket specification to include that family of devices.

Wow! I swear I have replied to your question yesterday. Now I don’t see it. Weird.

Something that community can start using for IoT projects right away.
I was hoping that whoever will take this challenge will bring out as much as possible from the board.
Being able to update firmware programmatically is a plus, but not a must.

In this specific case, this device is drawing 1/4 amp, which is I guess a mid/high-range for Gadgeteer type devices (more than simple sensors and less than, say a Cell modem).

Would there be any benefit to regulating the 5v down?

5V line in most cases is under used. That might help. Will increase BOM and size of the module as you are aware already.

Thanks; that’s what I was wondering about.

Thanks again for sharing the OSHPark. Will you be sharing Eagle files so that one can make a stencil?

As much as I try to solder 0603 (guessing that’s what R1 is) and smaller parts, I just can’t see to be able to get it right. I’ve never tried a Gadgeteer socket by hand, other than the part that you shared a while back with the longer pads.

@ mhectorgato - For me, at least, the key to hand soldering small SMD parts is a good magnifier, and a good iron tip.

That said, the boards I have coming (hopefully later this week or early next) have a lot more components than my IR LED Array board, so I ordered stencils and solder paste, and I’m planning to try my hand at reflow, though I haven’t decided the technique I’m going to use yet.

@ devhammer - Reflow is the way to go. I use the T962A oven. Works great for small runs.

I only have gerber files. Let me know if you need these.

For that board I would use a toothpick method. There is only two SMD components. One of them is a socket (can be soldered conventionally )

For me, reflow is the way to go! I went with lead free paste, only because I’m not the most careful and it seems safer in my mind. So temps need to be a bit higher, and some parts can melt if select one that can’t handle the higher temp (not that that has happened to me :whistle: )

Justin recommended a t962 - I got it on ebay (not this seller, just an example).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T962-REFLOW-OVEN-W-WINDOWED-DRAWER-ACCURATE-TEMPERATURE-PREHEAT-MODE-GREAT-/260799459468

Perhaps for a superhuman this is simple, for this mere mortal, not so much :wink:

I use OSHStencils and they support both Eagle and Gerber files.

Thanks

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@ mhectorgato - I will use OSH Stencils for my next boards. Never used them before. I know the guy was on the forum awhile back. Time to try.

@ Architect - OSH Stencils are great! i ordered 2 stencils last Friday and they shipped on Sunday!

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FWIW, which probably isn’t much, I’ve been happy with the service and product from them.

I did a bunch of research on this over the holidays, but haven’t yet pulled the trigger. This

The T962 isn’t very reliable by itself. However, there’s an upgrade kit you can get from here:
http://www.estechnical.co.uk/reflow-controllers/reflow-oven-controller-t962a-complete-upgrade-package

which supposedly makes it much more reliable and easier to control. They also sell the complete unit with upgrade, but you pay a premium for it being fully assembled.

The forums there are also a wealth of experience, mostly around ā€œdon’t get unit Xā€ type stuff. :slight_smile:

Pete

Woah! Never heard of them. What a great find!

That might put me over the edge into doing reflow instead of hand-soldering some of these boards.

Thanks for the reference.

Pete

@ Pete Brown - Ignore the reviews and just use as is - they work really well.

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This has gone way off topic…but if anyone is in the Nashville area and wants to build their own reflow oven for about $100 I’m organizing a group buy/build. If you want to build remotely, I might can sell kits w/ the PCB also as a way to help get our volume up. You’d have to order your own oven. I should have a sign-up/pay page up sometime this weekend.

https://plus.google.com/118179179065879787276/posts/ZAkSpJCjmEn

Do not reply to this thread about this. Please do that on the G+ link above so not to take this thread even further off topic.

ok for those of who are working on the driver, I have an update for you…

after breaking my head against the wall :wall: for the passed week about why every time I stress the module the whole thing goes haywire I finally realized it’s not always .NETMF faults, for some reason I thought it must be something with my coding, C# or NETMF is slow handling the serial com, but it turns out the damn AT Firmware was buggy go figure… but I guess not a lot of people are actually stress testing this thing and that is the reason why I couldn’t find more info about my issue until today :slight_smile:

Long story short get the following patch before you waste your time debugging…

the Patch: read the readme on how to flash it.
http://bbs.espressif.com/download/file.php?id=213
the topic about the bug:
http://bbs.espressif.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=163#p632

note: even with the above patch installed I got a module reboot after 600 requests at 10ms each… so it seems something is still not 100%. more on this later, as I think it has something to do with debug.print().

but at 100ms apart the module seems to serve a whole lot more pages over a 1000 so far…

Edit: over 2500 pages Served so far at 100ms between each request :slight_smile:
Edit: over 4200 pages Served so far at 100ms between each request :slight_smile:
Edit: over 6000 pages Served so far at 100ms between each request :slight_smile:
Edit: over 10000 pages Served so far at 10ms between each request :slight_smile:

I will stop the test here and call the web server feature solid…
I will post my code after the clean up.

Cheers,
Jay.

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@ ALL - Did any get the message the ESP can not leave the flash mode ?

After flashing according to readme the ESP does not react anymore no response from it at all :wall:

I get that all the time :slight_smile: no big deal…

if the ESP is not reacting that means you flashed the firmware at the wrong address pay attention to those 0x01000 and 0x3E000 and so on…

also if you flashed the latest ESPRESSIF firmware change your Terminal baud rate to 115200.

take a look at this snapshot:

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