Keyboard Builders' Digest / Tips & Tricks
TinyS3 controller
UnexpectedMaker's TinyS3 is a development board featuring the ESP32-S3 controller, and offering both wired and wireless connection.
Published March 17, 2022
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).
Published on Thu 17th Mar 2022. Featured in KBD #70 (source).
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