Itsyitsy M4 I2C Not Working for Project that works on Feathe

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RocketScientist
 
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Re: Itsyitsy M4 I2C Not Working for Project that works on Fe

Post by RocketScientist »

Just an FYI update.

The ItsyBitsy M4 is still out of stock but I found I had a third one. I added headers. Ran the basic "blink" program. It worked. Wired to breadboard with Adafruit MCP9808 breakout and test program. It worked. Got bold. Wired into my PC board with third party combo CS811+BME280 I2C sensors and my "huge" payload sketch (that all works on Feather M0).

It worked. Will now proceed to check out other sensor combinations.

So. I had three ItsyBitsy M4's. I added headers to all. One does not power up. I added an Adafruit backpack to one. That one powers up but I2C does not seem to work. The third seems to work fine.

Unclear what issue is but proceeding ahead.

For my poor colleague Bob - as an amateur rocketry expert, I assure you the ItsyBitsy M4 is a lovely platform. The Cortex M4 is a big boost in processing power, at the same time saving power - both critical issues in avionics. The addition of floating point in the M4 architecture alone is a big issue over the M0 for my application.

As I look to put up my next satellite in orbit, it is a strong candidate.

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adafruit_support_carter
 
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Re: Itsyitsy M4 I2C Not Working for Project that works on Fe

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

As I look to put up my next satellite in orbit, it is a strong candidate.
Nice! FYI, here's someone else working on putting M4's in space:
https://twitter.com/maholli404/status/1 ... 6180660224
https://github.com/RoboticExplorationLab/sprite

If you have details on your satellite project, please let us know. We'd love to here about it.

Same for this current project.

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RocketScientist
 
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Re: Itsyitsy M4 I2C Not Working for Project that works on Fe

Post by RocketScientist »

Cool. In LEO, we've learned that commercial electronics can do quite well, particularly for short missions. One thing that would help with the M4, would be configuring the ECC memory. I suspect that also means a special ordering option on the chip to enable the SRAM ECC. But much can be done with software techniques to add reliability to recover from soft, very occasional radiation events in LEO.

Here is a bit about the Feather M0 version of the STEM version ... https://www.dropbox.com/s/mta9nq12mtf8i ... w.pdf?dl=0

That version flew in sounding rockets over last few years.

Sadly ... the LEO sat with a LoRa radio is more proprietary and not really documented for the public. But ... we got 5 LoRa packets at 900 MHz from LEO despite iffy antenna problems on the sat before the orbit decayed.

The M4 is now incrementally running more sensors with our code base as we bring it up. Just had it running with CS811, BME280, LSM9DS1, TSL2591, and MLX90640 I2C sensors in a data collection loop. My fav sensor is a small, cheap gamma ray detector which can be tuned to be a gamma ray spectrometer for low energy gamma rays under 1 MeV with a bit of hacking. Of course, you have to get on my sounding rocket (or a HAB) to get above most of the atmosphere to really see stellar gamma rays. But then half the fun is getting there.

The sensor configuration varies for in atmosphere sounding rocket (or HAB) missions or LEO missions. Just as the packaging changes. For anything but space, a 3D printed PLA or ABS material works fine, but space requires a special space qualified 3D printed material. It is designed to fly science missions to answer questions about flight dynamics, Earth's atmosphere (air pollution - the Adafruit dust sensor fits as a lovely backpack), Earth's ground (multispectral imaging is possible), and space - that gamma ray sensor - as well as the mag sensors are naturals for LEO.

I've added a pic of a 3D printed prototype of the package and PCBs for the ItsyBitsy M4 version (though an M0 should work as well for a smaller data set of sensors).
Itsy I2C 1p - 1.jpg
Itsy I2C 1p - 1.jpg (13.67 KiB) Viewed 248 times
This is the standard 1p PocketQube format. 50mm on each side, a 50% linear reduction in the 100mm CubeSat 1U standard. It takes 3 42mm square PC boards for processing, storage, sensors and power. It can be flown on earth in amateur rockets from G motors to O, in high altitude balloons, or with some modifications for power, sensor configuration and packaging from LEO. You can buy a ride for a PocketQube to LEO from Alba Orbital.

As a guy that likes to use the best of I can find, I really like the ItsyBitsy (as soon as I get past these initial bring up failures) but I also like the QWIIC I2C cabling system that SparkFun has pioneered. Just very nice for added sensors. I'm using it as a standard for interboard connections.

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jkachmar
 
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Re: Itsyitsy M4 I2C Not Working for Project that works on Fe

Post by jkachmar »

RocketScientist wrote:That version flew in sounding rockets over last few years.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any more info on the sounding rocket missions this stuff flew on?

I used to work on the Sounding Rocket program at Wallops Island, and I've been really interested in LoRa, so it's kind of a neat to hear about the two of these things together :)

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