WNRF - a WiFi to nRF24L01 Gateway
This is the Arduino firmware for the ESP8266 based Wifi-to-nRF bridge (based on the ESPixelStick). The bridge acts to convert wireless E1.31 sACN payloads to nRF packets. The gateway can handle a full 512 universe, with options to support multiple WNRF gateways in the same installation (different frequencies).
To keep things simple, many of the advances streaming options of the ESPixelStick have been stripped from the client (with more to go). New feature include integration with the PIC based nRFLoader bootloader, allowing for a target client firmware to be upgraded over the air (OTA).
The WNRF hardware combines an ESP-07 (or 12) with a nRF24L01 radio, to create the WNRF device. The footprint was designed to go into the Hammon 1593K enclosure, in order to create a nice tidy (and inexpensive) end product. Any nRF24L01 radio using the two row 8-pin header, should work, but I would recommend selecing one with PA+LNA capabilities. An external antenna is preferable, to maximise your outgoing signal capabilities.
This section is direct from the ESPixelStick project. Along with the Arduino IDE, you'll need the following software to build this project:
- Arduino for ESP8266 - Arduino core for ESP8266
- Arduino ESP8266 Filesystem Uploader - Arduino plugin for uploading files to SPIFFS
- gulp - Build system required to process web sources. Refer to the html README for more information.
The following libraries are required:
Extract the folder in each of these zip files and place it in the "library" folder under your arduino environment
- ArduinoJson - Arduino JSON Library
- ESPAsyncE131 - Asynchronous E1.31 (sACN) library
- ESPAsyncTCP - Asynchronous TCP Library
- ESPAsyncUDP - Asynchronous UDP Library
- ESPAsyncWebServer - Asynchronous Web Server Library
- async-mqtt-client - Asynchronous MQTT Client
- In order to upload your code to the ESP8266 you must put it in flash mode and then take it out of flash mode to run the code. To place your ESP8266 in flash mode your GPIO-0 pin must be connected to ground.
- Device mode is now a compile time option to set your device type and is configured in the top of the main sketch file. Current options are
ESPS_MODE_PIXELandESPS_MODE_SERIAL. The default isESPS_MODE_PIXELfor the ESPixelStick hardware. - Web pages must be processed, placed into
data/www, and uploaded with the upload plugin. Gulp will process the pages and put them indata/wwwfor you. Refer to the html README for more information. - In order to use the upload plugin, the ESP8266 must be placed into programming mode and the Arduino serial monitor must be closed.
- ESP-01 modules must be configured for 1M flash and 128k SPIFFS within the Arduino IDE for OTA updates to work.
- For best performance, set the CPU frequency to 160MHz (Tools->CPU Frequency). You may experience lag and other issues if running at 80MHz.
- The upload must be redone each time after you rebuild and upload the software
The ESPixelStick firmware can generate the following outputs from incoming E1.31 streams, however your hardware must support the physical interface.
- None - not supporting direct output to pixels in the WNRF
- None - stripped to reduce firmware footprint
- The ESPixelStick project: http://github.com/forkineye/ESPixelStick