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First attempt at comms to TS4231

A project log for TS4231 - ESP8266 Lighthouse Tracking

Experimentation with the Triad Semiconductor TS4231, control words and gen 1 lighthouses (is it possible?!)

cnlohrCNLohr 04/22/2018 at 16:240 Comments

I was able to use the existing code I had prepared for esp8266lighthouse (https://github.com/cnlohr/esp8266lighthouse) and was able to modify the provided code from triad (https://github.com/TriadSemi/TS4231/blob/master/ts4231.cpp) to operate on the ESP8266.

I tried configuring the TS4231 using the default configuration word 0x392B, which is the default configuration.  The TS4231 conveniently allows you to read back the configuration word so I verified it could have its configurations set arbitrarily.  Sadly, when operating the base stations at 1.8MHz, no more envelopes or data passed. So, I figured maybe the message I need to send the TS4231 a different configuration, so I chugged away...


By using esp82xx's custom command system, it allows me to write javascript code to control and monitor things, so, I wrote some javascript to read GPIO inputs and configure the TS4231.  Automatically advancing through.  If the GPIOs ever received any lighting events, I would display them.  It allowed me to automatically test all 14-bit codes over the course of about 6 hours.

function GPIOUpdateCallback( n, m )
{
	var buttons = n;
	if( buttons != lastbuttons )
	{
		mark = 1;
	}
	lastbuttons = buttons;
	if( countthis++ > 120 )
	{
		if( mark ) 
		{
			console.log("!!!\n");
			document.getElementById( "results" ).innerHTML += commandid + "<BR>";
			mark = 0;
		}

                //Set the configuration word.
		QueueOperation( "CS"+commandid, function( req,data) { $("#custom_command_response").val( data ); } );

		document.getElementById("current").innerHTML = commandid;
		commandid++; //Advanced to next configuration word.
		countthis = 0;
	}
	
}
 

 I tried all 16384 combinations of config words.  There were no lighting events from the TS4231 after it was configured with the 1.8 MHz base station.  This is disheartening.  I am worried the TS4231 cannot operate at all unless there is encoded data in the OOTX and sweeps.

Up Next: Will be trying to use Nairol's custom base station firmware to increase frequency of base station and see if there's any combinations that the configured TS4231 will work with.

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