This firmware runs on the Othernet Dreamcatcher satellite data receiver. The receiver's primary component's include the ESP32/ESP32-S2 from Espressif Systems, Semtech SX1281 LoRa transceiver, Texas Instruments TPS-65235 13V regulator, and Microchip MIC5353 3.3V regulator.

This firmware has been tested on both the ESP32 and ESP32-S2 wifi microntrollers. Due to high memory usage only wrover modules/boards will work (with SPIRAM). The Dreamcatcher 4 should be available for purchase in April of 2021.

This firmware is used to control the voltage to a standard, commercially-available satellite LNB. The LNB takes a 12 GHz signal and downconverts it to a range that can be received by the SX1281. The SX1281 demodulates the downconverted LoRa carrier and sends packets to the ESP32 over SPI. Downloaded packets are turned into files and stored on the microSD.

The ESP32 can create a wifi access point and also connect to an existing wifi network. By defaul, Dreamcatcher operates in access point (AP) mode. Changes to wifi settings can be made through the web interface. Configuration of the SX1281 (frequency, spreading factor, coding rate) is also done through the web interface.

Getting started

This application is prepared to build with arduino as component. Easiest way is to clone with git clone --recursive. Because most recent arduino release (v4.x) is in beta stage this application was prepared and tested with particular esp-idf commit. Curently it is https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/commit/b0150615dff529662772a60dcb57d5b559f480e2

Some settings can be changed in customize.h.

Building on Ubuntu/Debian

To setup everything and build the Dreamcatcher 4 Firmware you can follow the following Steps on Ubuntu/Debian (tested on Ubuntu 18.04).

Install needed packages & Setup python 3 as default

sudo apt-get install git wget flex bison gperf python3 python3-pip python3-setuptools cmake ninja-build ccache libffi-dev libssl-dev dfu-util libusb-1.0-0
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3 10 && alias pip=pip3

Install esp-idf at Commit b0150615dff529662772a60dcb57d5b559f480e2

mkdir -p ~/esp
cd ~/esp
git clone https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git
cd esp-idf,
git checkout b0150615dff529662772a60dcb57d5b559f480e2
git submodule update --init --recursive
./install.sh

Prepare Dreamcatcher Firmware

go to a folder you like and do the following commands

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Othernet-Project/Dreamcatcher.git
cd Dreamcatcher
cp CMakeLists.txt_arduino-esp32 components/arduino/CMakeLists.txt

Build Firmware for a Target & flash

First export idf so you can use the idf.py commands: . ~/esp/esp-idf/export.sh.

You can build for ESP32s2 (DC4 Board) or ESP32 (if you have one for testing for example), just replace the content of sdkconfig with either sdkconfig-esp32 or sdkconfig-esp32s2. The Default sdkonfig is equal to ESP32s2, if you setup the sdkconfig you want run idf.py build.

There is also a build.sh you can use to build for both ESPs at once, just export idf with . ~/esp/esp-idf/export.sh and then run ./build.sh.

If that is successful you can flash your ESP Board, connect it to your PC and use dmesg | grep tty to find your serial device id.

Then use sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER to set the Permissions as needed, you need to restart/relogin to make the changes take affect.

After this you can Flash your board with idf.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 flash.

Possible runtime issues

there is change in esp-idf i2c and arduino-esp32 has not been updated yet, this requires to update esp32-hal-i2c.c line 1819 with code i2c_config_t conf = {0};
some changes may be required in https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/idf-release/v4.2/CMakeLists.txt, in this repository is included file with fixed content: https://github.com/chegewara/dreamcatcher4/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt_arduino-esp32

chegewara / Dreamcatcher