I was testing the IR receiption using the IRMP lib with the D32 board now and it turns out it got the same issues like the S3, but at least it works in single core mode. However as soon as you try to put the IR listening to the second core, the D32 ends in a boot loop.
There probably is a way to fix this but meanwhile I put focus on the secondary microcontrollers für IR receiption. In the last post I attached a picture with a set of possible candidates. I suggest to drop those without TX/RX capabilities which are the ATTINY variants and go for one of the ESPs. The ESP-01 is the cheapest variant and got all required I/O to get the job done. Any other ESP8266 or ESP32 will do too but are actually an overkill for the small task.
Why TX/RX? It is the simplest way to send the information to the main board, for an ATTAG 2.0 version those could even communicate via wifi, so a hit receiver on a helmet or backpack wouldn’t require a cable. But that is nothing for the first release version. My lasertag experiences tell me additional hitpoints are not really important. As long as all players play fair, not covering the IR receiver.
Since it also needs to provide information who actually shot just an 0 or 1 isn’t enough. That is where the TX/RX comes in handy. All receivers will be connected to RX of the main board then, giving the opportunity of a flexible number of detectors.
Here the cleaned up breadboard with one working IR receiver ESP-01 connected to RX of the D32 board. Two things left to test, then I’ll get some PCB for a “release candidate”. First thing to test is the shutdown/wakeup of the PAM audio board. The static noises are just annoying so it makes sense to activate the amp only when it is required. I am not sure if the switiching will be fast enough though. Up to now I could just switch it off but not reenable it. Other way of course using some capacitors. Second, the IR sender. I had some working circuit already but it was a bit overkill and required two more diodes, the TIP120 is too big so I’ll go a step down to a smaller transistor.
much cleaner now… 🙂