PicoCalc with LoRa!

PicoCalc
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Hey PicoCalc fans!
I thought I would share what ive been tinkering with since i received my PicoCalc last week!

Ive added a LoRa board (Heltec V3) to my Calc so I can use it with Meshcore LoRa Meshes!

The main firmware runs on the Heltec’s ESP32 and I have been working on a simple client program that runs in basic! The basic program communicates the radio using one of the Pico’s UARTs

You can interact with the radio and send it any meshcore text command by using the keyboard and display on the Calc!

:slight_smile:

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What do you want to do with picocalc!
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Love your videos! Will your code be available to tinker with? I’ve put in an order for one and would love to skim through the code in the mean time while waiting.

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Thanks!
Yeah ill upload to github soon. Need to tidy it up a bit haha! I havent written the direct message stuff yet and theres a couple of weird bugs ive just noticed!

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Added some font colours for the hop count :grin:

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Great video, sold me on it. I’ll swap in a Pico 2W and get one of the LoRa boards. Looking forward to running your .BAS and re-learning BASIC. it’s only been 40+ years since I used my C64. Cheers!

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Awesome !! I just received my Waveshare RP2040 LoRa module that shares the Pico form factor but has a SX1262 LoRa module built in. It’s slightly shorter because the bottom pins are used internally by the LoRa module.

MeshTastic offers a firmware for this module to flash. So I was thinking maybe forking it as a custom PicoCalc firmware ?

I’m hoping to get this working somehow as a direct replacement / drop in for the Pico that come with the PicoCalc

I just have to figure out the specs on the display and also get the keyboard interface working together.

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I also ordered the Waveshare standalone SX1262 LoRa module if it’s easier to add this to an existing Pico or even better the Pico 2w

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Hi! Love the MeshCore project. Would you consider uploading meshcore.bas used in your YouTube demo?

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Hey, what’s up with this subject?

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Hello!

I’ve done a similar project and have attached my v3 to the GPIO pins, any idea how I can mimic this?

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Advice from a real-life software engineer: if you wait until it’s finished to post it to GitHub, it will never get to GitHub!

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Would you mind posting some details on how you wired this up? I’d love to do the same thing but I have no idea how to get started.

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My apologies, some things happened in life and I was not able to complete this project. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into it in the future.

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yo I’m getting started on integration and programs by myself but it’s gonna be hard… if you ever feel like uploading the code to github, please let the forum know :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Hello friends! I’ve been inspired to take the plunge into PicoCalc and LoRa, looks lots of fun. I’m in London too, so perhaps I’ll be able to message Andy on a good day :smiley:

I’m an experienced programmer but new to both these technologies. Does anyone have tips for getting started? Both with installing the hardware, and understanding the software side.

@andy_kirby , if you still have that code (finished or not) I’d love to read it, for learning purposes. Cheers pal

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Likely whay A dy used is the CLI client for Meshcore, it g8ves you loads more flexiblity to i teract with a board that is loaded with the Meshcore firmware like the Heltevlc 32 V3.

If you want to use Meshtastic then be aware that the only options to communicate with a board that is loaded with Meshtastic firmware is either using Protocol Buffers or a very limited methodthat will only allow broadcasting of messages to a single channel.

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Hi,

I did it with a Heltec V4 without OLED Display.

I Connected

Pico GP8 (UART1TX) → Heltec PIN 44 (U0RXD)

Pico GP9 (UART1RX) → Heltec PIN 43 (U0TXD)

Pico PIN 38 (GND) → Heltec GND

Pico PIN 36 (3V3 OUT) → Heltec 3V3

I added following section to variants/heltec_v4/platformio.ini:

[env:heltec_v4_companion_radio_uart]
extends = Heltec_lora32_v4
build_unflags =
    -D PIN_USER_BTN=0
build_flags =
    ${Heltec_lora32_v4.build_flags}
    -I examples/companion_radio/ui-new
    -D MAX_CONTACTS=350
    -D MAX_GROUP_CHANNELS=40
    -D SERIAL_RX=44
    -D SERIAL_TX=43
    -D ENV_INCLUDE_GPS=0
build_src_filter =
    ${Heltec_lora32_v4.build_src_filter}
    +<helpers/ui/MomentaryButton.cpp>
    +<../examples/companion_radio/*.cpp>
    +<../examples/companion_radio/ui-new/*.cpp>
lib_deps =
    ${Heltec_lora32_v4.lib_deps}
    densaugeo/base64 @ ~1.4.0

And built the MeshCore firmware with

pio run -e heltec_v4_companion_radio_uart -t upload

Now I’m working on meshcore.bas

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