Hey, just wanted to confirm that there is no SoftwareSerial library that works with the Argon / Boron as of yet. Is this correct?
Yup, that’s unfortunately true.
The Gen1&2 substitute ParticleSoftSerial
relies on HW timer interrupts it would “subscribe” to via SparkIntervalTimer
but since there currently is a shortage of free timers on the nRF controller these libraries haven’t been ported yet.
Got it. Looks like the project I have slated which needs WiFi and BLE (so therefore Argon) will need to incorporate a multiplexer to resolve the issue as both peripherals only provide a UART interface. Don’t need to communicate with each simultaneously so thinking that should work.
Also was thinking on the bus ride in this morning about the decision to provide 2 I2C interfaces but only 1 UART. Thinking that it would be more versatile to provide 2 UART’s and 1 I2C given that a single I2C bus can interface with quite a few peripherals, but UART is always 1 to 1. I feel like the probability of having to develop a product that needs 2 UARTs is higher than 2 I2C busses.
Ah, maybe they needed the 2nd UART to talk to the WiFi module?
You could always add something like this https://sandboxelectronics.com/?product=sc16is750-i2cspi-to-uart-bridge-module … bonus is you get full hardware handshaking of you want it …
@iitgrad, which UART peripherals are you planning to use? Have you seen @rickkas7’s external UART work?
Ah, I will check both of these out. Thanks @shanevanj and @peekay123 for sharing. One application is using an Argon with a GPS module (which is only currently communicating via UART) and Sigfox which the WISOL module only uses UART AT commands.
Another application is talking to a Nextion Display and a 433Mhz Ebyte radio. All UART. Hehe