ESPuno Pi Zero WiFi BT Zigbee Thread 60V

NEW For February 2025! - Launching on KickStarter in April.

ESPuno Pi Zero is a STEM Maker and Developer SDK board based on an Espressif ESP32-C6, featuring a wide operating voltage of 5-60V DC, powerful radio module and wrapped in a compact mechanical Pi Zero form.

Introduction

During my research and development, one regular requirement is to power an ESP32 from up to 60V DC, with peak up to maximum of 75V DC. The typical projects include Solar 48V systems, or even powered from the car or caravan 12V, boats or HGV 24V, or other low voltage DC systems such as Robotics and off-grid homes.

In addition, I want to include a built in RS-485 interface, make as compact as possible plus interface with other Raspberry Pi PiHat's - an example is the IPEM PiHat. For this, I needed to include a GPIO expander which shares and compliments some of the ESP32-C6 GPIO too.

Alongside my wish list, is the ability to interface with WiFi-6. Mesh, BT-LE, Zigbee and Thread. This then narrowed down to the new Espressif ESP32-C6, which has also just been certified to Thread 1.4.

Have had interest from a couple of users about the Grove interface, so this crept into the design, offering a large range of plug-in sensors for the STEM classroom and other hackster's.

The result is the ESPuno Pi Zero. This project will be launched on KickStarter early April 2025, following IPEM PiHat Launch.

Project Deployment

ESPuno Pi Zero is ideal for:

• Educational and Classroom projects.
• Solar Energy Monitoring Projects - being powered directly from a 48V Battery for example.
• Battery powered projects such as Robotics, Drones, Cars and Vehicles, Boats and University Projects.
• Farming and Agricultural Projects.
• Learning about interfacing RS-485 Serial Communication.
• MODBUS RTU (Remote Terminal Unit), Control.
• Industrial applications, Test Systems, Development and MODBUS Sensors, Monitoring, SCADA or PLC's.

Raspberry Pi Emulator

The ESPuno Pi Zero, is a pin compatible Raspberry Pi ESP32 Controller and Emulator in a single board.

The Raspberry Pi GPIO's are controlled and driven from the ESP32-C6 and GPIO Expander, so bringing Raspberry Pi PiHat's and Breakout boards to the Arduino Embedded controller world.

The Board

ESPuno Pi Zero is a new STEM Maker and Developer SDK board based on an Espressif ESP32-C6, featuring a wide operating voltage of 5-60V DC, powerful radio module and wrapped in a compact mechanical Pi Zero form.

Packed with a number of features, this powerful, compact and innovative ESPuno Pi Zero board is designed to be powered from 5V up to 60V DC and include a Raspberry Pi 40 Pin interface, along with a RS485 Industry standard MODBUS UART.

Overview

With the exciting news of the ESPuno Pi Zero preproduction information, the below expanded overview has been released. This also includes expanded details of the interface and signals information.

The ESPuno Pi Zero prototype has been designed and due to be tested during February, with a launch on KickStarter, early March.

Updates

12th February 2025 - Prerelease details Launched

Further updates are posted here

ESPuno Pi Zero - Features

ESPuno Pi Zero - Espressif ESP32-C6

• ESP32-C6-MINI
• Wi-Fi 6 2.4 GHz 802.11ax | 802.11b/g/n
• Bluetooth | LE | 5.3 | Mesh
• Thread 1.4 | 802.15.4 | Mesh
• Zigbee 3.0 | 802.15.4 | Mesh

Power from up to 60V DC

• Wide range of Input DC Voltages 5V to 60V

Compact mechanical Pi Zero form

• Only 65 mm * 30 mm

Powered from:

• USB C (5V)

External 5-60V DC

• Battery
• Solar Panels

Powered from:

• USB C (5V)
• External 5-60V DC
• Battery
• Solar Panels

RS-485 Interface

• Industry Standard MODBUS

PCA9671 GPIO Expander

• Pi Header Inputs and Outputs
• TMP102 Digital Temperature Sensor

Voltage Regulators

• 5V SMPS 600mA
• 3V3 LDO 700mA

GROVE Ecosystem

• Standardised I2C Expansion Interface

ADC Inputs

• ESP32-C6 12-bit

PWM Output

• ESP32-C6

24C64 EEPROM

• 64Kbit (8192 x 8)
• On-board Data Logging and User Parameters
• UART Integrated Type C ‘ESP32-C6 DEV’ Interface
• RTC On-Board 32.768 kHz XTAL for ESP32-C6 Real Time Clock
• RGB Status User Programmable LED
• Tactile Buttons Reset and PGM / User

Software Development

The ESPuno Pi Zero, ESP32-C6 development is supported on the following examples, but not exclusively:

• Arduino IDE
• Bytebeam
• CircuitPython
• ESP Easy (Let's Control It)
• ESP RainMaker
• ESP ZeroCode
• ESPHome
• ESP-IDF FreeRTOS
• Espressif’s open-source ESP-IDF (Espressif IoT Development Framework)
• FreeRTOS (IDF)
• Home Assistant
• Matter Platforms
• MicroPython
• openHAB
• OpenPLC
• Platform IO (Cross-platform)
• Robot Framework
• Tasmota
• ThingsBoard
• Visual Studio Code (with ESP-IDF extension)
• Visual Studio Code(VS Code 2024)
• VisualGDB
• VSCode (with Platform IO)

Home Automation and IoT

The ESPuno Pi Zero, ESP32-C6 development could be used and supported on the following IoT platforms, but not exclusively:

• Home Assistant
• Domoticz
• openHAB
• Node-RED
• Zabbix
• ThingsBoard
• Google Cloud
• ThingSpeak
• EasyIoT
• RabbitMQ
• HiveMQ

Firmware Development Drivers/Framework

Examples of native development board drivers which supports ESPuno Pi Zero UART port for flashing and serial terminal:

• Adafruit Feather ESP32-C6
• DFRobot Beetle ESP32-C6
• IOXESP32-C6
• Xiao ESP32C6
• Olimex ESP32-C6 EVB
• ESP32-C6-DevKitM-1 (PIO framework = espidf)

GitHub

Further details and updates maybe also be found on our GitHub

Further Information

Additional information, and other technical details on this project, maybe found in the related repository pages.

Repository Folders

• Code(Code examples for Arduino IDE and Platform IO)
• Datasheets and Information(Component Datasheets, Schematics, Board Layouts, Photos, Technical Documentation)
• Certification(Related Repository Project or Part, Certification Information)

Repository Tabs

• Wiki (Related Repository Wiki pages and Technical User Information)
• Discussions (Related Repository User Discussion Forum)
• Issues (Related Repository Technical Issues and Fixes)

We value our Customers, Users of our designs and STEM Communities, all over the World. Should you have any other questions, or feedback to share to others, please feel free to:

Visit the related Project Repositories plus the related Discussions and Wiki Pages. See tab in each separate repository.

Project Community Information can be found at https://www.hackster.io/DitroniX

DitroniX.net Website - Contact Ushttps://ditronix.net/contact/

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LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/g8puo/

Dave Williams, Maidstone, Kent, UK.

Electronics Engineer | Software Developer | R&D Support | RF Engineering | Product Certification and Testing | STEM Ambassador

STEM

Supporting STEM Learning

Life is one long exciting learning curve, help others by setting the seed to knowledge.

Should you have any thoughts, or have a challenging application and would like to beta test a board, please let me know.