VSCode and Platformio about esp_dmx

[someweisguy]

Thanks for the question and the kind words!

I took a brief look at this and I think I see what is happening. I believe that PlatformIO doesn't use Arduino-ESP32 v2.0.0 yet because it is so new. When you use Arduino-ESP32 v1.0.6, you get these errors, such as the uart_sclk_t not defined. These symbols are defined in v2.0.0 so the error goes away.

There is a branch for Arduino-ESP32 v1.0.6 that solves these problems, but I haven't set that branch up for use with PlatformIO which is why I believe you are getting the error. If you can, you can try cloning that branch into your project. I believe the error will go away.

Sorry, this was a silly error on my part. It should be an easy fix, but the in-laws are in town this weekend, so I am not sure if I will have time to work on it for a few days.

[berlinrob]

I just did a quick test with the dmx_read.ino from the branch you mentioned. It successfully compiled and ran using PlatformIO.

In my test project I modified the code in the dmx_read.ino and included the Adafruit_NeoPixel.h. Basically the mod is just changing a neopixel RGB colors based on the dmx values received from three sliders on a dmx controller board. Thank you for that tip!!!

Honor the in-laws and perhaps we talk again soon.

[someweisguy]

Thanks for you patience on this. Weekend with the in-laws was great, then this past week I opened a theater show, so it has been busy. I'm glad you got it working! That is great to hear and definitely a load off my mind.

To expand a bit on the errors you received, the ESP32-Arduino API didn't expose certain symbols that allow for you to target the latest ESP32 chipsets. I believe one of these symbols used is SOC_UART_NUM. It describes the number of UARTs the chipset has, so the library uses that symbol to throw errors if, say, the user tries to initialize UART 2 (the third UART) on the ESP32-S2. This is won't throw an error on ESP32 but because the S2 only has 2 UARTs it needs to throw an error on the S2. There are more useful symbols that aren't defined (like the uart_sclk_t which is used to define which hardware clock to use with your UART), but SOC_UART_NUM is the main one. Since ESP32-Arduino v2.0.0 was just recently released, PlatformIO still uses v1.0.6 which doesn't expose those useful chip-targeting symbols.

All this to say, this should be a simple fix. I basically have to conditionally define certain symbols depending on which version of Arduino we are using.

[someweisguy]

Actually, I think I may be onto an even simpler fix. You can define which version of Arduino-ESP32 you would like to use in your platformio.ini file. I've added the following lines to it:

platform_packages=
   toolchain-xtensa32 @ ~2.80400.0
   framework-arduinoespressif32@https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32.git#2.0.0

When you add this (specifically the last line) PIO will install the entire Arduino-ESP32 source from its repository, so PIO will tell you it's working on tasks for a while. Took me about 10 minutes on my ~100Mbps/down connection. With these changes, it builds now, but it is not linking properly. I'll do some more investigation.

[someweisguy]

I've found the solution based on this issue! I've updated my platformio.ini file to use an updated platform. Instead of platform = espressif32, I use platform = https://github.com/platformio/platform-espressif32.git#feature/arduino-upstream. The first part of that platform is the link to the PIO ESP32 repository, and the #feature/arduino-upstream tells PIO to use the branch of the same name.

All together, this is what my platformio.ini file looks like;

[env:featheresp32]
platform = https://github.com/platformio/platform-espressif32.git#feature/arduino-upstream
board = featheresp32
framework = arduino
lib_deps = someweisguy/esp_dmx@^1.1.1

Like my earlier comment, it takes about 10 minutes of PIO running tasks to install the new platform. When it finish, the library builds and links. I still need to test the example code, but once I do and everything works, I'll update the readme for instructions on how to solve this and then close this issue. Let me know if you have any questions in the meantime!