KC868-A32

Overview

Kincony KC868-A32 is a home automation relay module based on the Espressif ESP32 ESP-WROOM-32 module with all its inherent capabilities (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.)

Hardware

The features include the following:

  • 32 digital optoisolated inputs “dry contact”

  • 4 analog inputs 0-5 V

  • 32 relays 220 V, 10 A (COM, NO, NC)

  • RS485 interface

  • I2C connector

  • Connector GSM/HMI

  • Ethernet LAN8270A

  • USB Type-B connector for programming and filling firmware

  • RESET and DOWNLOAD buttons

  • Powered by 12V DC

ESP32 Features

  • Dual core Xtensa microprocessor (LX6), running at 160 or 240MHz

  • 520KB of SRAM

  • 802.11b/g/n/e/i

  • Bluetooth v4.2 BR/EDR and BLE

  • Various peripherals:

    • 12-bit ADC with up to 18 channels

    • 2x 8-bit DACs

    • 10x touch sensors

    • 4x SPI

    • 2x I2S

    • 2x I2C

    • 3x UART

    • SD/SDIO/MMC host

    • Slave (SDIO/SPI)

    • Ethernet MAC

    • CAN bus 2.0

    • IR (RX/TX)

    • Motor PWM

    • LED PWM with up to 16 channels

    • Hall effect sensor

    • Temperature sensor

  • Cryptographic hardware acceleration (RNG, ECC, RSA, SHA-2, AES)

  • 5uA deep sleep current

Asymmetric Multiprocessing (AMP)

ESP32 allows 2 different applications to be executed in ESP32 SoC. Due to its dual-core architecture, each core can be enabled to execute customized tasks in stand-alone mode and/or exchanging data over OpenAMP framework. See Inter-Processor Communication (IPC) folder as code reference.

For more information, check the ESP32 Datasheet [1] or the ESP32 Technical Reference Manual [2].

System Requirements

Binary Blobs

Espressif HAL requires RF binary blobs in order work. Run the command below to retrieve those files.

west blobs fetch hal_espressif

Note

It is recommended running the command above after west update.

Programming and Debugging

The kincony_kc868_a32 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug attach debugserver rtt
esp32 ✅ (default)
openocd ✅ ✅ (default) ✅ ✅ ✅

Simple Boot

The board could be loaded using the single binary image, without 2nd stage bootloader. It is the default option when building the application without additional configuration.

Note

Simple boot does not provide any security features nor OTA updates.

MCUboot Bootloader

User may choose to use MCUboot bootloader instead. In that case the bootloader must be built (and flashed) at least once.

There are two options to be used when building an application:

  1. Sysbuild

  2. Manual build

Note

User can select the MCUboot bootloader by adding the following line to the board default configuration file.

CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT=y

Sysbuild

The sysbuild makes possible to build and flash all necessary images needed to bootstrap the board with the ESP32 SoC.

To build the sample application using sysbuild use the command:

west build -b <board> --sysbuild samples/hello_world

By default, the ESP32 sysbuild creates bootloader (MCUboot) and application images. But it can be configured to create other kind of images.

Build directory structure created by sysbuild is different from traditional Zephyr build. Output is structured by the domain subdirectories:

build/
├── hello_world
│   └── zephyr
│       ├── zephyr.elf
│       └── zephyr.bin
├── mcuboot
│    └── zephyr
│       ├── zephyr.elf
│       └── zephyr.bin
└── domains.yaml

Note

With --sysbuild option the bootloader will be re-build and re-flash every time the pristine build is used.

For more information about the system build please read the Sysbuild (System build) documentation.

Manual Build

During the development cycle, it is intended to build & flash as quickly possible. For that reason, images can be built one at a time using traditional build.

The instructions following are relevant for both manual build and sysbuild. The only difference is the structure of the build directory.

Note

Remember that bootloader (MCUboot) needs to be flash at least once.

Build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b <board> samples/hello_world

The usual flash target will work with the board configuration. Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b <board> samples/hello_world
west flash

Open the serial monitor using the following command:

west espressif monitor

After the board has automatically reset and booted, you should see the following message in the monitor:

***** Booting Zephyr OS vx.x.x-xxx-gxxxxxxxxxxxx *****
Hello World! <board>

Board variants using Snippets

ESP32 boards can be assembled with different modules using multiple combinations of SPI flash sizes, PSRAM sizes and PSRAM modes. The snippets under snippets/espressif provide a modular way to apply these variations at build time without duplicating board definitions.

The following snippet-based variants are supported:

Snippet name

Description

Flash memory size

flash-4M

Board with 4MB of flash

flash-8M

Board with 8MB of flash

flash-16M

Board with 16MB of flash

flash-32M

Board with 32MB of flash

PSRAM memory size

psram-2M

Board with 2MB of PSRAM

psram-4M

Board with 4MB of PSRAM

psram-8M

Board with 8MB of PSRAM

PSRAM utilization

psram-reloc

Relocate flash to PSRAM

psram-wifi

Wi-Fi buffers in PSRAM

To apply a board variant, use the -S flag with west build:

west build -b <board> -S flash-32M -S psram-4M samples/hello_world

Note

These snippets are applicable to boards with compatible hardware support for the selected flash/PSRAM configuration.

  • If no FLASH snippet is used, the board default flash size will be used.

  • If no PSRAM snippet is used, the board default psram size will be used.

Enabling Ethernet

Enable Ethernet in KConfig:

CONFIG_NETWORKING=y
CONFIG_NET_L2_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_MDIO=y

References