06-09-2022 | Wurth | Design & Manufacture
Würth Elektronik offers a series of FeatherWings for the Feather development system from Adafruit. The four boards are fully compatible with the Feather form factor. With these development boards stackable on Adafruit's Feather microcontroller boards, the company provides wireless modules, sensors and power modules to the Feather ecosystem. The comprehensive documentation, C/C++ drivers and code examples aid the development of applications in the field of IoT, for example.
The Sensor FeatherWing integrates four sensors for absolute pressure, temperature, humidity and three-axis acceleration, all connected through a common I²C bus. As well as the Adafruit Feather form factor, the developer board with the precise MEMS sensors is also compatible with the QWIIC connection system from SparkFun.
This FeatherWing provides wireless connections of up to 500m range with a proprietary 2.4GHz radio module. For example, this may be used to set up mesh networks for IoT applications. The module offers an integrated security/authentication IC and supplies AES128 encryption of communications with other Thyone-I modules or the Thyone-I USB wireless stick. The WE-ProWare radio protocol is characterised by the fact that it may be configured for individual purposes with simple commands.
The low-power WLAN interface for stacking on a Feather offers out-of-the-box implementation of many commonly used networking applications, including SNTP, DHPv4, DHCPv6, mDNS, HTTP(S) and MQTT. The Feather ecosystem is known to be powered by USB or a lithium-polymer battery - for battery-powered applications, the Calypso WiFi FeatherWing offers a power-saving mode. The module can handle 2.4GHz WiFi connections according to IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and supports IPv4 and IPv6 and encryption via TLS.
The MagI³C Power Modules from the company are easy-to-use DC-DC converters with integrated regulator IC, inductor and capacitors. With the MagI³C Power FeatherWing, these are now also offered to developers for rapid prototyping with Adafruit Feather.
The FeatherWing converts input voltages from 6V to 36V into a constant output voltage of 5V and, therefore, covers the typical industrial bus voltages. A further MagI³C module on the PCB can decrease the output voltage even further to 3.3V. Alternatively, the module can be operated at 5V through a common USB connection. The module, therefore, becomes the 5V and 3.3V power supply for the complete FeatherWing ecosystem and extends the possibilities for employing it to build prototypes for industrial applications.
