Chris Kolhoff’s Work Log

Chris Kolhoff’s Work Log

9/29/24 Update

  • Progress update from last posting.
    • @joey-klapkowski got 2x Nanos to communicate over CAN
    • LOAF design is going well
    • Research on ESP32 has been progressing for CAN
      • When researching CAN for ESP32, I found that you need to instead search for TWAI (Twin-Wire Automotive Interface) because of legal reasons with the documentation. We love lawyers…
  • ESP32 Update
    • Found a library that should work with the integrated CAN controller and transciver.
      • We should be able to use ANY of the GPIO pins on the ESP32!!! Meaning, we are not limited to the TX/RX pins and can reprogram the board without having to disconnect the TX/RX pins, like we do with the Nano’s
      • This is the current scratch breadboard of the ESP32 attempting to communicate with the CAN transciever
      • This is a current concept for 2x ESP32’s communicating over CAN and an ESP32 based slice with the new edge connector design.
  • TODO This week:
    • CDR – Monday
    • Get another CAN Transceiver and get 2x ESP32 communicating over CAN for real
    • Work with Joey on coding the header/ID packet of the protocol. We could try working on sending this over CAN and see if the ESP32/Nano could work with it

9/21/24 Update

  • BREAD Progress so far this semester has been going pretty well.
    • Met with Canadian team to discuss future of bread and next steps towards communications protocol
      • Do we want to keep backwards compatibility with I2C or do we just make this a BREAD 2.0 standard?
    • Achieved access to GitHub Org that has BREAD ESP32 source code
    • Discussed Python as a new target language for webserver idea.
      • This would be very useful towards future APIs
  • On Sep 16, BREAD team met up to discuss plans and the new protocol that will be send over C.A.N
We have been looking at how best to use the CAN ID header bits for addressing devices. Our current idea is that the 5 most significant bits (MSB) will be our type of slice, the next 3 bits will be the ID of the duplicate slide on the bus, and the last bits will be used for a command type. This allows up to 25 or 32 different slice types and 8 of the same slice to all coexist of the same bus.
  • What items need to get moved onto your To Do list for this next week? Which items are no longer necessary?
    • The GitLab server was unfortunately shot down. Since our other team over in Canada are using GitHub, it makes it way easier to just add our existing codebase to their repos instead of getting a GitLab <-> GitHub active sync going.
  • To Do list for the coming week
    • RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH
      • ESP32
        • Webserver research
          • Do we want to go with C or should we go with python
    • ESP32
      • Get some of the existing Arduino code base from @joey-klapkowski to work on the ESP32
        • Target primarily adapting it for CAN

9/13/24

  • TODO
    • Research more ESP-32 Libraries
    • Import existing codebase into a git server
      • GitHub (Proprietary)
      • Gitlab CE (FOSS)
    • Continue to work with team on brainstorming ideas and solutions