Wireless tophat

so this would be using the cheap esp8266 module and the pcb would be just a breakout something like this might work

or this, the 90 degree header pins are trowing me off

6 Likes

Tweeted this. Are you @adekto on twitter ?

well i am i am now
its been years looks like someone even hacked the account at some point :scream:, why. but yea i got it back tweet at me @adekto :laughing:

1 Like

Hi. I am searching a lowest power wifi solution. What about Realtek’s RTL8710. It is lowest power consumption which I found.

yea sure looks cool but this says its mostly the same
also that chip architecture is bigger version then the console one XD
but looking at datasheets they all consume about 80mA average, it looks like inherit to the wifi system

would it be fine to do just a wifi board or do we play safe and add a batery to the hat?

Another idea is bluetooth and going over phones/pc trough bluetooth BLE is always a little flaky and we would pretty much need an app or some 3rd party adafruit thing wich isn’t sounding great ether

1 Like

BLE has gone a long way since early days. I was at a BLE training workshop and that is really the way future IoT stuff is going to work, through BLE meshes. Wi-Fi uses too much power.

2 Likes

If we use BLE for connecting Web Services we need a smartphone and smartphones uses battery. It’s too much power then just using WiFi module. Also most of kids don’t have smartphones. I have an idea for WiFi but I need to draw first. I hope I can :smile:

1 Like

wel the problem is BLE is slow compared to wifi, also range, its meant for close range wearables and similar
with esp iv seen range testing you can play multiplayer in separate rooms

so back to adding a battery to it?

Perhaps this top hat will end up being a back pack?

1 Like

possible but that might end up with poor connection and we might just end up with a hole new back case with a AA battery holder

though a cheaper alternative is velcro and a 9v battery XD

Just in case anyone wonders why feeding Wi-Fi from Pokitto main battery is an issue:

The max current draw of the ESP8266 can get as high as 215mA. Considering the LCD backlight (max 140 mA) and the speaker amp, it would have possibly meant having to rate the whole power circuit much higher (possibly even 1A) including all MOSFETs and regulators to handle the load spikes.

where you got that 215mA?

some guy did some testing and these where there results

also looking at some tutorials they ran at about 82 mA during transmitting

how much is the current power circuit rated for? and how much can we use safely?

It seems to power fine, not sure how to do the interface with them, anyone got experience?

All i tested on esp is BASIC interpeter, list wifi conections over serial
I would probably go for i2c but it’s probably slow

2 Likes

looking into this project some more
the wifi module runs at 80mhz wich potentially could be used for more then wifi
there is 64 KiB of instruction RAM so if i read this correctly we could upload a very small program to it
to potentially use as a co-processor
i wonder if it could be used as a graphics accelerator to of-load something like low poly 3D

4 Likes

Could we call it the 32X ? :grinning:

No, Sega trademarked that name so we’d be up for a lawsuit.

ahh damm, but you cant trademark a number so we could still go for pokitto 32H (H for hat)

lol, i dont know why you want 32x from the mega drive.
but if you want a crazy upgrade there is the esp32:

esp8266:
64kb ram
80 MHz
single core
wifi

esp32:
520kb ram
160 MHz
dual core
wifi & BLE

it looks like theres an option to overclock it but i think that might just drain the battery a bit much

because your suggestion here :

made me think of it, the 32X is basically just that, a extra cpu with a better graphics engine than the original MegaDrive. (or Genesis depending on country)

But i am just kidding around here, lets get back to the topic. For wireless use i would prefer to use the one that is most widely used and is easy in terms of programming.