So my initial testing of an ESP-12E showed that it couldn’t reliably keep up with two 10K PPR encoders (40K count). I discussed this project a great deal with my fellow astronomers on CloudyNights. After doing a lot more research and testing I’ve determined that the ESP8266 even when running at 160Mhz just can’t keep up with two 10K PPR encoders. Continue reading
So yesterday I was all happy that I got my prototype ESP-DSC working. This ended up being short lived as I realized this morning that while it does technically work, the ESP8266 can’t keep up with two medium resolution (2,500 CPR) encoders.
Ironically, I found out that the code was too slow when I started to optimize the code and I realized that the code I has was very very conservative. My original optimization was to speed it up, but maintain that conservative ethos. I figured while I was editing the code, I might as well also add a test to see if the ESP-12F was dropping interrupts… Continue reading
Spent most of my post-St. Patricks day writing code for the ESP-DSC. The big question was always does the ESP-12E have enough horsepower to handle both the encoders as well as doing all the WiFi/communications. So far, I’ve bench tested a pair of 2.5k CPR encoders which translate into 10K encoders after quadrature decoding. Continue reading
So a few years ago, I announced TeensyDSC, project that brings telescope digital setting circles to the iPad and Android devices using WiFi. I’ve been using my TeensyDSC successfully with my telescope and SkySafari on an iPad for a few years, but one thing always bothered me about it: the “COGS” (cost of goods sold) of the TeensyDSC was really expensive: nearly $100. A lot of that cost was in two parts: the Teensy 3.1 ($20) and RN-XV WiFi module ($35).
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