Thanks for the answers. For sure it is possible to buy an ATmega and even a full-featured debugger would be acceptable compared to the effort of porting. But still, I am very biased towards the PIC without logical or economical arguments.
I did not yet work with the mysensors libraries and only browsed quickly through the github repo. Maybe someone can give me a few hints to estimate the effort deeper than just claiming it as "much workload"?
What I see so far is:
make the C++ code compile (translate to C with clang/llvm and compile with the XC8 compiler)
create a new HAL (in hal/architecture) which seems not too much effort for making it initially working
Questions:
Do I see it right, that there is a linux-port available? -> I would expect much more effort to port from AVR to linux than to port it to a different MCU
What about the licensing? It looks like the code is GPLv2, but in the CLA it seem that contributors need to give away their rights on the contributions and that mysensors can even redistribute the code under another license - which seems completely against the principles of the GPL. Can someone explain that in more detail?
@NeverDie said:
Can it be programmed through the Arduino IDE?
I had briefly looked into it back in 2011 and was able to get an Arduino sketch for blinking a LED to work. I had to upload it using the external dfu program since at the time the Arduino IDE did not allow specifying an external programmer device. I'm not familiar with what may currently be possible with the Arduino IDE since that time however.
Plain C using gcc and uploading using dfu-programmer works fine though.
@martim
Unfortunately we do not have any other manufacturing partners, so all sensebender boards are produced by itead.
How did you confirm that the board where broken? Have you tried starting the self test in the standard firmware that the micro is delivered with?
The factory firmware is available at
https://github.com/mysensors/SensebenderMicro/blob/master/Arduino/SensebenderMicro/SensebenderMicro.ino
@berkseo Very nice. I wasn't aware that MySensors was working on NRF52840. Any different than the NRF52832 when it comes to flashing bootloader, uploading sketches, or executing code?
@Ikes-72000 If it were me having these problems, I'd simplify the situation by demounting the nRF board fromt he D1 Mini, then I'd power it, hook it up to a console and see whether I'm getting the count that it should be outputting. At that point what you have is simply a breakout board for the nRF, and it doesn't get any simpler than that.
@Roland-Wijnen JLCPCB.com seems pretty happy with the files. Its rendering of the completed pcb looks correct, and they'll ship me 5 copies of the board for less than $10 US, including the shipping price. Seems like a plenty cheap price.
I haven't made this board with them, but I've used them plenty of times in the past, and when they render a board correctly on the portal, it always comes out correct when I get it in my hands. (Well, other than design mistakes - they make it just how I design it, but that's a different story.)
