Seeeduino Xiao

[workshopninja]

I have a few of these tiny boards (based on samd21)- trying to get them working - anyone got any ideas if it’s even possible?
Hoping to make some battery powered devices.
Any advise - or reading I should be doing would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

[OldSurferDude]

Not knowing what a Seeeduino Xiao is, I googled it and found the first entry past the ads a link to the product description. On that page I found "Compatible with Arduino IDE" along with a multitude of youtube videos.

Please pardon my sarcasm but I am compelled to suggest you start by searching "How to search with google"

[OldSurferDude]

Oh, wait! I fell for it completely. I'm such a fool.

Your post is a marketing plug for seeeduino, not someone who just happened upon a few of these devices.

[gav]

@OldSurferDude
We’ll I just looked them up and think I want one.
I think you’re part of the seeduino marketing team too!

[workshopninja]

No i have bought three of them - and they don’t work…
Definitely not endorsing these boards - wanting to make them work because I (perhaps naively) believed the marketing of being “arduino compatible” and have paid money for them…
So does anyone have any helpful advice or am I going to be bombarded by this sh#t…
The debug output is blank - it freezes the serial monitor in arduino ide.
Don’t really know where to go for help - seeed wiki is way over my head…
My training is in electronics - not code, I’ve copy pasted a few of my own sensors using pro minis but I am really lost when it comes to how the back end actually works.

[gav]

@workshopninja
Ok ok.. I still think I’ll get one. Wiki documentation looks good. Great in fact.

What exactly are you having trouble with. Do the examples given on the wiki work?

[gav]

So you have installed the board manager stuff in arduino preferences and tried some of the examples that appear after you do this and they don’t work and freeze?

[workshopninja]

@gav

Please do get one - you might be able to help me.
I have tried a blink sketch - that worked. So I uploaded a mysensors sketch that had worked on an arduino pro mini, unmodified (apart from defining ce and cs) and it compiled and uploaded fine.
I built the circuit with 2 buttons using gpio 2 and 3 and the radio on 6,7,8,9 and 10 on a breadboard and fired it up - and nothing.
No output from serial monitor, nothing appeared in home assistant…
Tried a second xiao, same result. Third one failed to upload… so I went to bed.
The sketch worked using the same setup on the arduino so at this stage I’m not sure what to do.

[HisDudeness]

I know it's been 20 days, but I bought five, even if I still have to test them.

I just did with a simple LED blinking circuit and all went fine (a little bit of initial tinkering with the IDE is needed, but you already done that since you said you've done the blinking).

Can you post your sketch and your circuit schematic or a photo of it?

[virtualmkr]

@workshopninja said in Seeeduino Xiao:
Hi all,
MySensors is basically able to work with samd21 MCU chips, like used in the Xiao and Arduino Zero because the SensBender gateway also has such a MCU, see:
https://www.mysensors.org/hardware/sensebender-gateway

But this gateway has an additional serial EEPROM chip AT24CS32-STUM - 32Kb (4096x8) Serial EEPROM with Unique Serial Number, SOT-23-5.
This is required to get MySensors lib running.

For your Xiao you have to connect such a serial EEPROM externally, you can use any one with 32k and DIL enclosure which makes it more breadboard friendly e.g.:
https://www.reichelt.de/eeprom-32-kb-4-k-x-8-2-5--5-5-v-dip-8-24lc32a-i-p-p40077.html?&trstct=pol_2&nbc=1

HTH

[workshopninja]

@HisDudeness

I have only tried the most basic of buttons…
Using the example sketch for binary sensor with a push button to ground on D2.

Circuit is on a breadboard with a known good nrf24l01+ radio.

[workshopninja]

@virtualmkr

Thanks for the insight!

So if I understand you correctly and I add an eeprom chip to SDA and S-CL and pull them high with 4k7 resistors (from sensebender schematic) then this should work?

Is there anything I need to add to my sketch to make the eeprom work - or is that handled by MySensors?

[virtualmkr]

@workshopninja Yes, this is basically what I did with an Arduino MKR1000 WIFI some years ago. There are some #defines for the EEPROM in the code. But for me it worked out of the box with a 24LC32P.

See also in the MyS lib code:
hal/architecture/SAMD/MyHwSAMD.h#L47

But in the end I switched to the ESP8266 because it also has WiFi and is much cheaper. The support for external libraries is also much better than with the SAMD.