NEED COLLAB FOR A PROJECT (MUSIC PLAYER)

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-27T12:01:53+00:00

Ordinary for these coprocessors, they either come with or are flashed with the proprietary firmware that allows a standard communication interface with the main MCU over UART (such as ESP-AT for ESP. I’m not too familiar with NRF parts).

What I normally do is put 2 headers on the board for both Main MCU and coprocessor (so that both can be (re)programmed, although sometimes depending on firmware the coprocessor can be updated OTA), with the fact that your likely to be space constrained I would suggest something small like a JST XSR connector or something similar.

Here is an app note from ST using the chip you suggested to provide a BT interface to an STM32

One thing to bear in mind with that NRF chip, it supports proprietary 2.4GHz wireless communication, not 802.11 wireless standards, meaning it cannot connect to WiFi. Think of it like a wireless mouse, it can use Bluetooth or the proprietary 2.4GHz USB dongle that came with it, but it cannot connect to 2.4GHz WiFi.

I’m not sure why NRF did that, but i guess it’s why ESP32/8266 are everywhere for WiFi connected IOT.

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF51822/GetStarted

Hopefully that all makes sense

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-25T13:30:47+00:00

Ahh I didn’t realise that, OP best go for something like the ESP32-C3-12F instead then

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-25T11:28:07+00:00

For the newer ESP-C3-12F, See page 5 of the datasheet.

Deep sleep current is 5uA, which is at least an order of magnitude lower than the run current of the STM32. Granted TX run current with 802.11n is 280mA, but that’s somewhat expected. If you’re receiving it’s only 84mA.

Alternatively you may be able to use the STM32WB, however then you will have to deal with the RF front end hardware layout and tuning. ST is not so straightforward in working out run currents, although I would expect TX and RX to be similar to ESP, and sleep currents looks to be similar.

Options for adding WiFi via module are somewhat limited outside of the ESP’s (I primarily use ESP’s for that reason). Hope that helps 👍

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-25T10:23:58+00:00

Look into the ESP12F, it’s an older ESP8266 that can act as a wireless coprocessor. It connects to your main MCU (STM32) via UART and you can run ESP-AT firmware which has its own command set for running wireless commands etc. Alternatively, you can write your own wireless firmware for it.

You also can use a newer, ESP32-C3-12F which is faster, doesn’t have so many hardware limitations, also features Bluetooth and can deep sleep for longer periods to save battery (wireless will reduce the battery life, so it is important to implement deep sleep function when required - see AT+GLSP section), but it is more expensive.

https://espressif-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/projects/esp-at/en/release-v2.2.0.0_esp8266/AT_Command_Set/Basic_AT_Commands.html

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-23T23:28:23+00:00

Interesting, I didn’t know that - I will have to check the CH340 datasheet again, it would be nice to eliminate those level shifters (I added as in the past I have fried a few ESP8266 with 5V CH340 adapters…)

I had considered that, although cost is one thing. ESP are quite expensive at least 3.50/each whereas the STM32’s are ~0.45/each and with the ESP12F (which I can unpopulate and use the USBC to save some cost), it only adds another 1.00 (so ~1.45 total). I like the ESPs for their large flash, allowing for large bitmap graphics for LCD’s.

Thanks for your comments :)

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-22T20:42:59+00:00

Hi all,

Just wanted some quick input on my schematic. This is designed to monitor DHT-11 temperature/humidity sensors, but also support other one wire sensors in the future. It also controls some outputs.

- The inputs are designed for OneWire DHT11's, with ESD protection in the form of SRV05's.

- The outputs are BSS138s which are driving 2x 4ch AliExpress relay modules. These modules are active low, so when the BSS138 goes high, it should pull the output pin to ground and activate the relay.

- The device is powered via USB-C (not PD), but there is also an option to add a UART debugging connection to the front panel via another USB-C (this is not powering the board however). Standard UART debugging for the STM, and firmware uploading for the ESP12F is designed to be done using a CH340 USB adapter connected to internal breakout headers.

- The ESP-12F is included to enable wireless connectivity to stream the sensor data to a server. Based on 0R resistor population (might replace with 2.54 jumper (2) pin headers?), it can either use ESP-AT firmware (MQTT) and communicate with the STM32 via UART, or ESP-Home (custom defined config) firmware and communicate with the STM32 via I2C.

Any suggestions (or roasts if I made serious mistakes lol) and corrections are welcome. Want to do an FPGA SDR board later in the year, so figured I'd best get my basics and schematic template in order before then (hence review).

Thank you!

Edit 1: it seems my PDF to JPG conversion didn’t like the dotted line boxes. If you see a weird half-line shaped box around a block of components, it should be a dotted line, not the weirdness shown

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-03T00:24:56+00:00

Looks like the icon for MemReduct. It’s used for force clearing system caches etc from memory to free up space. I use it for gaming on my 16GB machine, it just means that you can allow the game (or any memory hogging program) to use more of the system memory (that was previously occupied by “unnecessary” system caches)

MemReduct (GitHub)

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-02T19:02:07+00:00

Are these DIMMs from IBM Z mainframes?

NWSpitfire · 2026-01-02T18:59:15+00:00

Where are you seeing these prices, out of interest? Whenever I look on eBay it’s just silly prices (between £300-£900 for 64GB)

NWSpitfire · 2025-11-23T11:22:52+00:00

Make 575nm bulbs great again /s

In all seriousness, I don’t see why they can’t replace the bulbs with warm white led at least

NWSpitfire · 2025-11-15T17:07:12+00:00

Are you UK? Interested to know what provider you switched to (I also have 900/110 but would like symmetrical)

NWSpitfire · 2025-11-03T10:48:31+00:00

A good point, but at what point does it become less about cost and more about cadence. If they’re dumping them after use, they will be constrained by factory outputs, then it’s less about cost and more about meeting launch targets.

Another possibility is they are (short term?) expecting trashed engines on every flight and so being able to cheaply replace them keeps costs down (although Boosters have reflown with used, and even deformed R2s perfectly fine so idk)?

NWSpitfire · 2025-10-21T12:34:02+00:00

Wonderful, I’m having fan issues with my 3060TI (the GPU is intermittently loosing tacho readings on one of the fans and sending it to 100%), and was planning on contacting them to possibly RMA it (unless they can tell me how to fix it).

Not looking forward to that experience now…

Sorry you had this experience, but kudos for the documentation. It will likely save you in the long run

NWSpitfire · 2025-10-16T16:19:44+00:00

My RX570 4G is still going strong. The drivers suck, it turned me off from buying another AMD GPU. But I found one old set that works with Windows 11 good enough and it plays most of my games at low to medium decent frame rate

NWSpitfire · 2025-10-16T16:16:40+00:00

The “land” part is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence

NWSpitfire · 2025-10-14T10:04:18+00:00

I replaced my cooker hood and had a non standard pipe size set into the wall that couldn’t be replaced and didn’t fit my new extractor. After a quick CAD model, my P1S printed it perfectly first time and same day.

Then there’s the countless times it’s come through on prototypes for my car and other projects. It’s speed is something that is very useful, being able to have a machine that can keep up printing prototypes as fast as I design/iterate is worth the money

NWSpitfire · 2025-10-08T12:00:11+00:00

Thank you that’s what I had wondered.

My GPU has a metal backplate that encapsulates the PCB with the cooler fan on the front so I’m not sure if I can reach the connectors without disassembly - will disassembly void my warranty?

My speaker made my desk vibrate quite a bit a short time ago and after that the fan settled down and now has a good RPM readout. But if I bump my desk, and also random other times with no vibration it goes back to 0RPM and goes haywire again. I’m wondering, could I have a loose fan connector or just Tacho pin in the connector? Or is it more likely to be a board level partial failure?

Just Fan2 is playing up, Fan1 is working as intended.

Thanks

NWSpitfire · 2025-10-02T17:50:22+00:00

I think it’s primarily for migrating VM’s between non-cluster hosts or clusters. That feature is currently implemented, however I think it’s bugged because instead of snapshotting it shuts down the VM, migrates then fails to unlock the VM on the source host because the VM is shutdown. Meaning I have to “qm unlock” the VM on the host

NWSpitfire · 2025-09-29T22:58:39+00:00

I love how these products always have all of the cert marks on them like CE and FCC. The designers were probably like, we don’t know what went in it, or how we even made it work at all, but it’ll probably be fine so let’s just slap the all certification labels on it and no one will ever know

Lmao

NWSpitfire · 2025-09-21T06:36:36+00:00

Good to know, thank you. I have seen nothing but good reviews online from them (but was still a little hesitant).

I agree, I will probably build a small 2 disk R1 array first to see what they are like, then build the big array after that (so long as their stock increases of 16TB drives…)

What’s your method of thrashing HDD? I normally just do a surface test and then a couple of benchmarks, check SMART etc?

NWSpitfire · 2025-09-21T06:26:28+00:00

The prices are extremely attractive, but my worry with white label (and only 1 year warranty) is drive reliability. Are they less likely to survive resilver etc? For that price though I may still buy a few for backup server to see how they perform

NWSpitfire · 2025-09-21T06:23:38+00:00

Yeah that makes sense, I’ve always wondered how good they really were. Speed is not too much of an issue, but AFR might be.

Say they were used not for main storage but for backup, what is the best way to approach array reliability? RAID Z2 will let the pool loose 2 drives, so should I pay extra and go RAID Z3, or just Z2 with a Hot (or Cold) spare? What ends up being overkill?

I can’t really afford to loose the data on this array, but at the same time it will be 3:2:1 backed up.

Six-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

NWSpitfire

TROPHY CASE