Hi all! I’m a firmware developer with little knowledge in analog electronics… I deal with firmware for IOT projects all the time.

I had to make a breakout board with an off the shelf RF module with self contained PCB antenna. Now I’m intrigued in the hardware side. I’m inclined to design them from scratch myself. (Obviously ignoring the EMI and FCC certifications for the time being).

What concepts should I be familiar with to achieve this? Starting on I figured to brush up on circuit theory and signals. Where do I go from here? What materials would you recommend? Hopefully I don’t need to get into hardcore RF theory to design these PCBs (I know kicad already has these premade antenna blocks).

Thank you.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    I’ve been blow away how inexpensive they’ve become. I’m getting 1W 433 modules for like $15 now, I think I got them off amazon last time. They’re not on a public band or power rating, at least for NA, but I have a ham license so in my area I’m OK, and besides, nobody else is going to notice.

    At one time I was using the Heltec Lora V2 modules but they’re way more expensive for low power and I became convinced they had no ESD hardening because if I looked at them sideways they’d crater.

    I made a couple of my own shit designs with integrated antennas and they worked, but it’s not my forte. I made them because getting 433 was hard at the time, and I was convinced I needed the lower freq to get better LOS through trees.

    • ntn888@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      I’m getting 1W 433 modules for like $15 now

      haha I guess cheap is relative :) I was considering parts at 4 to 5$ range. But i’m talking about low power ble/zigbee etc…

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Well, with some of my telemetry I’m trying to punch 10 klicks so there’s no kill like overkill. The little SX1278s are inexpensive and they’re legal power, and there’s plenty of examples out there for them.

        I kinda like the UART design on the e32s though, but it was a struggle getting the library that uses them to work, and there’s little tricks like having to initialize the serial independent of his constructors, you read the code and it supposedly opens the serial, but it doesn’t work if you don’t do it beforehand, at least with the modules I was using.