M5GO IOT Starter Kit - Using Units Part 2

M5GO IOT Starter Kit Part 3 - Using Units Part 2

Part 1 = https://www.hackster.io/AJB2K3/m5go-iot-starter-kit-part-1-8ef6ae

Part 2 Using Units = https://www.hackster.io/AJB2K3/m5go-iot-starter-kit-using-units-722343

In the third part of this series I continue looking at the Units that Come with the M5GO IOT Starter Kit. In Part 2 I covered the simplest uses of the ENV Unit, the Angle Unit, and the PIR motion Sensor Unit.

In this part I look at the RGB LED Unit, the IR unit, the Grove Hub.

RGB LED Unit

The RGB unit consists of three SK6812 addressable RGB LEDs connected in series. If you have additional RGB Units you can increase the amount of lit LEDs.

The RGB Unit is controlled by only the three following blocks in UIFlow 2 and the number of RGB LED's connected is controlled by the init block that is automatically added to the setup section when the RGB Unit is selected.

The Set Index block is used for setting the colour of each individual RGB LED in a RGB Unit whereas the Fill Colour block is used to set the same colour to all RGB LED's.

The Last block, the Set Brightness block is used to set the brightness level of all the RGB LED's connected together.

This example can be imported into UIFlow2 from UIFlows2's Project zone here: https://uiflow2.m5stack.com/?pkey=680e9f911df94430848009b5f3f1201f

The IR Unit

The IR or Mini Infrared Unit contains a matched infrared LED emitter and photodiode for IR communications. The IR only supports the NEC IR Protocol but as it is a common protocol then it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

There are only two blocks in UIFlow for controlling the IR unit and they are:

The IR Send address is used to transmit IR codes and the:

The IR Receive Data block is a loop function that scans the photodiode and waits for specific IR codes to be received. once these codes are received functions placed inside the block will be triggered.

1 to3 Hub

The 1 to 3 Hub doesn't have it own function blocks as it nothing more then a three way adapter for connect more then one I2C Unit to the I2C port. As this is just a three way connector, all I2C devices must have separate I2C address'. If you need to connect multiple I2C devices with the same I2C address you will need to use a PAHub.

Optional 1 - Earth Unit

The M5Stack Earth Moisture unit or Earth Unit is a resistive moisture sensor normally for for detecting how wet soil or compost is in a pot plant. The problem with resistive Earth Moisture sensors is that they tend the copper tips tend to corrode due to electrolysis between the tips.

The Earth Unit has four value blocks for reading the voltage level between the probes:

And one block for calibrating the minimum and maximum thresholds for the soil the sensor is placed in..

Due to the know issues with resistive moisture sensors, it is recommended to use the watering unit, which is a capacitive moisture sensor, instead. you can find the Watering unit here: https://shop.m5stack.com/products/watering-unit-with-mositure-sensor-and-pump?ref=pfpqkvphmgr

The following example uses the Earth Unit to measure soil humidity and moisture level.

You can import the above example into UIFlow by clicking this project in UIFlow2's Project centre: https://uiflow2.m5stack.com/?pkey=3dd144a31f32480e9a7ed95461a9107a

Optional 2 - Light Unit

Just like the Earth sensor, the Light Unit was an optional unit that came in some of the M5GO kits. The Light Sensor Unit has three blocks available in UIFlow2 for retrieving values from the unit.

Get Digital Value returns a 1 if light is detected or a 0 if no light is detected.

Get Analog Value returns a value between 0 and 65535 depending on light level where 0 is dark and 65535 is bright.

Get Ohm returns the estimated resistance value of the LDR.

The following UIFlow2 example shows the light level with a value from 0 (dark) to 065535 (Light).

You can import the above example in UIFlow2's project zone with this link: https://uiflow2.m5stack.com/?pkey=4f9913d30fe64c48812b5d32b093132f

Thats all the Units now covered, the next part will be all about the Base.

Contact Me.

If you find this useful then there is more crossover guides coming. You can drop a Message in Hackster.io message box below of find me via the following links:

https://github.com/Ajb2k3

https://twitter.com/Cpt_J_Purcell

https://bsky.app/profile/jamespurcell.bsky.social

On Discord (if I ever work out how to share the profile!)https://mastodonapp.uk/@AdamBryant

And on the M5Stack Facebook group and community forum.

If you have some spare change you can now buy me a tea @ https://bmc.link/ajb2k35