The Luckfox Pico Mini is a compact and power efficient Linux capable board, capable of running Ubuntu. Femtofox is an expansion of the Luckfox's capabilities, combining a customized Ubuntu image with a custom PCB, integrating it with a LoRa radio to create a power efficient, cheap and small Meshtastic Linux node.
Features:
- Tiny size (63x54mm for the Kitchen Sink Edition, 65x30mm for the Smol Edition). Roughly equivalent to a Raspberry Pi and Pi Zero.
- Power efficiency (~0.38w)
- Full Linux CLI (Ubuntu) via our pre-built Foxbuntu image
- Meshtastic native client support via SPI
- USB host support
- Wifi over USB
- RTC support
Accomplished:
- Meshtastic native client controlling a LoRa radio (see supported hardware)
- WIFI over USB (see supported hardware)
- Ethernet over USB (see supported hardware)
- Ethernet over pins (see Networking below and wiring diagram at bottom of page)
- UART communications with Meshtastic nodes (2 pin pairs) such as RAK Wisblock
- USB serial communications with Meshtastic nodes (see supported hardware)
- USB mass storage
- Real time clock (RTC) support (see supported hardware)
- Activity LED disabled. User LED will blink for 5 seconds when boot is complete
- Pressing the "BOOT" button triggers reboot
- Ability to reconfigure wifi via USB flash drive
- Meshtasticd to run LoRa radio over SPI (accomplished, updated image and instructions coming soon)
- Allow editing of config files by plugging in thumb drive
- Ability to activate or deactivate WIFI via Meshtastic admin
Project goals:
- A solar-deployable Meshtastic node running Linux, without needing a giant solar panel / battery
- Wifi capabilities (with ability to disable/enable wifi via mesh for power savings)
Login for the images is femto:fox. Root is root:root.
The preconfigured images will reboot every 24 hours. If the internal clock is accurate, this will be at 3am. Reboot timing is set in crontab. To keep accurate time, an RTC module can be installed (see supported hardware) or internet connectivity can be maintained for NTP. If no authoritative time source is found, time will be set to 2024-01-01 00:00 on boot.
There are four methods to get online:
- Ethernet over USB - most adapters should be supported, but I've only tested the RTL8152 chipset.
- USB wifi (see supported hardware).
- Preconfigured Ubuntu images: ethernet via the castellated pins at the bottom of the board. See pinout at the bottom of this readme.
- RDNIS via usb - see this guide. Note that in the preconfigured images USB is set to host mode, so you'll have to switch back to peripheral with
sudo luckfox-config. This is not really recommended, but can be used in a pinch.
- Download the most recent OS image in releases.
- Flash the image your MicroSD card using Balena Etcher or your favorite flashing program. You will likely get a warning that the image appears to be invalid or has no partition table. This is normal.
- Insert the microSD card into the Luckfox Pico Mini.
- Configure the system with a USB drive as described in USB Configuration Tool.
| Pin # | Pin ID | Function | Luckfox | Pin # | Pin ID | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VBus | 5V in/out | 22 | 1V8 | 1.8V out | |
| 2 | GND | 21 | GND | |||
| 3 | 3V3 | 3.3V out | 20 | 4C1 | 1v8 IO, SARADC | |
| 4/42 | 1B2 | Debug UART2-TX | 19 | 4C0 | 1v8 IO, SARADC | |
| 5/43 | 1B3 | Debug UART2-RX | 18/4 | 0A4 | 3v3 IO | |
| 6/48 | 1C0 | CS0, IO | 17/55 | 1C7 | IRQ, IO | |
| 7/49 | 1C1 | CLK, IO | 16/54 | 1C6 | BUSY, IO | |
| 8/50 | 1C2 | MOSI, IO | 15/59 | 1D3 | i2c SCL | |
| 9/51 | 1C3 | MISO, IO | 14/58 | 1D2 | i2c SDA | |
| 10/52 | 1C4 | UART4-TX | 13/57 | 1D1 | UART3-RX, NRST | |
| 11/53 | 1C5 | UART4-RX | 12/56 | 1D0 | UART3-TX, RXEN |
Pin ID explanation: 1C6 = GPIO bank 1, group C, pin 6. In Meshtasticd's config.yaml we use GPIO bank 1, and subtract 32 from the pin number.
Note
The information on this page is given without warranty or guarantee. Links to vendors of products are for informational purposes only. Meshtastic® is a registered trademark of Meshtastic LLC. Meshtastic software components are released under various licenses, see GitHub for details. No warranty is provided - use at your own risk.