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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
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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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