Generic Nodes with Orkhan Amiraslanov

Welcome, Orkhan Amiraslanov (@azerimaker) from The Things Industries!

• LoRa
• LoRaWAN
• Class A, B, C Devices
• Richard Ginus (TWTG) came on the show to discuss LoRa based products
  • ThingsUNO
  • ThingsNode
• JP Norair also worked on LoRaWAN systems, but talked about some of the limitations.
• The Things Stack
• The Things Network
• Orkhan is originally from Azerbijian and studied industrial automation and process control.
• He went to a German research center for AI for graduate work
• While there, his masters thesis involved large (64x64 cm display) Electroluminescent (EL) displays driven by an FPGA
• Similar to how Ben Krasnow's EL displays work (but larger)
• SAMR34
• SX1276
• Xplained board
• Orkhan learned KiCad 2014
• The radio module has a 0.5 mm pitch BGA, but he was able to get it fabbed by oshpark!
• The form factor Orkhan uses most often is the (adafruit) Feather pinout.
• Atmel software framework
• Atmel Studio
• Ported to PlatformIO
• ElectronicCats
• Putting device credentials onto device
• Spreading factor
  • Orkhan said "kB" on the show, but later corrected. Here are the official number
  • 51 usable bytes for the slowest data rates, SF10, SF11 and SF12 on 125kHz
  • 115 bytes for SF9 on 125kHz
  • ~222 usable bytes for faster rates, SF7 and SF8 on 125kHz (and SF7 on 250kHz)
• Andreas Spiess reached 149 kM with LoRa
• A weather balloon got 750 kM
• Fair use policy mandates no more than 1% transmitting time.
• Common uses for LoRaWAN is Industry / Smart City
• Reiner van der Lee made the Vinduino, who Chris met during early Supercon
• Device Marketplace
• Wienke is the CEO of The Things Industries called Orkhan to work on The Generic Node
• STM32WL
  • Semtech licensed the SX1276, so the ST part is a SIP, not a SOC (chips connected by wires)
  • Two version: single/dual core
  • Dual Cortex M4 / M0+
  • Open source
• Power on the Generic Node
  • 300 nA quiescent buck
  • Designed to be low power
  • 1.8 uA in sleep mode
  • Used the Otii to measure sleep/transmit power
• CE testing output power
  • 100 mW / 14 dBm in the EU
  • US is 22 dBm (FCC testing)
  • Created multiple outputs to allow different channels
• Generic Node Pricing:
  • Probably will be $70 for low volume
  • Hoping to get to $40 for future higher volume pricing
• Fractus antenna
• There will be a Virtual Conference about The Generic Node
• The Things Conference in Amsterdam
• Generic Node SDK
• Clock sourcing with ST
• TCXO was a problematic sourcing part
• Find Orkhan online
  • @AzeriMaker
  • Makertronika Blog 
  • Email: orkhanamiraslan@gmail.com

Livestream available here:

 

https://youtu.be/cvGaDz7wZag