Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

RP2040 based microcontroller boards running MicroPython.
Target audience: MicroPython users with an RP2040 boards.
This does not include conventional Linux-based Raspberry Pi boards.
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Roberthh
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Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

Post by Roberthh » Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:58 am

Hi folks,
Yesterday a piece of the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect arrived at my place. Nicely made. Unfortunately the do not use the GPIO numbers for the board. So either one has to deal with lookup tables (e.g. a Python dictionary), or the code for machine.pin has ot be extended to allow symbolic names for GPIO ports, like "D0" or "A1".

Since it has WiFi and Bluetooth support, I hope that someone will add that to the firmware sometimes. Is there anyone doing that already?

kevinkk525
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Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:02 pm

Re: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

Post by kevinkk525 » Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:47 pm

oh this looks interesting.

It would be great if this opportunity could be used to create a more generic way of connecting boards to a wireless interface so that in the future we could easily adapt it to connect different kind of boards to different kind of WLAN-modules or easily create a WLAN-module using an esp8266 and a uart connection.
I imagine having a "blueprint" network and socket implementation that only "lacks" the communication code for the specific WLAN-module.
Or maybe the differences are too big to generalize it into one "blueprint"? (or mabye there is something like that in C that I just didn't see..)
Kevin Köck
Micropython Smarthome Firmware (with Home-Assistant integration): https://github.com/kevinkk525/pysmartnode

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mattyt
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Re: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

Post by mattyt » Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:07 am

I've mentioned this in other threads...but we might be able to leverage the work Adafruit have undertaken with their 'airlift' concept. They can route Bluetooth or Wifi over SPI or UART to an ESP32 running the 'NINA' firmware.

I don't know a lot about the details but if you start with the Adafruit_CircuitPython_Airlift repo it seems relatively straightforward.

Would be better to use this system rather creating something similar. ;)

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Roberthh
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Re: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

Post by Roberthh » Wed Jun 09, 2021 6:24 am

Thanks. That is a good hint. I will be busy for a while with extending the MIMXRT port features, so I was hoping that someone else will pick up the baton.

kevinkk525
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Re: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

Post by kevinkk525 » Wed Jun 09, 2021 6:58 am

I tried Nina before starting a similar project but I just couldn't get it working on micropython (although that wasn't a micropython fault). I could connect to a network but creating any socket always failed.. So I got tired of experimenting and debugging and started my own thing (but it didn't get very far yet, mainly uart communication and sockets are working in a very basic unbuffered way as a POC).
Kevin Köck
Micropython Smarthome Firmware (with Home-Assistant integration): https://github.com/kevinkk525/pysmartnode

jahr
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Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2021 1:20 pm

Re: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect

Post by jahr » Wed Jun 09, 2021 7:07 am

Roberthh wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:58 am
Hi folks,
Yesterday a piece of the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect arrived at my place. Nicely made. Unfortunately the do not use the GPIO numbers for the board. So either one has to deal with lookup tables (e.g. a Python dictionary), or the code for machine.pin has ot be extended to allow symbolic names for GPIO ports, like "D0" or "A1".
Hello, the board definition of the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect is already present in Pico SDK version 1.2.0. When the link to Pico SDK in the MP repository will be upgraded, it will be easy to create a new board definition there too ;-)

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