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.
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…
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.