Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 145 posts

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#41

Post by sokoloff »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #13
simcop2387 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, But I think device as-is can likely be sold and marketed perfectly fine. Test-kit and dev-kit stuff is regulated a bit differently under the assumption that it's not going to be in mass use, and also that it's likely going to be used to develop another product that will get the fcc certification. https://emcfastpass.com/fcc-rules-kits-subassemblies/

The link you provided appears to say the opposite about kits: "Based on the definition above, it looks clear that non-authorized kits that are intended to form a complete product when fully constructed are technically not legally permitted to be sold in the US. That is because if you are marketing and selling a kit to an end user, which the user will then build into a full product, there is no reason to suspect that…

I don’t believe that dev board is a complete kit by the meaning of that rule.

Certainly there is ample precedent for other dev boards (intentional and unintentional radiators) being sold without certification.

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#43

Post by tripletao »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #9
makerboardzz wrote: post #5

Cool - it looks like a well-designed board, although the timing is a bit unfortunate with the ESP32-S2 emerging as an ESP8266 replacement with USB. A few questions: * Should the relay have some sort of isolation, like an optocoupler? * Is it FCC-certified? * Like other people asked, any information on how the antenna was designed? I like the old-school dome LEDs. And it's cool to see another project with a CH340 USB/…

Regarding your first point, the relay has 2,000V of coil-to-contact isolation: https://omronfs.omron.com/en_US/ecb/products/pdf/en-g5le.pdf Though it does look like the clearance/creepage distances on the PCB to the low-voltage ground plane are not any wider than 2mm or so, which is acceptable for 120VAC, but not acceptable for 240VAC per IPC9592. I wouldn't worry about sticking this in an enclosure and using it to t…

A digital device is defined as:

> (k) Digital device. (Previously defined as a computing device). An unintentional radiator (device or system) that generates and uses timing signals or pulses at a rate in excess of 9,000 pulses (cycles) per second and uses digital techniques; ...

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2009-title47-vol1/pd...

This has Wi-Fi, so it's an intentional radiator, so it's not a digital device. I believe this product would be technically noncompliant if not certified, though lots of stuff like this gets sold and I've never heard of any enforcement action.

Their best counterargument would be that it's a component and not a self-contained product. That seems true for many dev boards but not particularly true for this one. Since the practical risk of interference is extremely low, I'd guess the FCC is happy to leave this grey for now.

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#44

Post by jsharf »

mrspeaker wrote: post #17

I have an interest in electronics and would call myself a "maker" (well, I have a growing box filled with various arduinos and microcontrollers)... but after scouring the repo and the website, I can't figure out what this is, or what I could do with it! What is an "ESP8266 board"? Is that something that is so common it doesn't need explaining? Of course I will google it [and probably buy one], but just pointing out t…

Esp8266 is a microcontroller which is incredibly popular in the maker/hacker movement for it's low cost and wifi integration. You can add a relay to this microcontroller and put it on your wifi network and use it to switch appliances on/off from the internet quite easily. If you read hackaday, you'll run into esp8266 projects regularly.

It's a bit harder to get started with than your average arduino project. If you want, you can use the Arduino IDE which hides a lot of the complexities. But the docs from espressif are aimed more at the firmware engineer crowd, so if you want to get serious there's more of a learning curve (IE nvflash partitions, understanding what a bootloader is, etc). Also, you'll probably end up getting into freertos at some point, which further complicates things. But it's a super great module for home projects.

The esp-32 is a newer chip which is similar but adds bluetooth. In general you're better off going with esp-32 nowadays -- it's got a second core as well.

Until recently the only thing missing was USB (though there were bit-banged USB implementations!). But now there's an esp-32 with USB too, so really for the cost, the features are unparalleled.

If you're okay with things not being as polished as the Arduino experience (you might have to learn "real" firmware programming), it's really the best starting choice for your side projects.

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#45

Post by iancmceachern »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #36
pdabbadabba wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Is it FCC-certified? It would certainly appear to lack the FCC ID label/marking it is required to have if it is FCC certified. So probably not. Thus, it also appears doubtful whether it can legally be marketed or sold in the U.S.

This is the exact reason why I didn't see through my plan to build and sell the EspUSB (a very small ESP board that fits inside a USB-A port). I got 3 units built for myself by PCBWay at a cost of $77. I got quotes of ~$500 for 100 units from Elecrow and Makerfabs, but didn't know what to do with the other 90. Although I really want this great little gadget to be easily available, I can't afford $10,000 for FCC certi…

I wonder how the folks that sell on Tindie get around this... https://www.tindie.com/

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#46

Post by iancmceachern »

sokoloff wrote: post #41
pdabbadabba wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link you provided appears to say the opposite about kits: "Based on the definition above, it looks clear that non-authorized kits that are intended to form a complete product when fully constructed are technically not legally permitted to be sold in the US. That is because if you are marketing and selling a kit to an end user, which the user will then build into a full product, there is no reason to suspect that…

I don’t believe that dev board is a complete kit by the meaning of that rule. Certainly there is ample precedent for other dev boards (intentional and unintentional radiators) being sold without certification.

Like everything on this site:

https://www.tindie.com

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#47

Post by ajford »

mrspeaker wrote: post #17

I have an interest in electronics and would call myself a "maker" (well, I have a growing box filled with various arduinos and microcontrollers)... but after scouring the repo and the website, I can't figure out what this is, or what I could do with it! What is an "ESP8266 board"? Is that something that is so common it doesn't need explaining? Of course I will google it [and probably buy one], but just pointing out t…

The second result on Google for "ESP8266" is the Wikipedia page, which clearly elaborates what it is.

It's a basic 32bit RISC microcontroller, generally running at 80MHz, with built-in WiFi support. They're often available as modules with either a pin header or castelated edges for surface mounting.

They are supported on the Arduino platform and Platformio.org, as well as some other platforms. They've become quite popular due to their low cost (often available for under $10 at individual quantities) and the fact that they include wifi.

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#48

Post by snarfy »

mianos wrote: post #25

Who has used RS232 voltage for serial in the last 10 years? I'd rather a few MOSFETs to cut the power to everything for lower power. I guess there is a specific market for this and it is not me. I have at least 20 of Esp8266 and esp32 boards around the house. A bit of fun to design and produce though. I would not bother with the ESP8266 anymore considering the marginal cost of the esp32 and it is a much better device…

Yeah, I'm regretting getting the esp8266 not knowing of the esp32. Besides being a better device for basically the same price, it has better tooling from espressif.

Re: We made an open source ESP8266 dev board for makers

#49

Post by tesseract »

iancmceachern wrote: post #45
peterburkimsher wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact reason why I didn't see through my plan to build and sell the EspUSB (a very small ESP board that fits inside a USB-A port). I got 3 units built for myself by PCBWay at a cost of $77. I got quotes of ~$500 for 100 units from Elecrow and Makerfabs, but didn't know what to do with the other 90. Although I really want this great little gadget to be easily available, I can't afford $10,000 for FCC certi…

I wonder how the folks that sell on Tindie get around this... https://www.tindie.com/

There are various exemptions for subassemblies and other non-end-user products. Those may not always apply. However, in practice, a product that's sold in small quantities and does not in fact emit egregious electromagnetic interference is unlikely to attract enforcement attention. So a fair bit of skirting of the rules does go on.
Post reply on HN