Extendability of the Nordic Thingy:52?

[JohanHWB]

Hey,

Up until now I have only been dealing with software. Now however, I want to create a device that I can use to track my bike by GPS and heading. In the future, I want to act given certain light conditions, like turn a light on when it becomes dark.

So to me, it seems like the Thingy52 will make all this possible? But .. what I don't get is how does the T52 actually make things happen? It has a lot of sensors, but .. how can I use this data to turn on an external light? I would prefer that the lights dim in and out, so I can't use a simple electrical relay..

I assume I'll need to connect additional things to the T52? But can this be done?

Any and all input appreciated.

Thanks! 

[Øyvind]

Hello,

Do you mean Thingy:52 or Thingy:91? The latter is the one with GPS and LTE modem. 

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[JohanHWB]

Thanks for your reply, and sorry, I should have included both.

As far as I understand: I'll assume that the gyro on the Thingy:52 can be used to obtain compass heading while motionless?

So I believe I'll need the T52 for heading and the Thingy:91 for GPS tracking (which uses LTE-M to update backend). Is this correct?

I get a sneaking feeling that I may be better off with some other hardware..

Johan

[Øyvind]

If you only need the gyro for compass heading from the Thingy:52, why not just add an external module to the Thingy:91? 
There are some additional GPIO you can use. See this thread.

[JohanHWB]

Why indeed :-)

Well, the final product will probably have almost all the features of T52 combined with the GPS and LTE-M from T91. However, for the MVP we plan only on using the gyro from T52.. Down the line we plan to use almost every other feature as well.

With no experience in this field, I wasn't really able to tell by looking at the PCB if any of the Thingy's can be extended. So how or where is the interface to hook up external modules?

Also, I was a bit disappointed to read that the speaker (which also wasn't indicated on the PCB overview in the PDF of the T52) reduces the precision of the compass. We don't need the speaker.. Can I simply ... remove it from the board?

I really appreciate your input Øyvind. Jeg antar du også er norsk? Takk for hjelp så langt.

[Øyvind]

Hei igjen Johan 

Norsk her, ja. Sittende på hovedkontoret vårt i Trondheim. Men fortsetter samtale på engelsk, da dette er en public ticket 

JohanHWB said:

With no experience in this field, I wasn't really able to tell by looking at the PCB if any of the Thingy's can be extended. So how or where is the interface to hook up external modules?

 I could have been more specific with regards to that. The Thingy:91 documentation has more information about the topic. The Pin Map chapter shows which pins are spare, e.g. SPARE1 = P0.06 - Digital GPIO externally available. Note that the spare pins are connected to the board controller nRF52840. While the available connectors on the board are described in the Connectors chapter

In Connector Pinouts, we see that P6 has spare pins 1 to 6. A more detailed overview can be also found in the Hardware description files found on the Thingy:91 download page, this includes schematics and layout in pdf format: PCA20035_Schematic_And_PCB.pdf
 

JohanHWB said:

Also, I was a bit disappointed to read that the speaker (which also wasn't indicated on the PCB overview in the PDF of the T52) reduces the precision of the compass. We don't need the speaker.. Can I simply ... remove it from the board?

Removing the speaker or any other part by desoldering might be more timeconsuming if you are not experienced with HW, I would recommend getting an external module with gyro/compass e.g. the SEN-13762 from SparkFun. This will also add more functionality to the Thingy:91 with Gyroscope, (an extra) Accelerometer and Magnetometer (compass), along with the sensors already on the board i.e. color sensor and Pressure, Humidity, Temperature and Gas sensor

And not to forget that the Thingy:91 already has an Asset Tracker application.

Hopes this answers more of your questions!

Kind regards, 
Øyvind