General information

This is an Arduino/Micropython compatible Adafruit Feather format micro controller board packed with loads of functionality for your more real time sensitive projects that require a WiFi connection.

For this board we took Adafruit's Feather M0 Express, which also happens to be a personal favorite of ours, and added an ESP8285 chip to it, to give it an extensive WiFi capability. Now with the experience that we already have with the ESP8266 we knew it was the right way to go.

So the main controller of this board is the trusty SAMD21 with 256KByte of FLASH memory and 32KByte of SRAM. And just like the Feather M0 Express there is also an external 2Mbyte flash memory where you can store files systems or python scripts or what ever that you need.

WiFi

To this we also added an ESP8285 chip. For those of you that is unfamiliar with this device, it is basically an ESP8266 device with an integrated 1MByte of flash memory. This allows us to have an AT command interpreter inside this chip that the main controller can talk to and connect to you local WiFi network. The communications channel between the two devices is an unused UART on the main controller and the standard UART on the ESP8285. As simple as it can be.

The ESP8285 chip comes pre-flashed with Espressif's AT command interpreter stored in the internal 1MByte of the ESP8285. This interpreter support all of the operating and sleep modes of the standard ESP8266 framework which makes it easy to work with. Talking to the device is as easy as opening the second serial port (Serial2), resetting the ESP8285 and start listening for events and sending commands. To simplify this process we are also developing a library that is compatible with the standard ESP8266 environment.

USB Type C

Now in the recent years we have noticed that we are seeing more and more USB Type C cable laying around the lab due to the fact that all new phones and accessories use them. As of yet we haven't seen any shortage of micro USB cables but we are not getting any new ones any more and old ones do break occasionally. So we decided to go for a USB Type C connector for this board. A bonus of this is that they are quite bit more durable and you don't have to fiddle with the cable before plugging it in.

So, the board is packed with hardware features, here's a short list of its most prominent ones.

• Sturdy USB Type C connector
• ATSAMD21G18 @ 48MHz with 3.3V power
• 256KB FLASH + 32KB RAM
• 2 MByte of NOR FLASH memory
• 32.768 KHz crystal for clock generation & RTC
• 3.3V regulator with 600mA peak current output, most of which is reserved for the board itself
• USB native support, comes with UF2 USB bootloader
• 20 GPIO pins
• Hardware Serial, hardware I2C, hardware SPI support
• PWM outputs on all pins
• 6 x 12-bit analog inputs
• 1 x 10-bit analog ouput (DAC)
• Built in 250mA lipoly charger with charging status indicator LED
• Pin #13 red LED for general purpose blinking
• Power/enable pin
• 4 mounting holes
• Reset button
• ESP8285 WiFi chip with onboard antenna
• Neopixel LED that indicates board status but that can be used by the programmer

Software

The Challenger M0 WiFi board is 100% compatible with the Arduino framework. It has a unique board support package that fully supports all the features of the board. You can also install and run MicroPython on the board if this is what you want to do. We are in the process of verifying that everything works as it should and will present a tutorial on how to do this real soon.

Arduino support

In order to be able to program it using the Arduino environment you need to install an Arduino board support package from our website and here's a short step by step instruction on how to do this.

• Start your Arduino IDE (It needs to be 1.8.5 or higher)
• Select menu choice "File" and then "Preferences". You can also type Ctrl+comma (Ctrl-,) on your keyboard.
• Now add the URL "https://invector.se/files/package_ilabs_index.json" into the "Additional Boards Manager URLs" field.
• Click OK to close the preferences dialog.
• Now open the Boards Manager by selecting it in the "Tools->Board:" menu
• Scroll down until you see "Invector SAMD Boards" or search for Invector.
• Move your mouse to the box and click on install. That is it, when the process is done you are ready to select the "Invector Labs Challenger M0 WiFi" board in the boards menu and start writing software for it.

WiFi library support

A library that will minimize your efforts in running the WiFi stack is currently being developed. It will basically be compatible with the already existing ESP8266 environment making it very easy to migrate software to your board.

You can check the progress in our Gitlab repository here: https://gitlab.com/invectorlabs/libraries/cwifi and if you like you can also chip in to improve on it.

There is also a simpler Serial AT library that you can use to directly access the AT commands of the modem. This is available here https://gitlab.com/invectorlabs/libraries/ilabs-serial-at

Other

The boards comes with loose headers that can be soldered to the board if your application requires it.