I have an application with an esp32 that requires a lot of simple GPIO pins.
So I guess that requires an ESP32-S3.
The problem I have is the Chinese modules which have 22 pins have no documentation and is not listed in the Arduino IDE.
See ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N8R2 Development Board on Amazon.
What is the best/documented ESP32 S3 module that comes up in the Arduino IDE tools/esp32 listing with the most GPIO pins. Most i have seem have way less GPIO pins. The above module has 22! Unfortunately absolutely no documentation!
There are port expanded chips such as the PCF8575 (16 I/O) that can also be purchased as modules for very little $$$. There is a limit you can only connect 8 using the same two I2C lines for all of them. That will give you 128 I/O lines. There are also "A" versions, this would give you another 8 modules. for a total of 256 I/O lines. Good Luck.
Thanks for the suggestion Larry. I have seen (and have) a few modules like this. The problem I have is there is no corresponding library listed in the Arduino IDE.
(tools/board.ESP32) dropdown menu.
I have spent two days trying to get a
"ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N8R2 Development Board ESP32 S3 WiFi + Bluetooth MCU Module, Dual Type-C ESP32-S3-WROOM-1" module working in the Arduino IDE. Cannot find an arduino library that matches its pins.
I use Tools>Board ESP32S3 Dev Module when programming the ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1
if you require more digital IO pins use a port expander as suggested by @LarryD, e.g. there are libraries which support the PCF8575
Thanks LarryD, my problem is not installing the ESP32 libraries it's that there is none for the above board. I'm looking for a fairly common (i.e. not Chinese) module with the most pins (18-22) available as GPIO's that also has a Arduino IDE listed library.
I'd like to avoid a serial chip because I need a very fast parallel port to send back R/W info to a S100 bus board the module is on.
I'm not sure what your problem is. I looked on Amazon using ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N8R2 Development Board from you initial post. The ones I found are clones of the board described in my post #2. I just use ESP32S3 Dev Module as the board and have no problems for the couple I have.
There are a lot of boards listed, but unless there is some special hardware on the board any generic choice matching the module type (S2,C3 S3 ...) will work.
What you write sounds very strange. This is not a module that connects to the Arduino, so it doesn't need a separate library. The Arduino package for ESP32 boards is such a "library".
You are unlikely to find a non-Chinese ESP32, because Espressif is a Chinese company
Wow S100 - I donated all my S100 stuff to a museum decades ago.
The ESP32 does not have a concept of parallel ports as the 8080 of Z80 do. You will need to do low level I/O configuration to group pins and write them as a unit. I have no idea how to do this on the ESP32. You will need the the hardware reference and go through the low level details.
OK everybody it looks like the Arduino ESP32-S3 works with this "ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N8R2 Development Board ESP32 S3 WiFi + Bluetooth MCU Module, Dual Type-C ESP32-S3-WROOM-1" module. And it has 44 pins! Thanks all.
My only concern is the module while well advertised on Amazon right now may not be available in the future. The common Adafruit or SparkFun or Arduino modules are quite small with far fewer GPIO's but should be better supported in the future.
As to board layout etc I have done many S100 bus boards with all kinds of functions. I make these available to a host of users.
One S100 board that is very popular is a Duel IDE CF board:-
Over 500 of these went out over the years. I want to do the same thing for a Dual SD card board using an ESP32 to CPM and MSDOS R/W sectors etc. The reason for all the pins I want access to be fast S100 bus access using parallel data ports etc. Also want other things on the board like an OLED display, RTC etc.
People build these S100 boards many months/years later. I want to have modules that are easily available.
I would assume that members of the ESP32 family will be available for the foreseeable future
have recently redesigned a product (with thousands of end users) to use the ESP3-WROOM-32
Buy a strategic stock. Or opt for a platform that is more likely (or even explicitly) supports a long product lifecycle. Firms like Microchip, TI and STM come to mind.
If you're at the state where "some" modules have barely enough pins, and some modules don't have enough pins, I think it's time to look at adding some sort of port expander for the lower-speed pins, so that your project will just work on any of the common boards.
