The sdk was actually relatively well documented and easy to get setup. the tutorial on the git page was very well put together. My only complaint with the SDK so far is the PWM driver does not have input capture implemented. but the register pdf is actually very comprehensive even if it is only in chinese. i ran it through google translate and you can actually build your own drivers from it. plus everything is open source which is very nice! I plan on porting the build system over to cmake and creating my own HAL. I do have a couple complaints with the peripherals tho. Only 4 adc channels and the ADC is very slow, max 2khz sampling frequency, but it is sigma delta so it is very accurate. The timers are a bit weird and deviate from the standard, but they are useable. There are only 5 pwm channels. The good thing about the hardware is there is a lot of GPIO and UARTs.
Cool ! - I succeeded in installing support for the W806 on my Arduino IDE ... -- Now I can Compile and Upload to the W806 directly on the arduino IDE !
I ended up with one of these in a counterfeit STM32, it's honestly not that bad. Very much like an ESP32 without 802.11, just as far as functionality/speed/memory/etc goes. It IS weird that they call it an "IoT chip" bc it seems, like I said, squared up to be an ESP32 alternative just. without the internet. for the things lol. tbh, if they get decent platformio support they would be *extremely* decent. Also, great review, glad The Algorithm turned me onto your channel! happy to sub.
In fact, the STM32F1 line is just bought IP from ARM an bought IP for the peripherals. As long as you buy it as an GD32something (I’ve even seen some GD32F4xx recently, but same story) you are not counterfeit. They just bought the same stuff as STM.
Except that the W806 has many More Pins, IO Ports Functions , SPI , IC, ADC, etc - and is so much easier to use ! - No reason to assume its counterfeit anything
@@fromgermany271 for hobby projects it is ok, but if you make any products you will have licensing issues for using the software from STMicro which only allows you to use their software on STMicro hardware. So no using HAL, which means no Arduino, Platformio, or MicroPython or pretty much anything else because they all use the STM HAL underneath.
@@sv5673 Another swing and a miss. Why do you feel the need to push your opinions onto other people? Everybody is unique and different and has their own opinions. We all respect your opinion, even if it is factually incorrect.
Thank you for your research, expertise, topic selection, and outstanding delivery. I loved this video! If I could use this board with the same facility I can an Arduino Nano or Blue Pill, I'd order 50 today.
It's probably a chip with a good production run but relatively few companies using it, larger companies for sure. Chinese hobbyists and smaller companies emerging from DIY operations also aren't exactly down with probably erroneous datasheets, undocumented silicon errata, and half baked SDKs, they have limited frustration tolerance for a few cents saved as well.
@@SianaGearz - it just came out, what do you expect ... Actually I like the many io pins and easy of use. I had SPI + I2C + ADC + LCD usage on 1 board - and still plenty of pins to spare ! Downloaded , installed , compiled , flashed , and running in 1 hour or so. Posted sample projects and code in 1 week. Couldn't even say that about arduino. - What are you complaining about ... ???
Side comment Its insane how much functionality can be ship half way around the world, when in the UK if I tried to obtain just the bare PCB would cost more let alone any components and then assembled.
chown doesn't make stuff read only, it reassigns the owner user/group of a file. the -R in that command just means "do it recursively" chmod would be for making stuff read-only
You surprised me when you said the board is single sided (@4:22). But there does appear to be plenty of via's, and the holes appear to be plated-through, so I'm guessing its not really a single sided board. Perhaps you were just meaning there are no components on the reverse side? Although, this is relatively normal with most MCU boards.
Great Video ! - gave me a lot of info. Thanks for posting it. Got me interested in these great chips. Bought 40 of them. Building an assortment of projects now. Simple and easy to use. - Had it downloaded, compiled, and running on the chips in less than 2 hours. Posted some of my code on the web just a week later. Gpio Speed is FAST 10-80Mhz depending on Pin , (while esp32 Gpio is slow 10mhz Max for any pin)
When you choose microcontroller, you choose between price and easy to use. Arduino is very easy to use, but its super expensive for that specs. Its super hard to use but its the most cheaper you can get.
thanks for bringing this board to my attention. the board is listed at aliexpress for like 1,50 euro.. but shipping of almost 10 euro is really a problem ;)
I bought a few of these boards, definitely a mistake. So much hassle to get it to work and not a great microcontroller, the specs are a bit lacking. Just go for a Pi pico or a blackpill, the STM32F411 one, not the F401 one. You can even get an esp32 for a similar price, better support, two cores and the same clock speed with much more flash possible and a crazily complicated chip that will do anything you ever need a microcontroller to do with wifi and bluetooth.
I'd say ESP12F or 8266 is my go to if I need the cheapest board that works. Can get the bare modules for 1.5$ each on sale or 2.5$ for a ESP8266 D1 mini or Node MCU(though I prefer bare modules instead). Has both wireless and enough GPIOs for a lot of stuff. Bought a few dozen of them recently on sale for 1.2$ and they have been the best boards in terms of compatibility and price for me.
idk, an ESP32 is the same price as one of these *and* an esp8266 and, okay, that's just an overly complicated and stupid way to achieve not even as much funcfionality, but it would be funny? (seriously tho, esp32 is just way more. sensical lol.)
@@MaxC_1 The 8266 is being phased out so it is maybe one reason the modules are on the cheap side. I do like the D1 mini though as it is nice and compact and cheap.
There are at least a few boards called Blackpill. One I have a kind that is about the same as a Bluepill, with a STM32F103C8T6, and double the flash ... perhaps making it a "CBT6". Anyway, these MCUs have native USB, so can run the Maple bootloader. A couple of years ago, they only cost around $1.20(US). Now, unfortunately, similar STM32s cost a lot more. This W806 must fill a niche for those who need MCUs with more flash and speed than the lower end STM32F series.
@@GnuReligion the STM32F4 blackpills are a very similar price too though, both the F401 and F411, if you get them then make sure you get the 411, it's much better. You tend to get some fake f103s now but I think the F4 ones are still safe for the moment
The question is what is the life time of this board? How about the company that makes the board, how stable it is? Have they sold this board in large quantities?
- I bought about (100) boards now - and I am still rolling ... Pins are resistant to shorts etc ... Easy to get IO communications programming up ... and All my projecs are still working.
That seems like a lot of hassle. I'd say ESP12F or 8266 is my go to if I need the cheapest board that works. Personally get the bare modules for 1.5$ each on sale or 2.5$ for a ESP8266 D1 mini or Node MCU(though I prefer bare modules instead). Has both wireless and enough GPIOs for a lot of stuff. Bought a few dozen of them recently on sale for 1.2$ and they have been the best boards in terms of compatibility and price for me. Insane how much value they are plus how tiny they are
@@whocares5773 cool story dude but the point of the video is testing out a new cheap microcontroller and finding out that it is a pain to work with so me talking about my own workflow with certain microcontrollers is on point with the video You don't find my info new? cool dude go find something else to do then
W806 knocks over the Esp8266 or even Esp32 ! - besides selling for $5+ on ebay (not $1.20) - but the W806 is $1.70 ! - might try actually doing code to test - instead of making up unknowledgable oppinions about new things to disagree with without the actual experience. I use the w806 - and I finished coding so fast - that I ran out of new projects that I needed already ! - I tried (decade ago) 8266 - but dropped it with no use - because of its complicated usage for so little results. - and I use esp32 , but not often because of the complication in getting code and compatible library support.
the closest you can pronounce "Xuantie" using English words is probably "shu ann tyeah". seeing all the hassle to setup the board, if I had time, I would get one just to try to create a custom toolchain. (edit: just bought one, I'll see if I have time or motivation)
Thought it was pretty easy to settup. - maybe you should try before crittiquing ... Downloaded , installed , compiled , flashed , and running in less than 2 hours - posted code on internet in 1 week. -- Is that clear enough ? 😆
Why would you use this board when for about the same price you can get an esp32-c3 super mini with USB C, wifi, bluetooth, and excellent development tools?
Why another proprietary CPU architecture? Why not just choose some RISC-V profile, take advantage of existing toolchains, debugging and maybe even libraries. Innovation can happen with the peripherals/packaging/support available on-board, rather than another, new ISA.
- because its better , more pins , fast , easy to use ... Try doing the research or actually having knowledge before posting nonsensical statements ... The Indusrial Standard Arch is Risc - this is a new version of chip. ;)
@@sv5673 I suggest that you go do some research. There's nothing about the selection of a CPU architecture that has much of anything to do with the number of I/O pins. Or CISC vs. RISC instruction set architectures. Of which RISC-V is one (obviously) RISC-like instruction set, just like ARM is as well. The point is that selecting a known CPU architecture, like RISC-V means you reduce the risk of adoption by end users because of potential second-sources from other vendors. You have a bunch of development tools (compilers, debuggers, etc.) available that are more likely to have been exercised. And the vendor can achieve this primary purpose, which is avoiding licensing fees to for the ARM CPU core; the RISC-V architecture is "free", though specific implementations might cost $$$ but you have many to choose from. You invent your own proprietary architecture as a vendor, you're rolling the dice in regards to wide adoption. Sure, if you already have a customer lined up for some vertical application with a bunch of units, that's great! And maybe you hope to get some additional revenue by re-using that R&D and trying to get others to adopt it. That's a harder road to travel, with more sales required to get adoption from customers. Not that it's impossible, like Tensilica and the ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontrollers. (But even they are adopting RISC-V for reasons; I wonder what they are?) I've done research, I've been CTO at a company that adopted an embedded solution for millions of CPE devices that we shipped and there's lots to think about. How to manage the risk of adoption one particular vendor's product, their ability to support it, and if you're business is going to be harmed if your vendor's product fails in the market and they decide to exit. Counting pins is the last thing I'm worried about. "Easy to use" translates directly into development tools and continued support. Perhaps you, "Sveltlana" should do some research on how these sorts of products get adopted?
@@lmamakos - has been no problem for me; I downloaded the IDE and was compiling and running on the W806 in 2 hours. Also. I posted support code in 1 week. I found it cheap and Easy To Use. No problem compiling - and plenty of code examples. Sorry that you cant do your research or write code. I have done plenty of systems on ARM, RISC, Atmega, PIC , AT86's, Atmega, STM32, etc. And, I found this one of these most easiest and most up to date Micros out now - for compiling and capabilities. - Not sure what you are whining about ... Have been working on ARM chips for the last decade for customers - never had any licensing isssues. This seems no different. Am using this W806 for my own projects (including for sale).
good to know! could be a cheap solution for some basic projects, nonetheless. but not in the EU, anyway, since we now have to pay a bunch of taxes on those imports. particularly "violent" ones in my corner :/
Although you can run the code out of flash, but it is SPI flash running in XIP mode, which is quite slow. You have to copy the ISR into the SRAM otherwise, interrupts will be lost.
I have both, the w801 and the w806 and I'm liking these. Once you have the SDK correctly set-up (a madness in Windows unless you use WSL2 and do it via linux) the mcu itself is pretty nice, with lots of IO's and not very difficult to program. I downloaded the full chinesse manual of the CPU and translated it to english and surprisingly the translation did a good job, it is very easy to understand it. With it is a lot easier to do anything with the board than relying on the barely inexistent examples of the SDK as all the devices and registers are explained. Also, hilink is creating the package for Arduino, in fact is already usable in arduino studio but not all the functions are there, search in github " w80x_arduino" and you will find it.
I saw your last videos about rpi zero 2 w and if you mind could you please review radxa zero board because it got the same form-factor as rpi, but more powerful.
A Linux *pipe* couples the left command's stdout to the right command's stdin... pipes are one-way and are also available to applications internally in a C API. You can also pipe to a file then have some other application pipe from that file. One of the oldest aspects of UNIX and very useful for gluing commands together. The MCU's SDK looks interesting.. but I might run this thing in a VM or a container.. just to be safe. It would be really _convenient_ if someone were to... I dunno, say... happen to pull the SDK from the Chinese site and put it into a dropbox... I hope that, whatever they do, they don't accidentally release the dropbox URL out to others though. That would be bad. Cheers,
Thank you for the explanation. Certainly a feature of UNIX command line I take for granted! I initially had this running in a VM but they never play nice with serial ports for me. So fresh installed ubuntu and used it after a clean virus total scan. But definitely be on the safe side. That would be really unfortunate if someone was to accidently release the www.dropbox.com/sh/ictl2olsphllqjj/AAAf4_EaUnMYC2EbJ-0azPKsa?dl=0 URL. I hope no one would do such a thing!
(third time's a charm as the saying goes) if you go to the "arch linux user repository" and search for package "csky-toolchain-bin", you can then download the toolchain (and some documentation) under the "sources" label.
I have a blinky-type program for the W806, just search for jscottb/w806-blinky. There is a HAL version as well as one using just the HAL register macros for faster GPIO access. There is a text file with the pin functions also on the site. The ADC works fine, but the 1khz may be a deal-breaker for many. I have gotten Lua compiled for it, but not finished yet. I also have the W801 and it's a better chip having Wifi and BT, but it uses a different SDK tls vs hal though it's a HAL type system using structures and unions for hardware access. I say like others, if you want to move to a bigger chip, the RP2040 may be a better choice.
I just ordered some W801s to play with. I'm working on my own HAL that just uses the register definitions. I've already built a HAL that supports the same interface for STM32 so i should be able to run applications interchangeably on them. interesting i found in the SDK HAL that their max frequency is 2khz. I am curious what the implications are for speeding up the ADC
@@Cracked1ce I would assume anything past a 2khz would read the same latched data from the last read until it's updated next. It could also just return a zero faster than 2k.
@@Cracked1ce Could be. The datasheet does not give any info on the ADC except that it's a delta-sigma type. They can be slower than a SAR-type ADC. It would have been nice if they included the channel settle time. Let me know what you find!
@@UReasonIt so i increased the frequency to 10khz. when i put ground in i read back 0.2V and when i put 2.4v i only get 2.2V. At 1khz i had good rail to rail voltage, seems like increasing the frequency decreases the rail to rail performance
The ESP32 is far superior to the Raspberry Pi Pico for the same price. Regarding the Winner Micro people, it certainly is the case that the docs are rather obscure and Chinese. I would go for one of their chips with a 2.4GHz radio built in, and I seem to recall that that good thing was that the power consumption was respectable, so it would make them good for battery operated remote sensors. Remember you only have to go through all the setup hassle the once, but the thing is I see it as a firm with prospects. Give it a few years and they could well have some good and well supported chips. Technically they are competitive. The laggards in all of this are the ones who put together the RP2040. The Chinese are many years ahead of the game here. Anyway, thanks for the review.
@@sv5673 I'm just looking at all the options available. I'm interested in chips that can form a wireless network and are low power enough to run for a long time from a battery. If you only need low data rates there is also the ASR6501 based on ARM and LoRa. This is also a cheap chip like the Winner chips but being ARM it has more software support.
@Andrew - the Discussion is on the w806 - why are you Spamming ... ? Rasp pi pico is only 133mhz anyway... I measured only 10-15mA supply current used on the W806 - seems good to me.
At this time of semiconductor crises, it's hopefully to see new MCUs on the market. Despite of being fast and 32-bit processed, this W806 isn't a way to go. Also, its unable to ship sometime.
7:23/7:29 - You're correct that in... UNIX (and thus, by extension, GNU/Linux as well -- GNU is Not Unix (GNU), but it's based on it, concept wise)... or more specifically, in the shell of a UNIX or UNIX-like operating system, this is called the Pipe operator. Moreover, while the ASCII and Unicode standards refer to this character as the "vertical bar" (and/or broken vertical bar, '¦', on some systems), it is often actually referred to as a pipe character -- even in C, where _logical_ or could be pronounced "pipe pipe" by some.
I tried out the pine64 dev boards given their price-performance ratio. I had much the same experience as you had with the required SDK for the pine64, not worth the hassle and incomplete docu. And I have fiddled around quite a lot with the non ardiuno native SDK for the esp32..
I really don't understand. For the same price you own an ESP8266 and only one or two dollars more you own an ESP32. Dual core 240MHz, 4Mb, BT and easy programming with Arduino IDE. I don't get....
- Actually thats 520K bytes (4M bits) SRAM on esp32. besides esp32 ram is not contiguous - you need to alloc ram in 200k , 96k, 48k etc - real pain to use. Second - w806 is a lot easier to use (45 IOpins) , Esp8266/32 is archaic and few io pins (25 useable pins) - (stuck in the Esp mode ?) Third - esp32 sell for $5 - $10 on ebay now - oh well. ;)
If you really need a fast uController. Look at Teensy 4.1. 600 MHZ and lot of GPIO, SPI, PWM. Can be programmed with Arduino IDE, but is 10 times more expensive.
are you kidding ? - and 6 io pins ... besides they keep burning out - no hw protection. They have been around for years - and still nobody uses them anyway.
At that price point, I see it more like a competitor to Arduino knock-offs that come with the CH340/CH341 as well. Anyway, it's ideal to use a Raspberry Pi 3 with Raspbian to program that kind of babies, but you also have to adapt all the libraries for pretty much anything you need (LCD screens...), In that regards, even the Arduino (at 16MHz, 20MHz when home-made) wins!
Good review. I'll not be adding one of these mcus to my burgeoning collection. It looks like they got some things right: like printing the pins on the board. Nice try, but I think I'll stick with my picos and stm32s.
The chinese boards and cpu are more powerful and half the price of the arduino, yet they don’t even bother to translate the dev kit. That should tell you something about the decline of the west.
Please, net time don't bury the lead. The net result is that this little board isn't a good fit for people trying to get their designs put into hardware. You should state that up front, then invite those who want to fart around with cheapie Chinese domestic market kaka to stick around and put up with the pain.
Actually its great - lots of pins, easy to use. I have done Adc and IO and I2c and LCD on same board - and still plenty pins to spare ;) Works great for me - had it up and flashed and running in 1st hour - did plenty of projects in first few days - and posted projects in 1 week. - I have ordered multiple batches - quick delivery (2weeks) , and the supt docs are very direct and obvious. Excuse me if I dont speak in the same 'guttural' english. Sorry you are stuck in your 'little world' ... ps: tell us when you finish school ... ;)
I would never buy such a chip even if they gave it away for free ... no support ... it's a dead project. BTW the Pi pico is double the price but it is also dual core, arm based, double flash on board and above all a huge support community always growing.
I thought supt was fine. And, I bought 40 boards and they are working Great for me ! I had it Downloaded, Installed, Compiled, Flashed, and Running in less than 2 hours. - What are you whinning about ? -- Do you even try ? - maybe just stick with an Led and a Battery instead - ;)
-- Maybe you should try looking at the chips in your Cellphone, Tv, Car, Appliances, etc - but never thought of that ... ??? I work in engineering - and many companies inport chinese chips. ;)😆
Lol, sounds like a royal pain in the butt. And you just never know...this could possibly contain a small snippet of code that could make you part of a botnet. Less eyeballs on the code means more of a chance that there is something dodgy. I'd leave this thing alone.
It looks to me like a rebranded STM32 knockoff. Looks like it copied STM32 micros HAL library as well. I can't find anything too close to it on the STM32 lineup however so this is probably a proper custom chip. Just the documentation is a joke... 20 pages... Compared to other micro-controller manufacturers thousands of pages of documentation.
W806 is still new - what do you expect ... So, what - what it Looks like - it Works Great ! I did a bunch of projects and code and posted it (see top). I had it downloaded , compiled and flashed in 1 hour - posted the code in the first week. (While I spent months on Stm32 - with only minimal results, wasted lots of time choking on repeated conflicting headers & libs) ;)
Documentation is poor and in Chinese. But it's just barely enough to actually do a project with if you are familiar with micros and how they work. It's not an stm32 knock off at all, stm32 uses arm and this is a csky chip which is a completely different and rather obscure architecture built by the Chinese, for the Chinese. The HAL looks similar to the STM32, but it is actually completely new code and nothing is copied from stm32 other than function names
@@sv5673 You're kidding right? I expect electrical characteristics, heat tolerances, numbers on max current delivery, peripheral register maps, memory locations, block connection diagrams, clock diagrams, max speed of different peripherals and internal busses, event signals info, interrupt handler behavior, CPU architecture info, CPU code execution behavior like how the instruction pipeline behaves, CPU register info, assembly instructions listing with detailed description of each instruction, intended use info, lifetime expectancy in different environments, memory resiliency info, errata. There are plenty more things I'd like to know but these are just the things I remember from the top of my head. I don't expect a new competitor to microcontroller market to have all the speculative answers or errata, but I expect way more than "it's a thing that does a thing". They also copied way too much of the STM HAL library for me to feel comfortable with it, so it smells like a scam to me. Until they release a lot more into about the microcontroller itself, I'm going to remain skeptical and will share my distrust with others. Developing their own HAL would also be a good thing because it feels like they're riding on STMs implementation for free, either fishing for familiarity or sometimes using the STM toolchains directly. STM, Espressif and Microchip all provide a whole suite of tools from setup to debuggung and very detailed documentation. This microcontroller feels very scammy in comparison.
@@Cracked1ce You may be right, but it's a bit too close for comfort for me. They definitely mimic STM to some extent and I've had to deal with some STM counterfeits in the past, so I'm feeling rather strongly about this. I rather they make their own unique HAL to avoid confusion.
@@noxagonal they 100% wrote their own HAL. I have a pretty good knowledge of both as I have used both microcontrollers to run a V8 engine. It is similar In operations to the STM32 hal but that is only because it is a good design, not because they copied or leveraged any ST intellectual property. The hardware peripherals themselves are quite different than the ST peripherals as well so they did not copy any hardware IP either. The w806 is developed on top of the XT804 platform which has backing from Alibaba which has a best interest to not infringe on copyright/IP. This is a serious microcontroller that is going to be around for a good while. It has decent Chinese support and documentation, but the English side is lacking alot. However that is understandable as this is aimed at the Chinese market and not the western market anyway.
@@sv5673 No Dear..trust me most Chinese products documents are poor for engineering people..I am using few modules which perform well and documents are poor and some modules copy from others manufacturer are also poor in quality..overall Chinese modules are cheaper and 👍 good
@@rojirrim7298 It's onlly a matter of time and once the dragon has woken up we're up for global submission. Let's not forget that it is a dictatorship and even their people won't be able to oppose it then, especially if it partners with Russia.
W806 Chips work Great for me - I purchased 40 boards - and I am just rolling code out on them ! PSST : more than half of the market of tech in america uses chinese chips (sorry to pop the bubble). ;)
