SparkFun Electronics Commentsurn:uuid:214d0e4e-f1b1-d287-ce26-ac5b4c9f82492024-03-28T20:06:14-06:00SparkFun ElectronicsM-Short on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitM-Shorturn:uuid:d2bd191f-eb1d-544f-ac38-a8da783495722015-10-27T15:35:32-06:00<p>The most common shields are for Arduino boards that connect to the Arduino footprint. Since this board does not have the Arduino footprint an Arduino shield will not fit on it. We do have a few shields designed for this board, but none are for motors. But a motor shield really is just a motor driver and which one works best depends more on the motor(s) you are using than the microcontroller. Figure out which type of motor(s) you want, how much current you need and what features you want and then take a look at different motor drivers available. If you still have questions feel free to email techsupport@sparkfun.com</p>
Customer #733323 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #733323urn:uuid:cfbe512c-0fe8-0b8a-7db5-85077ee3615a2015-10-27T11:13:05-06:00<p>Which motor shield can I hook this up to?</p>
Customer #733323 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #733323urn:uuid:d4c6fe50-9822-e732-0b6f-1a2bf4fb234b2015-10-27T10:23:48-06:00<p>What would be the best way to get multiple Photons to communicate with each other? I think setting up a web server that acts as home base for these guys to relay messages through would be the ideal or only route?</p>
chipaudette on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitchipaudetteurn:uuid:205fa3cc-3a92-6620-e33c-def94747083f2015-09-10T20:47:28-06:00<p>Experienced Arduino (and Teensy) user here. New to the Photon, though. I got a Photon free from Sparkfun (thanks guys!) as part of a competition. Sadly I had a pretty bad first-day user experience. IMO, new users on Windows should beware...<p>When I arrived, I unboxed it. Very very attractive packaging. The packaging pointed me to www.spark.io/start, so I went there as instructed. After pointing out its physical features, it wanted me to connect to it via my iOS or Android device. It also offered for me to "Connect over USB" instead, so that's what I selected. I'm a Windows 7 user, so I followed the specific instructions for Windows.</p><p>First, I grabbed the latest node.js installation, as instructed. Later I learned that Photon might not be compatible with Node 4.0 (though I don't think that this was my issue, yet), so I uninstalled 4.0 and re-installed an older version. Annoying, but easy enough. I restarted my computer, as instructed. Also annoying, but easy.</p><p>The instructions then say to download the latest Photon driver. I did so. I plugged in the Photon, as instructed. It showed up as a Teensy. Unexpected, but OK. I did "Update Driver", as instructed by the Photon instructions and pointed Windows to the new Photon drivers. It seemed to work fine. It might make my Teensy experience annoying later, but let's not worry about that now.</p><p>Continuing with the instructions, I opened a command prompt. I issued "npm install -g particle-cli" to install the photon's command line interface. It bombed out. :(</p><p>The problem appeared to be with serialport@1.7.4. The error messages say that it couldn't find VCBuild.exe. There was no mention of this possibility in the getting started docs.</p><p>To solve the issue, the command line error suggested that I either install .NET Framework 2.0 SDK (hello 2006) or to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (um, hello 2005). I foolishly tried to install .NET Framework 2.0 (not the SDK), but Windows wouldn't allow it. I then realized my error and went to install the SDK. I saw that the SDK was 354MB and figured that something wasn't right with this whole installation process.</p><p>I then pawed through their website a bit to find some help. It's beautiful and heavy on the self promotion, but not a lot of info on the setup troubleshooting. Finally, I ended up on their github for the command line interface, where it said this:</p><p>"Version 1.4.0 of Spark CLI includes Photon setup support for OS X only at the moment. Windows and Linux support are imminent."</p><p>Yeah. Thanks. There was no mention of this is the "Windows" section of "Getting Started". Might have been a relevant thing to say? I think so. My vote is that Photon is not ready for prime time. Sorry, guys.</p></p>
Customer #224245 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #224245urn:uuid:7de5b94e-5a73-b910-b903-25c0d23f3ca52015-08-29T16:55:01-06:00<p>The windows drivers are not digitally signed. To install in Win 8 or higher you have to disable the security settings that prevent unsigned drivers from installing. This is a serious security issue that particle could have and should have fixed before releasing the software.</p>
Customer #8703 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #8703urn:uuid:75d51dca-f9f0-772f-0aee-c9368ba807192015-08-29T10:25:45-06:00<p>is the male presenter in the video healed yet? I had my jaw wired once. Not fun.</p>
Waruma on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitWarumaurn:uuid:74f435d7-eedb-92db-ccc1-cd63c5c415942015-08-23T17:32:04-06:00<p>Is it possible to buy any of these without the breadboard and other accessories?</p>
glenndrives on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitglenndrivesurn:uuid:a2b6d230-6095-29cc-f570-4017217df6e22015-08-21T13:04:45-06:00<p>Will you be doing all of this for the electron when it comes out?</p>
Customer #338310 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #338310urn:uuid:dbc4e036-c256-265b-13d0-6dc779aaac862015-08-21T09:49:35-06:00<p>Can this device be setup in wireless AP mode and act as a webserver?</p>
Customer #590914 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #590914urn:uuid:700ad049-1c3b-3442-e2ad-e8a7c8215a0b2015-08-12T16:36:51-06:00<p>I just got my hands on one of these through some other gracious channels, and I can say that it is quite the cool! I want another!<p>One question I have is have you considered making a usb host shield for this device? I have a scenario that could take advantage of that.</p></p>
M-Short on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitM-Shorturn:uuid:e446f709-e779-f30e-c4e5-8bfc7fbf3a962015-07-20T15:52:10-06:00<p>Sorry, I believe Particle ran into an issue with one of the ICs slowing down production. I believe it is all taken care, and we should have these available around mid August.</p>
Neighbor Nick on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitNeighbor Nickurn:uuid:bac0d139-08bb-5f7d-e054-c383df3690192015-07-20T15:05:59-06:00<p>Bueller, Bueller, anyone? Can we please get an update on the status of these? Thanks!</p>
Neighbor Nick on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitNeighbor Nickurn:uuid:41144646-fcc0-2635-d824-de405d06d7922015-07-09T13:57:28-06:00<p>Any update on the status of these?</p>
tripzero on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kittripzerourn:uuid:56444181-6238-b150-9959-36e6f11179802015-07-02T13:48:06-06:00<p>Yes.</p>
detour on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitdetoururn:uuid:454ba4d3-2a5a-e8ff-1e28-d5543396f6052015-06-18T13:33:33-06:00<p>Where is the documentation?</p>
M-Short on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitM-Shorturn:uuid:51cc4dfb-8037-8ed4-5a70-29b74f54812a2015-06-15T09:41:06-06:00<p>Hopefully that will be fixed soon. The basically haven't been released yet. I believe we are planning on shipping this month though.</p>
Customer #546099 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #546099urn:uuid:dff938ab-f3e3-f8a6-d4be-28e40dd485592015-06-13T21:16:58-06:00<p>The biggest problem of photon is its availability; you cannot get one without long-time-waiting.</p>
M-Short on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitM-Shorturn:uuid:4ec80f8e-51f1-e256-0517-03aaf143681f2015-06-01T09:58:26-06:00<p>Not yet, since this is still preorder. Once we have these in stock and they are ready to go we will. Until they you can try Particle's site directly but I don't know if they've been released yet.</p>
detour on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitdetoururn:uuid:71e7f566-476a-bc5e-142d-b781fd0b35672015-05-29T19:21:18-06:00<p>Where is the documentation for pin outs, etc.</p>
Customer #440278 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #440278urn:uuid:3f2c7e2d-c0fe-bc9b-68a2-107a8494a2ad2015-05-29T17:01:43-06:00<p>Can the photon be programmed over the wifi rather than usb (assuming some other power source)?</p>
jimblom on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitjimblomurn:uuid:df4fb386-4d69-daea-444c-577cb58f89252015-05-29T09:15:03-06:00<p>There are a few options. They've got a <a href="https://build.particle.io/build" rel="nofollow">cloud IDE</a> and a similar <a href="https://www.particle.io/dev" rel="nofollow">local IDE</a> (that compiles in the cloud). Or, since it's open source and ARM-based, you can use ARM-gcc to set up your own environment; their README in <a href="https://github.com/spark/firmware" rel="nofollow">this repo</a> has a lot of good information on setting that up.</p>
Customer #686872 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #686872urn:uuid:3b84c922-e338-274c-f03e-4b1da2a936702015-05-29T09:13:04-06:00<p>Great question! The Photon is open source hardware and software, so you can grab all our firmware here ( github.com/spark/firmware ) if you like and compile locally, or you can use the particle-cli ( https://github.com/spark/particle-cli ) to compile online and flash locally, or remotely, or Dev ( https://github.com/spark/spark-dev/ ) our local IDE, or our web ide ( https://build.particle.io ). :)<p>Lots of details in our docs here - http://docs.particle.io/photon/start/ -- You can even control it from the default Tinker app / firmware without any programming at all. (if you can't tell I work at Particle!)</p></p>
whotookdman977 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitwhotookdman977urn:uuid:bb562c58-c8b1-95e9-8564-8f71aeeeb6552015-05-29T08:42:08-06:00<p>Will you be selling the Photon as a stand-alone part, or do I need to go directly to Spark/Particle?</p>
jimblom on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitjimblomurn:uuid:12282079-19b6-33f2-c9ef-fa5cf886c1302015-05-29T08:39:21-06:00<p>That's one way to do it - you can check out the cloud IDE <a href="https://build.particle.io/build" rel="nofollow">here</a>. There's also an offline IDE - <a href="https://www.particle.io/dev" rel="nofollow">Particle Dev</a> - if you prefer that.</p>
jimblom on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kitjimblomurn:uuid:3912fe67-f33b-b2c1-b23d-9d63bbc97b0c2015-05-29T08:38:04-06:00<p>There's an offline IDE called <a href="https://www.particle.io/dev" rel="nofollow">Particle Dev</a>. And the Photon has a DFU bootloader, so you can load code over USB if you prefer that to OTA. Plus everything's <a href="http://spark.github.io/" rel="nofollow">open source</a> - so you can download and re-compile any of the firmware.</p>
Customer #218 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #218urn:uuid:a48f5cca-3334-f793-3723-93a6b84516942015-05-29T08:26:03-06:00<p>From halfway down at https://www.particle.io/prototype, it looks like an "online" Arduino IDE like setup. Guess you write the code in your browser and it updates it into the Photon over the internet?!?</p>
o9guy on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon Kito9guyurn:uuid:74481bed-26a2-da67-6f38-6fc2b289fab72015-05-29T07:55:44-06:00<p>Is there an offline IDE/development method? The description says "The Particle Cloud has some great features for building connected projects, including over-the-air firmware updates, an easy-to-use REST API, and firmware development supported by web and local IDEs." I'd rather not be tied to a cloud-based development platform. I do see "and firmware development supported by web and local IDEs." but I'm not sure if that's referring to local development of firmware or userspace code. Thanks in advance for any clarification!</p>
Customer #394180 on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitCustomer #394180urn:uuid:cbba9063-0612-06c0-9a0a-5fdfd0363a8f2015-05-29T07:38:01-06:00<p>What's the development system for this? Editor, compiler, loader, debugger, etc.</p>
ChrisBob on KIT-13345 - Particle Photon KitChrisBoburn:uuid:042b844b-61a9-54d2-ece3-def32a4833b72015-05-29T07:36:37-06:00<p>Nice touch adding a photon emitter and detector to the Photon Kit!</p>