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TinyS3 controller

UnexpectedMaker's TinyS3 is a development board featuring the ESP32-S3 controller, and offering both wired and wireless connection.

KBD.news
Published March 17, 2022
Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 100K readers.

Seon aka UnexpectedMaker from Melbourne, Australia, came up with this nice open-hardware development board sporting the ESP32-S3 controller.

The project was brought to my attention by deshipu's WIP Vegemite Sandwich keyboard, featured by Kristina Panos in her Hackaday column.

The ESP32-S3 is (partially) supported by CircuitPython so deshipu decided to try it:

The ESP32-S3 is the first Espressif board that has both true USB and Bluetooth, so naturally you have to wonder if it's any good for keyboards. I decided to try and see – deshipu.

The board has only 17 GPIO pins so it's rather for splits or smaller form factors.

Features

  • Dual 32bit Xtensa LX7 cores @ up to 240Mhz
  • RISC-V Ultra Low Power Co-processor
  • 2.4GHz Wifi - 802.11b/g/n
  • Bluetooth 5, BLE + Mesh
  • 8MB QSPI Flash
  • 8MB of extra QSPI PSRAM
  • 700mA 3.3V LDO Regulator
  • Low power RGB LED
  • ULTRA LOW Deep Sleep Current
  • USB-C Connector with back-feed protection
  • Native USB + USB Serial JTAG
  • LiPo Battery Charging
  • JST pads on the back supports PH connector
  • VBAT and 5V Sense Pins
  • 3D High Gain Antenna
  • 17 GPIO
  • 35 x 18mm in size
  • Similar to the Pro Micro dimensions but incompatible pinout. Compatible with TinyPICO & TinyS2.

According to deshipu's project log, the wired connection seems to works fine but there is only some basic BLE support in CircuitPython for the ESP32-S3 chip right now.

More details on the TinyS3: https://esp32s3.com/tinys3.html

GitHub repo: https://github.com/unexpectedmaker/esp32s3

While being open-hardware, the TinyS3 is also available in UnexpectedMaker's shop at: https://unexpectedmaker.com/shop/ttinys3-esp32s3 (sold out atm).

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Published on Thu 17th Mar 2022. Featured in KBD #70 (source).


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