connecting many serial to ESP

[giorgino]

In my project I need to connect many serial input:

• 1 - NEXTION display
  2 - GPS
  3 - VICTRON-ve (battery monitor)
  4 - VICTRON-ve (MPTT solar charger)

I'm testing the 4051 multiplexer and seems to work fine
I plan to connect 1 to SWSERIAL
With the 4051 I plan to connect the 2,3,4 to HWSERIAL1
then with ESPEASY I plan to use 2 gpio to address the multiplex, addressing them in sequence

What do you think about his idea?

[TD-er]

Like switching serial ports in some sequence from one device to another?
I think it will cause a lot of issues as a task will have a serial port running and if it suddenly receives data from another device, then the task in ESPEasy will absolutely fail to properly switch between those devices.

If you really need so many serial ports, why not use several ESPEasy nodes and share the data among them via ESPEasy p2p?
Or use an I2C to UART chip like the SC16IS752
See: https://espeasy.readthedocs.io/en/lates ... elper.html


N.B. these SC16IS752 chips only have 64 byte FIFO, so better not to use it with devices which chat a lot, like GPS.
However the Victron devices and Nextion should work just fine.

Only need to convince Ton to change the code to perform less calls to available()

[giorgino]

as I said otherwhere the first rules of my project is to be low-low-low consuption because it live onboard, conneced to a service battery (recharged by solar power) but... consuption has to be the low as possible
So using other nodes is not a way I like

[TD-er]

Then having one of those I2C to serial converters is probably the best way to go.

[giorgino]

ok
I'm also testing my new ESP32-S3 with 16mBflash

Do you think it could be the best solution?

[TD-er]

The S3 is the one with the most serial ports.
But still software serial is quite tricky as it will result in read/write errors, so only to be used when checksums are used. (e.g. on GPS data)

You can see what I mean by simply converting your ESPEasy console settings to use SW serial on the same GPIO pins as Serial0 uses it by default. So you can still see it on the USB serial port (assuming you use USB to uart chip and not native USB which is more common on ESP32-S3 boards with only a single USB port)

[Ath]

N.B. these SC16IS752 chips only have 64 byte FIFO, so better not to use it with devices which chat a lot, like GPS.
However the Victron devices and Nextion should work just fine.

Only need to convince Ton to change the code to perform less calls to available()

I think I've fixed that, see: https://letscontrolit.com/forum/viewtop ... 232#p71232

[giorgino]

Sorry I've never used I2C converter

Then having one of those I2C to serial converters is probably the best way to go.

do you mean something like this?

usb to serial.png (142.94 KiB) Viewed 1758 times

On my ESP32-S3 board there is 2 usb connector, one called USB and one UART
so one for the power and one fro the seriale (the third) because for the other two exist appropriate pins

[Ath]

No, more like these: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006765729550.html

You connect such board to your ESP via I2C, and get 2 serial ports in return (can be configured from most Serial communication plugins).

As TD-er said, the hardware-buffer in these chips is only 64 bytes, but for the Victron (and Nextion) devices that should be fine.

[Affinite]

as I said otherwhere the first rules of my project is to be low-low-low consuption because it live onboard, conneced to a service battery (recharged by solar power) but... consuption has to be the low as possible
So using other nodes is not a way I like

Are you using DeepSleep when you are not on the boat?
My on-board ESP boards send sensor readings over MQTT for 30 seconds then they go to sleep for 10 minutes.
Current consumption is around 50-60mA when awake and connected to WiFi router but only 20mA when asleep.

[giorgino]

The deepsleep was the strong point of my project

But I've disabled the deepsleep in this weeks that I'm always connected working on the system

I the final version of my system there will be an input to wake in case of an alarm (I have a flooding switch sensor that activate the bilge pump)

[Affinite]

The deepsleep was the strong point of my project

But I've disabled the deepsleep in this weeks that I'm always connected working on the system

I the final version of my system there will be an input to wake in case of an alarm (I have a flooding switch sensor that activate the bilge pump)

I like it. Nice idea!
Did you know that the new Victron plugin is now working?

[giorgino]

Sure! I've tested the first release last weekend, with problem about my syntax coding rules
Next weekend I'll be onboard updating the code. I will solve every problem using the ESP32-S3

Very grateful to Ath and Tder for them work

[Affinite]

Sure! I've tested the first release last weekend, with problem about my syntax coding rules
Next weekend I'll be onboard updating the code. I will solve every problem using the ESP32-S3

Very grateful to Ath and Tder for them work

If you test the new Victron plugin (P176) I would really like to know if you get checksum errors.

[giorgino]

ok, it's arrived !

51iXrLbj1PL._SX522_.jpg (25.82 KiB) Viewed 1218 times

now I only need to learn how to use it

[TD-er]

VCC and GND, SDA, SCL to the ESP
RXA/TXA for channel A
RXB/TXB for channel B

You can leave the rest alone for now

In plugins that need some kind of serial, you can select I2C UART and then there will be a pop-up showing an I2C address selection and whether you will use channel A or B.

[giorgino]

what about the 5V / 3,3V ?
Victrons, Nextion (and GPS too) are powered by 5V so I've passed their data TX/RX throw a step down voltage
What I have to do now?

[Ath]

Use the same level converter you used to connect f.e. the Victron to the ESP directly.
These chips support an absolute maximum input voltage of 4.6V (and a little bit more under specific conditions), so a level converter is often needed, even when using 5V serial signals.