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EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

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Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#41

Post by jvanderbot »

moffkalast wrote: post #14
gregwebs wrote: post #5

> While it was easy to get a (RPI) solution up and running in a short time, over time we got a lot of problems resulting from using the Pi. A key problem of the Pi's design is, to rely on an SD-card. > after some months the SD-card broke and the application crashed. High-end industrial SD-card lasted longer, but finally still broke. > So we made the decision, to build a replacement, which is focused on high-reliabili…

They decided to design this whole thing instead of just going with a read only SD partition or one of the CM4 docks with eMMC? Don't get me wrong, the end result is really cool and if just an ESP can cover their entire use case then the Pi was definitely overkill, but it just seems like inventing a flying car because you once got a flat tire.

For most, I'm sure the WiFi integration was the main driver for rpi, which was just plain easier to use than Arduino+wifi thanks to python on-device.

That's probably why the esp series caught on so quick: way cheaper than rpi, Arduino+wifi, way smaller than both, and still had int wifi.

They saw this, and the RPI2040 has all of the above. Python, low power, low cost, integrated WiFi.

The smaller BOM should also make this less likely to sell out permanently.

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#42

Post by moffkalast »

geerlingguy wrote: post #35
moffkalast wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it's not something you'd really want to use in production though.

It's both many times faster than booting from microSD, and unless you buy the absolute cheapest SSD from a no-name manufacture, many times more reliable. Additionally, if you have a good power supply and don't write tons of data on a daily basis to the microSD card, it will be quite reliable as long as it's a name-brand, high quality card. Source: I've deployed about 50 RPis in various conditions, all but two booting…

It's not so much about the SSD, but the USB cable being quite easy to unplug accidentally, though I suppose if you used something like one of those short Samsung Fit drives or a NVMe dock and had a custom enclosure that holds it in place after the Pi is screwed in, then maybe yeah.

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#43

Post by pjmlp »

taneq wrote: post #40
pjmlp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it, because the ESP32 is more powerful than this little one, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512 Many folks don't have a real perception of how powerful these little computers happen to be. Although not the same, everything from around MS-DOS 3.3 - 5.0 time that could fit onto 512KB would be a possible application, plus the extra cores and connectivity options.

The ESP32 is stronk. I wasted a bunch of time implementing fixed point maths and lookup table trig functions because “of course” before testing it and finding that for our purposes just calling sin/cos wasn’t an issue. Edit: If you’re doing ‘real’ real-time stuff then make sure you get a dual core model and use core 2 for time sensitive things, though. The wifi stack uses up some solid chunks of time.

To be fair, back in the day most likely you have had to use fixed point math. :)

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#44

Post by epx »

kkielhofner wrote: post #23

I love seeing more ESP32 based projects and hardware. It’s a remarkably capable platform with a robust ecosystem that for a “microcontroller” somewhat resembles that of the Raspberry Pi. I have an irrational frustration when I see people doing simple GPIO, etc with a Raspberry Pi 4 (when you used to be able to get them). I mean come on people, it has four cores, gigabytes of RAM, and can drive two 4k displays(at 30Hz…

Wish there was an ESP64 with just enough RAM to run a Debian distro, even slowly, so we could stop waiting for Zeros to get cheaper.

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#45

Post by jccooper »

pmontra wrote: post #26

> writing permanent its log files and swap partition If this is the problem, the solutions are no swap and log2ram https://github.com/azlux/log2ram I also noticed that Armbian logs to a ramdisk. I didn't investigate the implementation and if its contents survive a reboot. The only real problems for me are that the SD card will eventually fail no matter what (I mean, much sooner than a SDD or HDD) and that there are b…

They also have a built-in ramdisk overlay, which basically solves the problem (so long as you don't need persistence!)

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#46

Post by sebazzz »

nevi-me wrote: post #27

How does one get PCBs with all the components wired in? I've been prototyping for a while, and it would be great for me to learn how to start putting stuff in cases instead of having wires dangling around. I was looking at PBCWay just yesterday, and the process is unclear. If I say that I need some parts, do I have to source them, or can PCBWay/alternative do so for me? EDIT: what software does one use to draw PCBs f…

I’m also curious how people come from the level “I know C, C++, Arduino, I understand what capacitors, resistors, transitors and diodes do” to the level of “I can integrate a 3.3V Arduino Nano with 5V or more circruitry with logic level shifters, I know when to use certain capacitor types, understand when inrush current conditions can happen, etc”. And I mean just for hobby. Not interested in anything pro.

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#47

Post by taneq »

pjmlp wrote: post #43
taneq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ESP32 is stronk. I wasted a bunch of time implementing fixed point maths and lookup table trig functions because “of course” before testing it and finding that for our purposes just calling sin/cos wasn’t an issue. Edit: If you’re doing ‘real’ real-time stuff then make sure you get a dual core model and use core 2 for time sensitive things, though. The wifi stack uses up some solid chunks of time.

To be fair, back in the day most likely you have had to use fixed point math. :)

Yep, I think the last proper embedded project I worked on before this one was on an i386EX running at 40MHz, trying to eke 40KHz sample rate processing the output of a line scan CCD. I, a brash 22yo, declared it impossible to process ~250 pixels in 10 clock cycles (there was DMA and cool dual-port RAM stuff going on). My boss at the time explained the obvious way to approach it and I tried again, I think I got to 36KHz or something after pulling out all the stops. Fun times.

The idea that you could just use trig functions and get away with it on a micro is still kinda foreign. :P

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#48

Post by squarefoot »

epx wrote: post #44
kkielhofner wrote: post #23

I love seeing more ESP32 based projects and hardware. It’s a remarkably capable platform with a robust ecosystem that for a “microcontroller” somewhat resembles that of the Raspberry Pi. I have an irrational frustration when I see people doing simple GPIO, etc with a Raspberry Pi 4 (when you used to be able to get them). I mean come on people, it has four cores, gigabytes of RAM, and can drive two 4k displays(at 30Hz…

Wish there was an ESP64 with just enough RAM to run a Debian distro, even slowly, so we could stop waiting for Zeros to get cheaper.

You can run Armbian and DietPI (both Debian derivatives) on most small boards; some like the NanoPI NEO are in the same price ballpark as the Pi Zero, but are in stock.

https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product...

https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported

https://dietpi.com/#download

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#49

Post by jnovek »

sebazzz wrote: post #46
nevi-me wrote: post #27

How does one get PCBs with all the components wired in? I've been prototyping for a while, and it would be great for me to learn how to start putting stuff in cases instead of having wires dangling around. I was looking at PBCWay just yesterday, and the process is unclear. If I say that I need some parts, do I have to source them, or can PCBWay/alternative do so for me? EDIT: what software does one use to draw PCBs f…

I’m also curious how people come from the level “I know C, C++, Arduino, I understand what capacitors, resistors, transitors and diodes do” to the level of “I can integrate a 3.3V Arduino Nano with 5V or more circruitry with logic level shifters, I know when to use certain capacitor types, understand when inrush current conditions can happen, etc”. And I mean just for hobby. Not interested in anything pro.

I’m also a hobbyist and I think it’s just slow and incremental.

This year I decided to expand my electronics hobby into synth stuff. I was by no means prepared for this, but after a year of studying various synth module circuits I’m starting recognize certain patterns when I look at a schematic.

Perhaps the hardest part of this process was learning enough to start asking good questions. Everything has gotten so much easier in the last 2 or 3 months because I’ve finally built enough confidence, knowledge and intuition to ask my EE friends why something was designed a certain way. I’ve also learned that they are often equally puzzled. :-)

I think it helps if you have a project you’re working towards.

Re: EsPiFF: An ESP32 in the Raspberry Pi form factor

#50

Post by sneak »

pmontra wrote: post #26

> writing permanent its log files and swap partition If this is the problem, the solutions are no swap and log2ram https://github.com/azlux/log2ram I also noticed that Armbian logs to a ramdisk. I didn't investigate the implementation and if its contents survive a reboot. The only real problems for me are that the SD card will eventually fail no matter what (I mean, much sooner than a SDD or HDD) and that there are b…

This seems like a bug in the SSD firmware? I should be able to write zillions of times to the same logical sector, they don't map 1:1 to physical blocks on the flash.

I've also run tons of RPis off of SSD root and never had this problem. I hear about it constantly though, so maybe it's urban legend?

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