Dual radio with Expansion Board

Expansion Radio Board

The LoRa module uses the SPI pins for communication. The SPI port allows more speed communication and frees up the Waspmote's UART for other purposes. The Expansion Board allows to connect 2 communication modules at the same time in the Waspmote sensor platform. This means a lot of different combinations are possible using any of the wireless radios available for Waspmote: 802.15.4, ZigBee 3, DigiMesh, 868 MHz, 900 MHz, LoRa, WiFi, NB-IoT / Cat-M, 4G, Sigfox, LoRaWAN, Bluetooth Pro, Bluetooth Low Energy and RFID/NFC. Besides, the following Industrial Protocols modules are available: RS-485/Modbus and CAN Bus.

Some of the possible combinations are:

• LoRaWAN - 4G

• 802.15.4 - Sigfox

• 868 MHz - RS-485

• NB-IoT / Cat-M - WiFi

• DigiMesh - 4G

• NB-IoT / Cat-M - RFID/NFC

• WiFi - 4G

• CAN Bus - Bluetooth

• etc

NB-IoT / Cat-M and 4G modules do not need the Expansion Board to be connected to Waspmote. They can be plugged directly in the socket1.

Figure: Dual radio with expansion board

The LoRa module can be used only in the SOCKET0. If the user wants to use a wireless radio, they must use the SOCKET1.

Warnings:

• Avoid to use DIGITAL7 pin when working with the Expansion Board. This pin is used for setting the XBee into sleep mode.

• Avoid to use DIGITAL6 pin when working with the Expansion Board. This pin is used as power supply for the Expansion Board.

• Incompatibility with Sensor Boards:

  • Agriculture PRO v30: Incompatible with Watermark and solar radiation sensors

  • Events v30: Incompatible with interruption shift register

  • Smart Water v30: DIGITAL7 incompatible with conductivity sensor

  • Smart Water Ions v30: Incompatible with ADC conversion (sensors cannot be read if the Expansion Board is in use)

  • Gases PRO v30: Incompatible with SOCKET_2 and SOCKET_3

  • Cities PRO v30: Incompatible with SOCKET_3. I2C bus can be used. No gas sensor can be used.