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sparkfunX / Artemis_Global_Tracker

A global satellite tracker utilising the SparkFun Artemis module, Iridium 9603N satellite transceiver and u-blox ZOE-M8Q GNSS
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additional pins on "v1.2" #41

Closed jerabaul29 closed 2 years ago

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

Hi @PaulZC ,

Sorry for "insisting" a bit on this, but we have a real pain problem with getting enough pins available for putting some weather measurement sensors, wind anemometers, etc, on some of our designs. We could of course add an Artemis Nano over I2C to have more pins, but this is more costs, yet a board to put in our design, more programming to do etc.

I was wondering: any hope that you could set up a "v1.2" rather than a v2, that would just be the present v1, but with more pins broken out? Looking at my board, I wonder if there would be any more space for breaking pins (for example, 1 more under the VBus pins, a bunch of them in place of where the "SparkX" mention is the the top side of the board, a couple "North East" from the GPS chip, a bunch at the "North" of the board close to the supercaps. Getting between 5 to 10 extra pins would make a huge difference for us :) .

PaulZC commented 2 years ago

Hi JR, Request noted! Thank you for asking nicely. My colleague has managed to squeeze in 8 extra pins around the NW corner (4 West, 4 North), plus one more below VBUS. The design is still being reviewed, we will share the new pin numbers and positions as soon as we can. Have a great weekend, Paul

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

Yippiii, this is excellent news, many thanks for taking our feedback into account :) . 9 extra pins sounds amazing (you know how users are, "the more the better" :) ).

@jvoermans FYI, this should solve the issues you had, right? :) .

Hope the testing is successful and the next production runs has the extra pins :) . Many thanks again, will be eager to hear about how this goes further and when the boards with extra pins hit the market :) .

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

A last point I was thinking about: which pins did you decide to route? Can you provide at least one or two of the "power switch pins" (maybe one high side and one low side?) mentioned in the datasheet "Absolute Maximum Rating"? That would be very convenient to be able to switch on / off some "intermediate" loads, and cut the need for extra switches / transistors / breakouts such as the qwiic switch.

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

(for reference: https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/d/e/8/b/4/Apollo3_Blue_MCU_Data_Sheet_v0_12_1_rZ9Akgo.pdf#G24.7640541 ).

lewispg228 commented 2 years ago

Hi @jerabaul29 , I have been working on the revision to this design. Thanks for all your input on this!

It was pretty tight, but I was able to nudge some stuff and breakout at least one low-side power switch pin (D37) right below VBUS. The other 8 GPIO broken out in the NW corner are the following: AD32, D43, D42, AD31, AD29, AD11, D15, AD12.

Thanks again for your feedback! Pete

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

Many thanks, that sounds excellent, it will make a huge improvement for us :) .

Then looking forward to these boards on the SF online shop :) . Feel free to close this issue, all sounds good to me :) .

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

PS: I am ordering a bunch of AGTs together with a colleague, and we got to hear that there are AGTs in production or soon to be. Will these be v1.2 (would be amazing :) ), or v1.1?

lewispg228 commented 2 years ago

Hi @jerabaul29 , The current AGT boards are being built in SparkX, and so they are the version, "X01". (this is what I believe you are referring to as "v1.1".

The newer version, that will include the changes discussed here, will be "v10". And they will be red colored PCBs. You can always check the bottom copper for the version number.

Sorry if our versioning system may seem confusing :) Everything from SparkX starts with an "X", and then if/when the product transitions to a SparkFun product (Red PCBs), then the versions start with a "v", and it usually starts with "v10" as it is the first version built by SparkFun.

We have "v10" red PCBs on order, and we are cranking on all the other stuff involved (test jigs/documentation/arduino-libraries/ERP-work/purchasing-parts). Sorry I can't give you a firm date, but I assure you it will be going live ASAP :)

Again, thanks for all your feedback - and ORDERS!

Cheers, Pete

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

That sounds amazing :) No worries at all, this is very clear, makes a lot of sense, and we are looking forward to it :) .

A small tips: really hope that you produce a large chunk of these. As you maybe know, we already have 8 in backorders. We (together with some colleagues, both at my institution and some other institutions, so you will not see my name on the order though :) ) also got 2 "small fundings" in addition, one for around 15kUSD, one for around 20kUSD, and we will use these all for building AGT-based sea ice drifters - so you can do the math, about half the funding goes to buying AGTs, the other half goes to the components around, batteries, etc :) . We hope for some larger fundings for next year.

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

PS: I will build a "master PCB" to host the AGTv10, and make it easy to add the components I use, such as the 9dof I use (this one, if you start producing a clone would be amazing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4569 so that I do not need to order for plenty of different suppliers), pololu step up step down converter 3.3V (same, annoying to order from different sources, having something like https://www.pololu.com/product/2122 it would be amazing), Qwiic Switch, and some extra stuff. If you are able to release a CAD file (ideally KiCAD, that's what we like best :) ) for the AGTv10 so that I can use it as a "shield fingerprint" even if it is before it gets available on the webshop, would be amazing, because then I can order my "master PCBs" asap so that I can start testing as soon as the AGTv10s get available :) .

lewispg228 commented 2 years ago

Hey @jerabaul29 , Perhaps this would be a suitable SparkFun option for your 3.3V buck/boost:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15208

I know it's a little bit larger, but it is pretty comparable in terms of specs.

Also, maybe one of our 9DOF offerings would work for you. Is there a specific spec/range/rate that you really need from the ISM330DHCX + LIS3MDL combo?

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15335 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13284 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13944

Hope this helps, Cheers, Pete

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

Hi @lewispg228 ,

Many thanks for your message :) .

A few thoughts:

If you start producing / selling this kind of breakouts some day that would be awesome :) .

lewispg228 commented 2 years ago

Hey @jerabaul29 , Thanks for this info! We will definitely look more into the ISM330DHCX + LIS3MDL combo.

I did a little more digging about the buck/boost, and (although I'm not 100% sure yet, without testing) it looks like our board can actually do 2V-16V on the input. We used the TPS63070, and the datasheet clearly states 2-16V. I'm not sure why our documentation shows only 3-16V. It may have been to "play it safe", but I will look into this more next week and do some testing. What kind of current do you usually pull for your system?

Also, for reference, the Pololu board is using a similar model of the IC; it uses the TPS63060, which in it's datasheet, shows 2.5-12V. So that makes sense why they might advertise 2.7V to 11.8V.

https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tps63070.pdf https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tps63060.pdf

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

Ok, many thanks for the infos :) . Let me know how the tests go :) .

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

PS: max 0.75 Amp, likely 0.5 Amp.

jerabaul29 commented 2 years ago

Many thanks for the addition of the extra pins on the new, "red" AGT :) . Closing.