Let's talk of possible new accessory boards

[prickle]

Screens. It's really nice being able to get an ESP32 already wired to a screen, it saves so much spaghetti wiring in my projects and reduces radiated noise. I really like the design method of having the CPU behind the screen and using that as the project hub but when using Teensy my hand wired assemblies quickly become something resembling those balls of multicoloured rubber bands one used to see.

Teensies can run small LCDs way better than ESP32 but less convenient for a lazy lizard which is why I haven't been using many Teensies recently.

Imagine a range of LCDs, small to large, capacitive multitouch if you want it, Teensy solders right on the back with headers or castellations and there's rows of pins nearby with the IO accessible. Now I can just connect power and the specific project peripheral or driver to that assembly and my project is just about done.

So - like the ILI9341 but the backing board, instead of a single row of pins at the edge it has a Teensy stackable header somewhere in the middle with rows of IO breakout pins either side with thought for power distribution, some bulk capacitance and whatever other goodies. Nothing too fancy, low cost. But then have them big and small, touch and not, capacitive, resistive, ips, that kind of thing.

 

[BriComp]

Anyone interested in an adaptor board to achieve this (pic shown below).
It would be a board to accept a Teensy 4.0 and an ESP32C3 Super Mini with the relevant pins routed together.
The 5V pins would be commoned, this would mean that the pair could be powered by the ESP32 C socket.
Serial ports would be connected together, probably to Teensy RX2/TX2.
Also SPI ports could be linked.
Let me know what you think.

 

[kd5rxt-mark]

@BriComp: If that combo would provide an easy, out-of-the-box, Wi-Fi capability to the T4, I'd definitely be interested !! I've had very good luck using serial between two T4's, so I'd personally lean towards the serial interconnection, but would be willing to investigate the other possibilities.

Mark J Culross
KD5RXT

 

[joepasquariello]

Looks good to me, too, though I’d really like the same for T4.1

 

[Mavriq]

One of the "use cases" I'm really hoping to address is the people wanting to build huge MIDI controllers with tons of analog pots, rotary encoders, switches. Or similar for audio synth projects where a large number of knobs or buttons control various audio settings rather than sending MIDI to a PC.

Or if you are crazy like me, you could run out of pins for displays... lol

Share your DIY controller project based on MIDI for 3rd Party Devices | AXE3 | FM3 | FM9 | VP4 |

Hey there does it even work on AXe-fx3, FM9? Fx3 on Windows OK: Preset change. GUI doesnt update, but preset on the FXIII goes up or down. Scene change. Toggle the effects. GUI doesnt update, but FXIII does toggle. Scrollable sysex messages NOK: Preset change with arrows in GUI Frontpanel...

forum.fractalaudio.com

or some pics of later ui's

Homebrew Midi Controller with 19 Screens and 2 way Communication with Cantablie

I was thinking about 2-way communication between my midi controller and Cantablie. There wasn’t anything that quite did it for me so I looked into rolling my own and found this thread. It was for Fractal but it had a lot of useful information. The controller at the start of the thread uses...

community.cantabilesoftware.com

 

[Rezo]

Screens. It's really nice being able to get an ESP32 already wired to a screen, it saves so much spaghetti wiring in my projects and reduces radiated noise. I really like the design method of having the CPU behind the screen and using that as the project hub but when using Teensy my hand wired assemblies quickly become something resembling those balls of multicoloured rubber bands one used to see.

Teensies can run small LCDs way better than ESP32 but less convenient for a lazy lizard which is why I haven't been using many Teensies recently.

Imagine a range of LCDs, small to large, capacitive multitouch if you want it, Teensy solders right on the back with headers or castellations and there's rows of pins nearby with the IO accessible. Now I can just connect power and the specific project peripheral or driver to that assembly and my project is just about done.

So - like the ILI9341 but the backing board, instead of a single row of pins at the edge it has a Teensy stackable header somewhere in the middle with rows of IO breakout pins either side with thought for power distribution, some bulk capacitance and whatever other goodies. Nothing too fancy, low cost. But then have them big and small, touch and not, capacitive, resistive, ips, that kind of thing.

I think this would be great, and I'm all for screens as I love great looking UIs and project

In the past I created a carrier board with a capacitive touch ILI9488 driven via 8/16 bit 8080 over FlexIO3 with a T4.1 mounted on the back
I also created with @Dogbone06 a product that uses an ILI9488 with a Teensy MicroMod driven via 8 bit 8080 on FlexIO2 with DMA.
And recently, some custom boards with SDRAM driving larger resolution panels via eLCDIF with @Dogbone06 as well.

But,
If we take the current Teensy models, we're limited in best case to 8bit 8080 with DMA or 16bit 8080 with some limited async capabilities.
The T4.0 can do SPI connectivity at best case
The T4.1 can do SPI and 8/16bit 8080 with no DMA for better performance
The Teensy MicroMod can do SPI and 8 bit 8080 with DMA for good performance and relativly small displays.

Ideally, I would have liked to see a next gen T4.x with SDRAM and LCD pins broken out to driver lager displays at higher frame rates.
I am currently building such a device with a DBv5, a 7" IPS display and a custom board to hold it all together.

So with all that being said, I think most people are capable enough to take any off the shelf SPI/8080 LCD module, design a carrier board and mount a Teensy to it.
I don't see many variants for smaller displays being produced by SF, as the size is small and this limits the peripherals you can mount on the board.
On a side note, they do have an LCD carrier board for the MicroMod - https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-micromod-input-and-display-carrier-board.html

 

[MichaelMeissner]

Adafruit has some microprocessors (Qualia) that have support for RGB-666 displays using a 40 pin flat cable. Of course having a direct HDMI port might be useful as well assuming you can get more memory on the Teensy.

​

 

[mjs513]

@PaulStoffregen
Any status from the meeting with Sparkfun that you can share with us at this time?

 

[PaulStoffregen]

They seemed interested in the WiFi+Bluetooth using Murata modules. They also expressed a general interest in anything we want, but want to focus on just a couple rather than try to do too many all at once.

But the overall impression was they've been focusing pretty much entirely on Teensy 4.0 & Teensy 4.1 without (so far) much thought much about accessories. That's partly by design. Robin and I knew they would probably face at least supply chain issues and many also production challenges, so we intentionally made extra batches of all the accessory products in late 2024. Initially they weren't so excited about the relatively large inventory on the accessories (audio shield, octows2811, pt8211 and other kits). Now they're pretty happy to have been able to focus all their effort only on Teensy since mid-March. So far I believe only the Ethernet kit has run out of stock, and they've had some questions about it. However, over the next few months they're going to have to think about most of the other existing accessories they haven't needed to make yet.

I can tell you right now WiFi and PoE are my main thoughts, mostly on a technical level. But I'm a little apprehensive about whether PoE will have substantial sales.

 

[W6oody]

They seemed interested in the WiFi+Bluetooth using Murata modules. They also expressed a general interest in anything we want, but want to focus on just a couple rather than try to do too many all at once.

But the overall impression was they've been focusing pretty much entirely on Teensy 4.0 & Teensy 4.1 without (so far) much thought much about accessories. That's partly by design. Robin and I knew they would probably face at least supply chain issues and many also production challenges, so we intentionally made extra batches of all the accessory products in late 2024. Initially they weren't so excited about the relatively large inventory on the accessories (audio shield, octows2811, pt8211 and other kits). Now they're pretty happy to have been able to focus all their effort only on Teensy since mid-March. So far I believe only the Ethernet kit has run out of stock, and they've had some questions about it. However, over the next few months they're going to have to think about most of the other existing accessories they haven't needed to make yet.

I can tell you right now WiFi and PoE are my main thoughts, mostly on a technical level. But I'm a little apprehensive about whether PoE will have substantial sales.

If they are going to take on production of Octo boards can we at least get a Rev2 version that de conflicts pins from Audio Board and to update with mappable DMA on 4.0/4.1? Seems silly to produce more of the same when it was a T3 design originally.

Regards Woody

 

[mjs513]

They seemed interested in the WiFi+Bluetooth using Murata modules. They also expressed a general interest in anything we want, but want to focus on just a couple rather than try to do too many all at once.

Thanks for the update Paul was kind of curious on what their thoughts would be on the addition boards.

EDIT: As you said they are going to have their hands full on supply chain issues. At least thats one issue you and Robin don't have to worry about.

 

[KenHahn]

I appreciate the mentions, but to make it easier for people to find my website (and help my search results), I do want to point out that it is ProtoSupplies.com. All one word.

For those unfamiliar, I customize Teensy 4.1 with many different memory and pin configurations available on the website. I also do custom configurations as well for individuals and companies. The plan is to add 16MB PSRAM to the mix in the near'ish future.

I also have a few different Teensy 4.1 baseboards that may be useful for some applications. These tend to be complete platforms that include displays and various peripheral circuits and also have some available adapter cards like solderless breadboards. They are generic platforms and not targeted toward a specific application. This one happens to include an ESP32-C3 for WiFi with serial link to the Teensy 4.1.

 

[PaulStoffregen]

Octo boards can we at least get a Rev2 version

To answer this specific question, probably no new OctoWS2811 board for a long time. A large quantity of the existing version was made and those boards sell very slowly. They probably won't run out for at least another year or two.

 

[defragster]

to make it easier for people to find my website (and help my search results), I do want to point out that it is ProtoSupplies.com. All one word.

Indeed, worth knowing ProtoSupplies.com is there and where to look. I was going to post that board as the poster child of things a Teensy board could offer as far as accessory items one might want to include - this board demos them all with the only few unused pins taken to that left edge.

I got a preview board then updated with these items - not sure what is missing, or which might fit together for a simple accessory board.

KEY FEATURES OF MINI PLATFORM FOR TEENSY 4.1:​

• Small 5.4″ x 3.0″ board size
• Teensy 4.1 included with optional QSPI PSRAM and Flash memory upgrades
• ESP32-C3 co-processor for WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and I2C display connector
• 3.5” IPS 480×320 ST7796 LCD with capacitive touchscreen
• SGTL5000 Audio Subsystem
• 16MB NOR Flash memory on baseboard
• 3 User buttons and RGB LED
• CAN bus transceiver on CAN3
• RS485 transceiver on Serial8
• Host USB connector
• Ethernet connector
• High-speed MicroSD card slot on Teensy 4.1 with 32GB MicroSD card and SD to MicroSD Adapter
• 20-pin IDC GPIO connector brings out serial ports, I2C, SPI, CAN, Analog inputs and digital I/O
• CR2032 battery holder
• DC-DC converter front-end for wide input voltage range of 6-16VDC
• 3.3V on-board regulator to off-load and protect the Teensy 3.3V regulator
• Input power setup supports DC power and USB power to Teensy 4.1 and ESP32-S be applied at the same time
• Optional Solderless Breadboard Adapter can plug into IDC GPIO connector for prototyping

 

[W6oody]

To answer this specific question, probably no new OctoWS2811 board for a long time. A large quantity of the existing version was made and those boards sell very slowly. They probably won't run out for at least another year or two.

Appreciate the update. I’d better learn how to use KiCad

 

[mjs513]

I appreciate the mentions, but to make it easier for people to find my website (and help my search results), I do want to point out that it is ProtoSupplies.com. All one word.

A little behind on posts but glad you posted the link. Keep wanting to get a couple of your boards - on wish list.

Please let us know when you start offering the 16mb PSRAM. Probably will order a couple of boards. Eyes not good any more so anything to make it easier.

Thanks
Mike

 

[PaulStoffregen]

Appreciate the update. I’d better learn how to use KiCad

If you make extra and sell them, or just share the design for others to use, please ping me. At the very least, if you share photos we'll publish a blog article about your improved version. I'll probably link to it from the original OctoWS2811 library page if people can buy it or if the design is published so it's DIY buildable.

 

[DrM]

ADS8885 perhaps, 18bit, differential input, 400kSPS, settle to 18 bit in 1.2us (basically no latency), SNR 100dB, THD -115dB, 3.3V powered but admits upto 5V reference...

BTW ADS1115 is only 860SPS, not 860kSPS !

Oops. Anyway the ADS8885 is a nice family, ADS8887 at 100KSPS to ADS881 at 1MSPS, good noise specs and they can daisy chain. I've designed with them.

 

[bb00]

Not exactly an accessory board but a micromod with the ability to add PSRAM would be more than awesome!

 

[palmerr]

Looking through the discussion, I noticed Paul's wishlist included multi-channel audio.

My recent stackable 8x8 audio board (designed in response to the end of life of the CS42448) is open source for hardware and software. It uses the TLV320 AIC3104 CODECs (which have slightly better specs than the AIC3204).
github: control library
github: 8x8 Audio board
forum discussion

h4yn0nnym0u5e has tested it all the way to 64 output channels, with a bit of hardware fudging.

Hopefully that will satisfy most user's needs!

I'd be happy for an official variant to be built, so that I don't have to sell the boards on Tindie!

 

[DrM]

@PaulStoffregen

Maybe with experienced accrued with the Teensy 4.0 and 4.1, it is might be worthwhile to revisit what interfaces are most useful and think about a minor rev, 4.2 perhaps.

For example, in my own experience, access to a complete set of pins for at least one flexpwm might be very enabling and open more design possibilities.

Perhaps there is a similarly broadly useful interface to the memory addess space?

And for other designers/users there may be other interfaces that they wish they had easier access.


In other words, the Teensy, being basically a carrier for an MCU, it seems to me that it is all about the interfaces and creating opportunity.