Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

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amigomaxwell
 
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Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by amigomaxwell »

Hi,
I have some suggestion with regarding to documentation with regards to Feather M0 LoRa

1. Rx-Tx Lora example issue
I've ran into an issue that I expect some other people to get caught in as well. Basically that both boards need to be connected to Arduino IDE to work. This is mentioned here but I would expect this to be in a BIG red highlighted box ...

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-fea ... m-9x-radio

Image

2. Documentation regarding LoRa 433MHz module

Can't find the schematics on the exact product number of the board:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3179

The pdf shown below refers to the US version (points to product/3178). I take schematic is the same?

https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-F ... Pinout.pdf



Thanks

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westfw
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by westfw »

boards need to be connected to Arduino IDE to work.
that's not accurate. They should work fine if you don't try to use the "Serial" port that is implemented over the USB connection (that isn't connected.)

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sj_remington
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by sj_remington »

I would expect this to be in a BIG red highlighted box
The warning is perfectly clear and understandable as it stands. Take the time to read the documentation carefully, and save yourself a lot of frustration.

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amigomaxwell
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by amigomaxwell »

Wow, definitely not expecting somebody taking feedback about documentation so personal ...

I took the time to give you feedback about the documentation for what I think are pretty valid points. You have big orange and red boxes everywhere.

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westfw
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by westfw »

(Note that neither I nor sj_remington are Adafruit employees.)

The "stalls at `while (!Serial) ;`" behavior is common to all boards with "native USB" implementations of "Serial" - I wish it were a little smarter, but USB is complex, and that's the way that it was implemented by Arduino on the first USB-capable boards, and everything else has maintained "compatibility."

It would rate a more obvious warning if in fact the board didn't run at all when not connected. But as we clarified, that isn't the case.

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amigomaxwell
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by amigomaxwell »

> The "stalls at `while (!Serial) ;`" behavior is common to all boards with "native USB" implementations of "Serial"

It is the first time I use an Adafruit board, so I was not aware of this.

> It would rate a more obvious warning if in fact the board didn't run at all when not connected. But as we clarified, that isn't the case.

Precisely because each board runs and seems to work (when connected individually), this was difficult to debug, as I assumed the program was running fine. I was not expecting that a connection to the serial console was needed in order for the radio to work with each other

In any case, I don't understand why you guys insist on not having an orange/red box like there are already many others in the documentation, when it is free and it can help someone. Actually, seeing that the documentation is filled with (more obvious BTW) warning boxes, one assumes that will be the case if there was some other critical thing to be taken into account, so I took the license to skim over the code instead of reading it

Anyway, I'll leave it here. Thanks for the reply

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sj_remington
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by sj_remington »

so I took the license to skim over the code instead of reading it
My point, exactly. You simply can't afford to do that with technical documentation.

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westfw
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by westfw »

It is the first time I use an Adafruit board, so I was not aware of this.
it's more a behavior of the Arduino code than any particular board(s). AFAIK, ALL boards with native USB and running Arduino sketches behave like this. (and none of them highlight the behavior in their documentation.)

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adafruit_support_carter
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

For the pinout question - the PID 3178 diagram should work for the PID 3179 Feather. The only differences is the radio module frequency. The 3178 and 3179 Feathers are otherwise identical.

The while(!Serial) thing is a generic Arduino-ism that is a common source of confusion and issues. Leaving it out can cause some serial output to be missed. But including it leads to the "code won't run disconnected" issue.

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sj_remington
 
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Re: Update documentation on Feather M0 LoRa

Post by sj_remington »

Leaving it out can cause some serial output to be missed.
My solution for roving devices is to replace the "while (!Serial)" with "delay(1000)", which is usually enough to prevent loss of output, in those cases when the device IS connected to the serial monitor or a terminal program.

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