ESP32-C3 Based Super Mini Mega Tester

[@AnotherMaker]

I'm definitely ordering this. I want to help contribute to this project. I freaking love it.

[@dalewheat]

Nice project! Thanks for sharing.

[@johntoe6127]

For complex project like this, I leverage ESP32's wifi/internet capability to create an IOT controlled device. I used to put screens and encoders/menus on my projects, but now, I just create Web Pages for control, and output. Then, I use the ESP's WiFi AP functionality to service the web page. You just connect your phone to the device's WiFi, and then go to a web page. The benefits are great. You have less hardware to break. You can create a web 'control panel' for your project to change options. If you need to add a button, it's easy on a web page, hard on a physical panel. You also have much more flexibility to display your output using the superb screen on your phone. Plus, the web pages work on anybody's phone (add pswd if needed). When displaying data, you can use AJAX coding to do real time updating of the web page, showing your data as it's actively changing.

[@GadgetReboot]

I might try to see if I can use it with one of those ESP 32 based display boards like this one github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

Nice little project, did you consider putting some form of protection on the i/o? i was thinking of diodes to the rails but 160 diodes will take a bit of soldering, or 80 sot23's. I need larger displays now days, the way my eyesight is going i'll be looking for 27" spi driven LCD's soon🙂

[@GadgetReboot]

normally I like to put some sort of protection for offboard I/O even if it’s just a series resistor but I think I would only be able to do that if I went totally surface mount because the board is already at the maximum size for the flat rate pricing so I don’t think I could fit anything else. I wish the oled on this board was bigger but I figured as a last resort I could just use the fact that there are headers and I could just hook up an external display or use some wireless link to talk to another display.

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

@@GadgetReboot i bought some small displays which I've never found a use for. I'd need to stick them to my nose to be able to read them.

[@GadgetReboot]

I keep forgetting to put that other color display I bought to use. it has an ESP module driving it. I wonder if I can put a wireless link to that display because I forget the size but it’s several inches diagonal

[@DustinWatts]

Nice upgrade! About USB-C you can test the CC pins in the cable right? Why did you decide not to do that?

[@GadgetReboot]

I was literally out of time and I would have had to run different scenarios like considering which way the cable got plugged in on both sides, the pin and routing would change and some of them would be Open circuit even though there is no fault, so I could brute force four different test patterns and just say as long as one of them works then it is good but I was adding that test function right at the last second before I wanted to film and go straight into editing so I took the lazy way out

[@kriswotipka104]

Why not just run some sort of shift register and poll the pins one at a time? Way less i2c to deal with. Probably do it on 3 or 4 gpio pins

[@GadgetReboot]

I2C is only two pins so changing that around would take more GPIO and depending on the shift register used it could end up needing more board space to get that many I/O, it could be more expensive, and way slower depending on the strategy of changing and reading the pins and if the whole thing has to be clocked just to see what’s happening on the far end of the chain. with I2C we just send out the one command to directly access a pin or we could even access an entire eight or 16 bits at a time on the one chip if we wanted to save some time and the other thing that would be lost is the flexibility for example this board could be used just as a general 80 pin configurable input or output board capable of sinking or sourcing current but a shift register set up would greatly restrict its functionality.