Any Demo Boards for the Particle P1 out there for sale?

I searched the forum and see a few people have built custom boards for the P1 Modules.

I’m know how to create PCB’s but I’m wondering if anybody has already created a breakout board for testing the P1 module that they may also be offering for sale.

I like the extra flash the P1 provides so I would like to evaluate this module.

If anybody has a P1 demo board out there I’m more than happy to buy it. :smiley:

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I too need this!

Hope someone has an idea where to start..


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I have no clue which version of Particle OS firmware each P1 comes pre-loaded with?

It doesn’t really matter as long as it is preloaded and DFU works!. You can then update the system firmware depending on which one you prefer :wink:

@will will be able to give more information about that.

@kennethlimcp it’s important, at least for me. :weary:
Because I’d like to use P1 with minimal components added so DFU is unavailable. I can reload firmware for development. When go to production the less work the better.

If you can get it connected, you should also be able to OTA any new firmware, so it shouldn’t really be a problem.

@kennethlimcp Perfect, exactly what I was looking for! Just ordered it :spark:

@frlobo, I’m working on a simple P1 board myself. The idea is to keep it minimal with buttons, and RGB LED but breakout the reset of the pins to a connector which would be plugged into an I/O board. That second board would have the user hardware like USB connector, etc. Another approach is to have a single board as above but with a proto area and the second board connector if desired.

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Hey @peekay123 I have a quick question about the P1’s memory.

The photon has 128k of usable memory.

How will these numbers differ on the P1?

Will there just be 1 extra MB of Flash? So the Flash will go form 110,592 to 1,110,592 of storage?

Does the P1 keep the same RAM of 20,480?

And lastly, I can store Bitmap Image arrays in Flash without affecting my sketches RAM size right?

@RWB, the numbers appearing on the IDE are incorrect since they refer to Core parameters.

The Photon/P1 has about 60KB of RAM available to the user. There should be about 128KB or so of user flash since so much of the firmware is store separately. The P1, much like the old Core, has a 1MB external flash which is NOT used by firmware and is fully available to the user, typically via the (amazing) flashee-prom library. Code cannot run out of this flash.

For storing bitmaps, you can use some of the program flash (via a const type) or by using external flash on a P1. This will require adaptation of the code which reads the bitmap data since it must use flashee-prom instead of standard memory access. Certainly not a show stopper. I am not sure if data can be flashed directly to the P1 external flash using DFU-util. :smile:

@peekay123 That’s all good news. Thanks for the clarification.

I keep hearing about the DFU-util, that’s just the offline software for programming the Cores + Phontons right?

I should be able to program the P1 just like the Photon and get data stored on the 1MB external flash via the online build tool right?

Awesome!!!

I think this would be great… I would make a minimal board without anything except the buttons and the RGB led and a USB connector…

What I would do is take this board design and take it further to accommodate my project… So in reality more than a prototype board, it would be great to have a bootstrap boilerplate to start designing a custom solution for people like me that want a custom design for a product and want to minimize errors… Specially since I am kind of a newbie…

@RWB, the online tools won’t flash anything to the external flash of the P1, much like it doesn’t for the Core either. The DFU-util utility is used for a lot of stuff including program of the Particle devices and you should become familiar with its use. :smile:

@frlobo, I agree. What inspired me was the PCB that Keurig used in their usage logger. Having a P1 “core” is a great start for most designs. I’m working on this for V3 of my RGB Matrix shield.

@peekay123 Again thanks for the clarification :wink:

I’ve used Netbeans for loading custom code onto the old Cores when we were trying to fix the WiFi auto reconnect issues so I’m guessing the DFU shouldn’t be to much more involved than that process and hopefully easier by now.

Also when you make your custom P1 boards I’ll buy one also.

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I am kind of good with eagle, and would gladly wok in this with you. I am willing to also pay for the oshpark test runs. I think it would help the community greatly to have a board like this available.

@frlobo, thanks for the offer. I use dirtypcbs - they are great quality and fast!

Il use whatever you use! :smile:

Let me know how would you like to do it, or if you prefer solo work :blush: I am ok with that too.

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I have a batch of P1 breakout boards that are in production right now. It seems as though I should get some extra made for the community. Let me know if you guys are interested.

The best way to describe the board is a bigger Photon. The board is wider to accommodate the P1 module but the pinout is the same as the Photon. I have added some additional pins on the “antenna-end” of the board for the extra P1 I/O’s. I have also included pins for an external RGB status LED and Setup button.

I have two designs–one with power supply and one without. It would be useful to know if you guys want the power supply included.

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