B4R Question Hardware Suggestions

[aaronk]

Hi,

Based on the following project, I am not sure on what the best way is in doing it, if I do it with B4R or if I do it with B4J.

I am posting this question in the B4R thread as I am thinking it might be better to do it with B4R since the hardware might be the what I need to use.

First of all, I have never used B4R before so not 100% sure on the hardware required for B4R and hoping someone can point me in the right direction based on what I am trying to do.

I am wanting to connect a serial connection (RS232) of a device, and then send the serial data to a MQTT broker and then view the data on B4A/B4i using MQTT.

I have had a play with it and managed to get it working in B4J running from my PC, but was thinking of using B4R so I can have a play with it since I have never used it before, but wasn't sure what hardware to use based on this project.

I looked on the B4X forum and found this project should be easy enough to be done using B4R based on what I have read.

So, doing it with B4R should be no problem, but not sure what hardware to use.

I am hoping to have a serial port and LAN port on the board I use. Looking at the Arduino hardware, it looks like I need to purchase extra boards to add the serial port or LAN port? This is the part I was hoping someone could help with what hardware would be best to use?

Would B4R be the best way in 'proxying / bridging' the data or would you do it with B4J? (If B4J is the way to go, what hardware would suggest?)

I was also hoping to embed the OS and software etc on the board rather than using an SD Card (one less thing that could go wrong in the future, and one less thing people could pull out) since I don't want people to clone the project and use it on there own hardware etc, so I want to avoid using the SD Card to store the OS etc.

Anyone got any suggestions on what hardware to use, and know if it's best to use B4R or B4J ?

 

[janderkan]

I would use an ESP32 based board.
It have an extra hardware serial port and you connect to the network using WiFi.
Everything you need for 4$

 

[BillMeyer]

I would agree with ESP32 - brilliant board and very powerful !!

Many examples are here in this forum for MQTT, UDP etc for you to use.

TAKE NOTE:
Standard RS232 (Serial) and the Serial on the ESP32 differ. The one on the board is commonly referred to as TTL serial and will not talk to a standard PC type RS232 (or PC Serial). To be able to do this you will need to add a board in between (Like This) which will convert the logic bi-directionally for you.

For better understanding it would be like @Peter Simpson trying to speak to @DonManfred in his mother tongue - there is no guarantee that either will be understood - BUT - if you add Google Translate in between then both parties can speak to each other !!

Also remember that, for testing, Mosquitto (MQTT Broker) have a public IP that you can use for free to test if you prefer not to use the MQTT broker that comes free in B4J !!

Enjoy your project - always interesting to learn new things !!

 

[aaronk]

I would use an ESP32 based board.

I would agree with ESP32 - brilliant board and very powerful !!

Do you have any links to the hardware you recommend ?

you connect to the network using WiFi.

I was hoping to connect by hardwired LAN and not WiFi.

 

[BillMeyer]

I was hoping to connect by hardwired LAN and not WiFi.

ESP32 (TTGO ESP32 Development Board)

Something like this: (Ethernet Shield) - Will work but be careful for one thing - Arduino does not have much memory to play with - you might possibly end up going with a MEGA (Arduino MEGA 2560)