Tag: WiFi

Unboxing – HackerBoxes #0023: Digital Airwaves

Nick Momrik1 Comment

I was able to avoid spoilers on this month’s HackerBox again, even though something happened with my shipping over the weekend. It arrived Monday instead of Saturday like it was originally scheduled.

Unique box. I’m excited to go through the Instructable for this box and learn some stuff about antennas and WiFi. The PVC pieces and copper wire are for making a custom antenna, which will be fun. I checked my box of goodies to see which WeMos board I had recently bought and it was the Mini Lite. I think I have one of each of their tiny boards now.

I tried to come up with a value for the box again. All prices are from Amazon (with my Prime account) unless noted.

  • HackerBoxes #0023 Collectable Reference Card – $1 (estimate)
  • USB Wi-Fi Interface Device with RT5370 Chipset – $5.89
  • WeMos D1 Mini Pro-16 – $5 + 1.81 shipping (AliExpress)
  • WeMos I2C OLED Shield – $4.50 + 1.58 shipping (AliExpress)
  • WeMos ITX to SMA Antenna Coax – $4.95
  • Exclusive PCB Yagi-Uda Antenna Kit – $5 (estimate)
  • Exclusive CPVC Yagi-Uda Antenna Kit – $1 (estimate)
  • SMA male to RP-SMA male Coax Adapter – $5 (estimate)
  • Mini Tripod with Shoe Mount – $7.79
  • USB Extension Cable – $3.35
  • MicroUSB Cable – $4.16
  • Exclusive Yagi-Uda Antenna Decal – $1 (estimate)
  • Exclusive Digital Airwaves Iron-on Patch – $2 (estimate)

This was a hard box to price out, so there are a lot of estimates. I didn’t see the PCB antenna anywhere and the parts for the PVC antenna are obviously DIY. The random bag of connectors doesn’t seem to be from a kit of any kind. There was also another antenna in my box not on this list. So I’ll add another $10, which all adds up to $64.03.

Makerfocus ESP8266

Nick Momrik5 Comments

One of the recommended products that came up recently for me on Amazon was a set of 2 Makerfocus ESP8266 NodeMCU boards for $15.99. I’m familiar with the chip from using the Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266 WiFi that came with AdaBox003. That board runs for $16.95 though.

The reviews for these were good and any issues people had were resolved quickly by the seller. I figured it was worth the little bit of risk to try out these boards as a way to have some WiFi capabilities on hand. When they arrived, I ran a few quick tests in the Arduino IDE and had no problems uploading code or connecting to Adafruit IO with some of the example programs. The boards are slightly wider than the Feathers I’m used to working with, so there is just a single row of holes on either side when plugged into a breadboard. One other difference is no JST connector for a Lithium Ion battery.

If you’re looking for a cheap intro to Arduino or a way to get an electronics project on your network, check out these microcontrollers.