A video about connecting the Flora and the CC3000 WiFi breakout
So in my intro post, I explained that I want to use a Flora with the CC3000 WiFi breakout to grab weather forecast information.
I couldn't find a tutorial about using the Flora with the CC3000. Then I read a bummer of a conversation in the Adafruit forum where Becky Stern was basically like mmm. Probs not going to work. But she did mention something about using the ICSP pins. Lightbulb. I remembered some funky pin soldering in Mike Barela’s TARDIS Costume For Dogs project, connecting the Flora to an audio breakout.
Then Becky Stern tweeted that it was indeed possible, though she recommends using the Bluetooth. But I’d already gotten the CC3000 and wanted to try it out. So I used the TARDIS wiring and a bit more research and worked out how to connect the CC300 to the Flora.
What I learned:
The CC3000 talks to a microcontroller over ICSP, which needs to use some fancy pins with different capabilities. I’d never needed to use the MISO, MOSI, or CLK pins before and I had no idea where they were. Actually, I have to admit that in the past I’ve been totally freaking confused by the Flora pinouts. But the diagram below is a really good resource, not only because it clearly labels the pin numbers used in the IDE (pink) and the many capabilities of the various pins, but because it also details the six ICSP pins.
Diagram courtesy of pighixx.com
Wait. So the ICSP pins are where?
Hiding. On the side. Tiny. Once I figured this out: magic.
I'd normally try and connect everything with alligator clips and test that it works before soldering, but these weirdo pins are too damn small. So I went ahead and soldered.
Sooo. WiFi?
After soldering I loaded up the buildtest sketch which runs through all of the things that the CC3000 does and prints the result in the serial monitor. I changed the pin number assignments as follows:
#define ADAFRUIT_CC3000_IRQ 2
#define ADAFRUIT_CC3000_VBAT 9
#define ADAFRUIT_CC3000_CS 10
And I input the name of my home WiFi network, password, and its security type.
With bated breath I hit upload. And it worked right away.
I was anticipating more of a struggle. But I’m happy to accept success when I see it. Woohoo!
