LoRa-E5-mini

Project LoRa E5
Arduino on the LoRa-E5 module
Status	In progress
Contact	bertrik
Last Update	2021-10-08

The plan

This page is about the LoRa-E5 module and getting it to work as a LoRaWAN node with Arduino and the BasicMac stack.

• replace the original "AT" firmware with Arduino based firmware
• use the BasicMac library for LoRaWAN
• use platformio as the build system
• create some basic examples for use as a LoRaWAN node on TheThingsNetwork

Interesting post about this module: https://www.disk91.com/2021/technology/lora/lora-e5-the-seeed-studio-stm32-wl-module/

Hardware

The hardware is the LoRa-E5 module from seeed studio, contains the STM32WLE5JC:

• LoRa E5 module (just the chip): https://www.seeedstudio.com/LoRa-E5-Wireless-Module-p-4745.html
• LoRa E5 mini dev board: https://www.seeedstudio.com/LoRa-E5-mini-STM32WLE5JC-p-4869.html
• LoRa E5 wiki page: https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/LoRa-E5_STM32WLE5JC_Module/
• FCC information about the module: https://fccid.io/Z4T-LORA-E5/

Overview of pins used on this board (not completely standard): https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/LoRa_E5_mini/#22-gpio-configuration-overview

Programming an STM32 is done with pins SWDIO (PA13), SWCLK (PA14), GND and VCC

Software

https://github.com/bertrik/lora-e5

There appears to be support for various kinds of WL55 boards: https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32/blob/main/boards.txt

Support for this board in this archive: https://github.com/dolfandringa/Arduino_Core_STM32/blob/master/variants/STM32WLxx/WL54JCI_WL55JCI_WLE4J(8-B-C)I_WLE5J(8-B-C)I/boards_entry.txt#L62  ???

Development environment

• Install Arduino IDE
• Add a board URL: https://github.com/stm32duino/BoardManagerFiles/raw/main/package_stmicroelectronics_index.json
• Under menu Tools/Board/Boards manager, search for STM32 and install 'STM32 MCU based boards'
• Under menu Tools/Board/STM32 boards, choose 'Generic STM32WL series', then 'Generic STM32WL series'
• Under menu Tools/Board part number, choose Generic WLE5JCIx'

Load the .ino file. Compile with ctrl-R.

Node configuration in TheThingsNetwork

The information on the website of Seeed studios is outdated. It refers to the "v2" version of TheThingsNetwork, which is being phased out. It is already impossible to add new nodes on TTNv2, since it was set to read-only.

Nodes should be configured for TheThingsNetwork v3 instead.