Could I use Espruino to build a prototype?

[FernandoNaz]

Hello! Firstly, I must say, you folks are amazing! This is an incredible technology you developed, and the best part, is that is an open library! Really, you guys are amazing. My friends and I are little hackers when come to new technology of this type and we wanted to build an inexpensive prototype for fun. We were thinking in buying an Espruino Board with and RGB-123 LED Matrix to prototype. You probably know what an Espruino Board is, but just in case, I will put the site (http://www.espruino.com/EspruinoBoard) and the specifications here:

• Less than half the size of a business card ( 54mm x 41mm )
• STM32F103RCT6 32-bit 72MHz ARM Cortex M3 CPU
• 256KB of Flash memory, 48KB of RAM
• Micro USB connector
• Input Voltage Range of 3.6v to 15v
• Battery connector (JST PHR-2 2 Pin)
• Built-in SD card connector
• Red, Green and Blue LEDs
• Pads to allow HC-05 Bluetooth modules to be added
• 0.1" Pin spacing
• 44 GPIO Pins, capable of: 26 PWM Pins, 16 ADC Pins, 3 USARTs, 2 SPI, 2 I2C and 2 DACs
• Prototype area which can be used in many different configurations, for example: Servo Headers, Up to - - 14x 500mA outputs, 2x .NET Gadgeteer connectors, or NRF24L01+ wireless transceiver modules
• Rev 1v4: CE and RoHS certification We were thinking about the Espruino because it uses a STM32F103RCT6 microcontroller - if I am not mistaken, it is the same kind you use - and it supports JavaScript, besides being relative low-cost and small. What you think about using the Espruino for this application? Do you have any recommendations? Does the application have any different specification if using the Espruino?

Thank you for all your time and knowledge, You are truly incredible, Fernando Nazário and Friends

P.S: sorry if I made any english mistakes. I am from Brazil and probably there will be few (euphemism) errors here.

[ryburke]

Hi @FernandoNaz - thank you for the kind words! We love that you're excited about AnyPixel.js.

To answer your question... You'll have to add an Ethernet (or WiFi) interface to accept packets from the Chrome app. Once you can read and write packets on your micro controller it is just a matter of controlling your LEDs (or other display mechanism) and reading your buttons. The packet structure you need to work with is outlined in the protocol document of the firmware folder.

We used a similar set of micro controllers. The Espruino has an STM32F103 and we used an STM32F030 on the display board (5 of them actually!) to handle the LED control and button monitoring. You'll need to write your own code to handle the display and buttons since the hardware is different.

Our controller board is based on the STM32F407 as it handles the network layers and TCP/IP packets from the app. For the data link layer we used a KSZ8863MLL which is an ethernet transceiver from Microchip with an integrated PHY (some hardware options for the Espruino are listed here: http://www.espruino.com/Internet, and some of these handle the network layer for you too!). Again you'll need to write the code to interface these parts since the hardware is all different.

In addition to all of this you'll need a machine running the server and Chrome app too, you can't do this on an Espruino.

There's definitely some work involved in doing all of that, but it sounds like a fun project and the Espruino looks like a prototype platform that you could use to do it. Let us know how it goes!