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ESP32-S31

espressif.com

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Re: ESP32-S31

#141

Post by all2 »

taude wrote: post #138
randomint64 wrote: post #3

Espressif is on fire! And the CPU even has SIMD instructions! RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems because now compiling for SoCs is only a matter of `rustup target add riscv32imac-unknown-none-elf` instead of downloading half-broken proprietary toolchains and SDKs. Take a look at https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-wit... and https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest to get started with…

I need the equivalent of Claude Code, but for hardware projects, so I can actually do all the projects I envision with the EPS32s. Something that combines: 3d printing; auto procurement of parts; custom software writing; maybe a robot arms or something, all in a nice box on my desk that I feed parts into like a mail slot. PROFIT.

Tbh, we're pretty close to that. This would essentially be the following set of work cells:

- PCB etching/engraving

- Solder placement

- component placement

- solder oven

This gets you one layer populated PCBs out the other side. Commercial systems like this exist in various forms, and open source projects for all of these also exist. It would be up to you to integrate them together.

As it stands, the frontier models are actually pretty ok at firmware dev at a high level. If you need max performance, they won't be any good at all (learning from the dregs of the internet isn't exactly helpful here). You'll also need to bring at least a willingness to learn about what is involved so you can debug the machine's mistakes.

Re: ESP32-S31

#142

Post by ssl-3 »

wolvoleo wrote: post #82
frikk wrote: post #11

I've been building hobby LED art projects with WLED (exclusively built on the ESP32 platform). It's been a blast. These little boards are so powerful and the open source community continues to amaze me. My preferred controller platform is of the QuinLED line - comes with power distribution, voltage regulators, fat copper lines, configurable data-line resistors, and smart auxiliary hardware support all for an affordab…

I do a lot of LED projects too but I just use ws2812s. What do you need the controller for? Large brightness perhaps? Just curious.

There's lots of ways to drive LEDs.

WS2812 with any ESP32 board is one way, and that's a perfectly fine way; individual addressable LEDs sure are neat as hell. Amazing stuff can be done with them. And as you already know, a Chinese ESP32 dev kit costing $2 is enough to do ~all the things with this on the controller side. :)

But there's other ways, too. At perhaps its simplest: Maybe RGB isn't your bag, and you just want groups (which could be strips or any other shape) of all one color that are smoothly-controllable with WLED.

This is electrically simpler: While individual WS2812 pixels each work as a little computer-brain repeater for a serial bus, a group of dumb LEDs can be as simple as just being a group of dumb LEDs. And that's easy; perhaps as easy as one PWM channel.

Or maybe it's more complex: Maybe the goal is something like a par can that shines RGBAW all in one direction. Now we need 5 PWM channels.

Anyway, the power electronics for doing PWM with dumb LEDs can be built or they can be bought, but they need to exist and to live somewhere.

QuinnLED sells devices with power electronics in packages ranging from bare boards, to complete units with metal housings that have power and real ethernet on one side of the box and LED outputs on the other side.

Since skillsets and willingness to go full-DIY vary, they present pretty nice range of options.

One box I just looked at, the QuinLED An-Penta-Plus: It's a box that has 5 channels of PWM, does up to 10A per channel, or up to 30A combined per box -- at up to 48VDC.

That's [up to] 30*48=1440 Watts of LED, which is getting in the realm of the silly. But environment/projects come in all sizes, people do silly things with LEDs sometimes, and that's all perfectly OK. WLED projects don't have to be small. :)

Re: ESP32-S31

#143

Post by thenthenthen »

alexisread wrote: post #133
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am concerned by all chips and software made by giant corporations. None of them are trustable, and any one of them will sell me out for a buck. We must constantly fight to have open source and audited chips and software made in commodity fashion.

You might be interested in the Baochip https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/our-campai... Probably the most open chip on the market, and sits between a pi and a pico

Funnily enough named after ‘dabao’ or takeaout in Chinese

Re: ESP32-S31

#144

Post by nancyminusone »

peteforde wrote: post #119
alnwlsn wrote: post #53

I kind of wish these all weren't called ESP32. ESP8266 and ESP8285 -> ESP32 made sense, but now we have 10+ different versions with different features and different architectures. Kind of like how in every thread involving a Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2030/RP2350), there's always someone confusing it with the single board computer version. The ESP32 (Classic, usually WROOM-32E) is still usually what comes to mind when I he…

You're fundamentally misunderstanding how MCU families work, I'm afraid. There's not 10+ versions with different features. The word version strongly implies that there's an incremental progression over time, and they keep screwing up by adding and taking away modules. What jerks! What's actually happening is that you have 4-5 different product lines that all share the same SDK, design philosophy, pricing structure, s…

Thats an easy mistake to make when you reuse the series name of your first chip and decide it's gonna be the family name now.

Re: ESP32-S31

#145

Post by utopcell »

redfast00 wrote: post #137

From the datasheet, I see that there is a Bitscrambler peripheral that seems to be very similar in flexibility to the Raspberry Pi Pico's PIO: > Since bitwise operations can be relatively CPU-intensive and DMA is designed specifically to offload such work from the CPU, ESP32-S31 integrates two dedicated peripherals called BitScramblers. These modules are designed to transform data formats during transfers between mem…

neat!

Re: ESP32-S31

#147

Post by peteforde »

nancyminusone wrote: post #144
peteforde wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're fundamentally misunderstanding how MCU families work, I'm afraid. There's not 10+ versions with different features. The word version strongly implies that there's an incremental progression over time, and they keep screwing up by adding and taking away modules. What jerks! What's actually happening is that you have 4-5 different product lines that all share the same SDK, design philosophy, pricing structure, s…

Thats an easy mistake to make when you reuse the series name of your first chip and decide it's gonna be the family name now.

That's simply not what happened, at all.

You're seeing either incompetence or conspiracy when the opposite is true.

Re: ESP32-S31

#148

Post by nine_k »

amelius wrote: post #132
randomint64 wrote: post #3

Espressif is on fire! And the CPU even has SIMD instructions! RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems because now compiling for SoCs is only a matter of `rustup target add riscv32imac-unknown-none-elf` instead of downloading half-broken proprietary toolchains and SDKs. Take a look at https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-wit... and https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest to get started with…

Yeah but the moment you need IP blocks like for wifi or ethernet or usb, it's back to square one.

I suppose ESP32-based modules usually carry networking and USB hardware which is immediately usable, without esoteric IP licenses, don't they?

Re: ESP32-S31

#149

Post by alnwlsn »

peteforde wrote: post #119
alnwlsn wrote: post #53

I kind of wish these all weren't called ESP32. ESP8266 and ESP8285 -> ESP32 made sense, but now we have 10+ different versions with different features and different architectures. Kind of like how in every thread involving a Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2030/RP2350), there's always someone confusing it with the single board computer version. The ESP32 (Classic, usually WROOM-32E) is still usually what comes to mind when I he…

You're fundamentally misunderstanding how MCU families work, I'm afraid. There's not 10+ versions with different features. The word version strongly implies that there's an incremental progression over time, and they keep screwing up by adding and taking away modules. What jerks! What's actually happening is that you have 4-5 different product lines that all share the same SDK, design philosophy, pricing structure, s…

Lots of assumptions off a comment that is mostly just me stating my preference for short and unique part numbers. Nothing would be wrong with ESP32xx ESP33xx, ESP34xx, etc.

Espressif only have 312 SKUs [0]. You're telling me nobody could come up with a naming scheme where more than 2/3 of them don't have part numbers longer than 18 characters?

Doesn't really matter either way, but short part numbers do fit nicely in a BOM table without using really wide columns. (even though I usually find capacitors to have even longer names).

0 - https://products.espressif.com/#/product-selector

Re: ESP32-S31

#150

Post by mianos »

topspin wrote: post #121
PowerElectronix wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closed loop experiences a phase margin loss that is exponential with the frequency. At lower frecuencies it is negligible, but if you get close to the frequency of the delay the phase margin reduction becomes dramatic and the control goes from stable to unstable very fast. If the sensor has a limited bandwidth, you add the conversion delay and then the computation delay on top of that you end up with a max workab…

You see this in low cost products like MKS SERVO42x, where they're doing FoC with a GD32 MCU. It works; the motor runs cool, smooth and quiet, but the system is limited to 3000 RPM, and struggles with rapid acceleration because the control loop is too slow.

I have tried one. It has no torque. For what looks like an awesome product, it does not have the power to drive a peristaltic pump. I used the same motor on a TMC stepper controller and it's completely silent and works. It's open loop, so comparing apples to oranges but I am not sure what the MKS servo driver on a motor could actually do, aside from spin unloaded.
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