1. Personally I always prefer ESP32 for my embedded prototype development.

2. That's because, it has inbuilt Wifi, BLE and classic Bluetooth along with multiple I2C peripheral with many more features. It is far better than arduino for prototyping purposes. It has high clock, higher pin count. I like this module not only as an evaluation board perspective but also in the easiness of designing PCB's with this SoC. I say it is one of the best developed SoC's available in the market. It is lot easier and faster to get the products into market with this SoC.

3. I don't think so there is an ideal Embedded development board. Every development board has it's own pros and cons. But,

   1. For beginners - Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi can be good development boards

   2. For Firmware development enthusiasts - NXP FRDMKL25Z Freedom board, STM32 Nucleo Board (There are many more but I just got these to my head)
   

All these points are just made from my perspective. Feel free to add up or correct my points...!!

@Geethesh The problem is here. There is huge voltage drop at some point of the circuit(probably at the pump or sensor, you should find it by probing at those particular areas) such that the voltage is getting attenuated by the time it reaches the Attiny. So, Attiny is working only when a dedicated supply is given to it. You can try this out by having multimeter probed between the VCC and GND of the ATTiny45. Try having a stable supply to Attiny

@rafitc99 There are different products not only based on ATMEGA328P, products based on Attiny85,84, PIC, etc., and you can also obviously use Arduino sketches but one can only make the application yet keep the code light only by directly programming in bare-metal. Because Arduino IDE and Arduino bootloaders are made up of wrappers around basic codes which makes the code very heavy and occupies most of the IC's memory. So, it is good to make commercial products with Arduino IDE but it comes with risk though. Let me know if you have different views.

Hi all,

I recently came across this post where they have shown photos printed on PCB in high resolution. I would like to know how to add this kind of photos to the silkscreen layers of the PCB in Eagle/Altium.

Adding such kind of photos will be attractive for beginners and also can be used for educational purposes too.
Please let me know in case anybody knows.

@stephenlstrange I have worked on some applications with BLE. Yeah, it's true, BLE of ESP32 kinda sucks, it's still in development in some issues. Right now ESP32 is supporting Mesh topology too. Just if you're curious, watch this Mesh example video

Hi all,

I am designing a board and felt I would take your suggestions. The board I'm designing will be driving 8 seperate board that has 14 WS2812b RGB LED's on each board. So totally the controller board will drive 14x8 = 112 WS2812b LED's.

I've learnt from online sources that approximately these ws2812b led will draw 50mA at max. So by calculating the max current drawn is 5.6A and I also have an ESP32 with some other normal peripherals. So rounding it I thought of using a DC power jack that can tolerate 6A and supply voltage would be 12V.

Can anyone suggest me any plugs or jacks that are widely used and easy for integration? Help would be much appreciated.

@Abhay As you mentioned, I strongly feel that, the infotainment systems inside the cars these days aren't serving data like GPS location and all. I have used the OBD(On-Board Diagnostics) module in order to acquire data like Fuel tank levels, acceleration of the car, Brake levels, Battery levels, etc., In order to acquire the data like GPS you can install your own GPS module like UBLOX GPS sensor which can be easily interfaced over UART of any MCU's like ESP8266, ESP32, Arduino etc., and pertaining to your last question in the thread I would say "NO" you don't need any separate android apps to obtain data from OBD devices(if they are Bluetooth enabled). Because OBD's like ELM327 is Bluetooth enabled and hence you can use a simple Bluetooth terminal app to connect and get the data.

@Abhay
How can we store data generated from IoT devices to cloud and blockchain.

As salman bro has told there are many ways to upload data to cloud like gcp, amazon s3 buckets and many more. But, I would suggest you to facilitate us with more details like what is the application that you are using to upload the data whether it's a temperature values from a DHT sensor or kinda stuff.

Because, there are many simple and as complex ways to upload the data. If you are in the idea of using a laptop or a system with an internet connection at the project area then I would suggest you to go with Adafruit IO cloud services. You don't have to use any external shields or wifi modules to do this. You can use a simple python script running over your laptop that reads the values from the arduino and pushes them to the cloud.

Adafruit IO is super easy to use for the beginners and flexible due to it's API. If you don't have to use a laptop then grab nodeMCU which has an on-board WiFi module that connects to nearby WiFi networks and uploads the data. The Adafruit IO has pretty good interfaces for Data visualization. Check out their website https://io.adafruit.com/

@hisham The board looks really nice. I am able to see some words written as "Voice Assistance". Do you want to write that name on the top of PCB as a designator or Name to the PCB?

If so, you have placed the text on the wrong layer. You need to put the text on Top Silkscreen layer which is Layer21 in Eagle. The existing placemet of text will not be seen on the board instead it will be engraved on the top copper layer.

All the best...!!

@Abhay I would like to specify some things. As you told you are in prototyping stage and your project obviously involves sensors, my suggestion is to go with any MCU's like arduino or Nodemcu kinda stuff.

Because raspberry pi can be used only when you need a replica of functionality that a computer gives. So, I suggest you to take up MCU's like nodeMCU, ESP32 and if I'm correct there is a variation of Arduino with an inbuilt esp8266 wifi chip over it. I'm sure there is one like that. Incase of any change in the functionality of the project you can go on with your own method. This is just a suggestion.

Happy making...!!

@salmanfaris

This seems to be a typical Dynamic memory allocation done through your software stack. I've seen similar error while implementing OpenCV on MCU's.

Try freeing unused objects from your application.

@salmanfaris I am using Arduino UNO as ISP programmer.(General ISP connections are made). I used both Arduino IDE and also avrdude command line to burn the bootloader. I am sharing link to pictures and debug outputs I got on both avrdude and arduino here. Please check it and let me know if it rings any bells for you.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BP74HvmbBOlqBN4XDcvLkMt7eNK5hWaL?usp=sharing

Hi all,

I have made a custom board with Atmega328P SMD IC and now I am having a problem flashing it. I have flashed multiple chips like these earlier, however this time I am having a hard time figuring out the issue.

I am using Arduino UNO as an ISP programmer to burn bootloader but getting responses like Attempt 1 of 10 - stk500() is not responding etc., like that. I need some help regarding this issue.

Any kind of help will be greatly appreciated. Please ask me for any additional information that I might have not mentioned in this post.

Thanks in advance.

@milanvarghese No, the battery comes into the play only if there is no power from the solar cell. It's like inverters in our home. They activate only if main power is gone, rest of the time they keep charging. similarly here the direct power will be coming from the solar cell, only if the solar cell can't produce enough voltage battery comes into the loop and starts providing voltage to our circuit.

@milanvarghese Basically you have cited the solution to your question. yes, you can run the Arduino microcontroller from a solar panel with some protection circuitry in between. There are many tutorials and blogs out there. You can start with something as following.

Hi all,

I recently came across this post where they have shown photos printed on PCB in high resolution. I would like to know how to add this kind of photos to the silkscreen layers of the PCB in Eagle/Altium.

Adding such kind of photos will be attractive for beginners and also can be used for educational purposes too.
Please let me know in case anybody knows.

@abdultechguy999 usually https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json this works while installing through boards manager. But I faced the same issue some times. it might be due to a couple of reasons.

1. Bad Internet connectivity

2. The license of the https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json might be expired(If this is the reason you can't do anything but just wait until they re-activate the license)

I remember there is a way to install the board files offline by downloading from some github repos.

All the best.

@Mennyt The general right angled header pins are the cheapest option. Something like this https://robu.in/product/2-54mm-2x20-right-angle-male-header-strip-pack-of-2/?gclid=CjwKCAiA4o79BRBvEiwAjteoYDcmnOSwTUviMZzRBeHz_aENF_fQgj3BrKXAzYs6GIHknHSOJ4_2KhoC1fAQAvD_BwE

@salmanfaris Actually the schematics files you've mentioned are the same files which I've got from them. They are carrier board design files.

@salmanfaris Oh hey woow...this is what I've been searching for. I have contacted Nvidia forums asking for the design files of this module. But those people gave me the design files of the Carrier board. What a waste of time. This is awesome...!! Can I get the design files of this SOM? Not to replicate but just for my reference, practicing, and understanding.