Anyone tried the stc15l204? It appears to be an inexpensive integrated mcu + NRF24L01+
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Looks as though it has been for sale since at least 2014, yet I see no mention of it here on this forum.
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@NeverDie this is some kind of NRF24L01 to UART converter.
It has no integrated radio, you have to plug an nrf24l01 in the connector.
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@Nca78 Thanks! Guess I got my wires crossed when I saw a slew of them on ebay. I hadn't seen this picture, which would have been the give-away:
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@NeverDie The STC15L is a cpu based on 8051 (ref http://www.stcmcu.com/datasheet/stc/stc-ad-pdf/stc15f204ea-series-english.pdf) and there is no Arduino core for it.
Simply too much hassle to get it going, I suppose.
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Very easy to program with SDCC (via makefiles and/or vscode/platformio), however, it's all pure C, and I dont know if anyone has any recent C-only implementations of mysensors (it all seems to be C++).
https://github.com/zerog2k/stc_blinky
Also, the STC15F204EA (or STC15L204EA) are probably the least capable - only 256b ram, 4k code, and no hardware uart/spi, etc. The can do some basic RF24 tasks, but I doubt they could handle the full mysensors state machine.
There are the more capable versions, e.g. STC15W408AS, etc with more ram (2-4k), code (8+ kB), and a basic set of peripherals (hw uart, spi, etc) - however still far underperforming typical arduino (atmega328p) specs.
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The RF-Nano may be what you're looking for? It's an inexpensive Nano with built in NRF24.
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@alowhum Yes, you'r right. Based on this review (https://www.embedded-computing.com/guest-blogs/for-the-professional-maker-getting-started-with-the-rf-nano-arduino-nrf24l01-combo), it has exactly the same pinout as a regular nano, and so it sounds like the RF-Nano is very much the kind of simple, affordable, standardized, fully integrated, wireless Arduino that Arduino should have released 6 or more years ago as an "official Arduino," but just never did. Of course there are more powerful alternatives available now, but I bet it could it still be exactly the sort of thing that a true beginner who had only just learned a little about the Arduino Uno might want as his/her first step into wireless.
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It's not a perfect pin-out match. You should definitely check out this thread:
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/10327/rf-nano-nano-nrf24-for-just-3-50-on-aliexpress/1But you're right, it's great for beginners. That's why it forms the basis of the Candle project.