I am building 5 pieces of the Compact version. The pcb's came from pcb way, the bss123 mosfets came from here https://www.tme.eu/ro/details/bss123ixtsa1/tranzistori-canal-n-smd/infineon-technologies/. the pi picos are original raspberrys. The screens have been ordered from ali and all 5 behave the same - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001220638683.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.4.4cd21802nwPZro

As the title describes, when I connect the stripped board with just the display and the rpi board, if I get lucky enough for the thing to boot, the screen flickers and the rpi freezes and disconnects. I do not know what to try anymore. At first I thought it was the chinese LORA module, but on the second armachat pcb I did not even solder it. The behavior is the same if I power it through an external battery.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you.

One issue solved, a new one appeared.

I installed the new software and configured the config.py as indicated. The display shows only the snake in the corner.

The boot_out file gives the following error: boot.py output: Traceback (most recent call last): File "boot.py", line 11, in < module> File "/lib/picomputer.py", line 2, in < module> File "/lib/config.py", line 229, in < module> IndexError: Group index out of range

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Now reading and writing to config.txt file to keep settings between reboots

Notes:

• If a new property is added to config.py, it will be written to config.txt if it is one of the types included in config_includeTypes list.
• A property may be excluded by placing it in the config_excludeNames list.

Limitations

• To save configuration changes, the filesytem needs to be changed to writable on boot by pressing the ALT key.
• If the config.txt file is edited by hand comments are allowed but the whole line must be a comment. Inline comments are not allowed.
• If a hex, binary. or octal value is in the config.txt file, it will be changed to decimal if the config file is saved.
• Currently only str, int, and float types are supported.

A few more changes

boot.py

• The progress bar change was lost in previous check-in

code.py

• loraProfile settings now match Meshtastic
• Able to change freq on the fly
• Able to change power on the fly

config.py

• Changed comments for loraProfile settings
• Set loraProfile to 1

It is possible that I missed something, but I believe this complete list of changes.

• Formatting changes in all three files. I'm using the Mu editor, https://codewith.mu/, that has Check and Tidy functions to help standardize formatting. The formatting changes are from using those functions in the Mu editor.

boot.py

• Pull model information from config.py to obtain the model and keyboard setup information.

• Used the adafruit_matrixkeypad to scan the keyboard.

• Display prompts based on the Armachat model

• Added a progress bar to show remaining time to make a selection for safe and write modes.

code.py

• Added a function named screenSafeText, which removed characters from a string that is a non-printable character. There were some random errors due to received messages having non-printable characters. When the messages were displayed, there would be no font in the font file for them, which would cause the code to crash.

• Added a 0.1 second delay when checking for a key press. I was experiencing skipping screens as the left or right button (bsp, ent) was read twice or more on one key press. This is not a perfect solution but the results in a better user experience.

• Added try/catch blocks around attempts to read or write files. I would have rather used file exists for reads but it appears that CircuitPython's file library does not have an exists function. The use of try/catch blocks appears to be the preferred method to check for a file's existence.

• Corrected the prompt for left and right buttons when shown on line 8. If this is different on the max version, then it is best to add an if else block around these prompts. On the Compact model, the enter key is right and the delete/backspace is the left.

• In the function loraProfileSetup, modemPreset was assigned but was not referenced with the global keyword so it was treated as a local variable and would not impact the Armchat function. Added to the global keyword to fix the issue.

• Created the function radioInit to allow changing of the LoRa radio on the fly.

• Added the CPU Temperature from Kayto's code

• Added the Ping function from Kayto's code

config.py

• No changes other than format

Looking at the config around the IV and the use of it in the code it seems that the system would encrypt more than one message with the same IV, making the messages vulnerable to attacks explained here

This PR changes the mode to CBC, which can use a fixed IV, and has minimal drawbacks. An alternative to this would be to use a nonce as the IV and send it along with the ciphertext for use in decryption.

Thanks!

I am not much help on the circuitpython coding here but for a typical framework for addressable Headers- to allow rejection of random packets and allow specific addresses then the following may be of use.

https://github.com/LowPowerLab/RFM69 Send and recieve code shows networkid and node id as part of header. I have used Moetino networks for sensor data and its really reliable.

I was just going to make a pull request as I made several changes than make the compact version more stable and usable. I see some changes made today so I will compare and see if everything was addressed in your update.

Fixes made following forks

• richteel/Armachat-circuitpython
• Kayto/Armachat-circuitpython

• Much more stable
• Viewing messages after sending a message does not cause a crash
• Index issue fixed to prevent random crashes
• The boot.py file is setup for Compact version. Use previous version if using max version
• BTW: Save memory to flash does work if you change the file system to write mode by pressing the ALT key when booting and pressing the S key when viewing messages.