Overview

The SweetPea LeoFi is an Arduino Leonardo compatible board with an integrated Wifi module. This is the new Revision B board with added connectors for I2C, SPI and a One-Wire connector.

The LeoFi is based on the Arduino Leonardo design but is greatly enhanced with a Wifi module, a micro USB connector and a new 3.3V voltage regulator that feeds the WiFi chip. You can use this board together with our own Sweet Pea WiFi library that have a socket based interface towards the CC3000 device. There is also direct support for a few data collection services such as Xively and Sen.se. The library also contains examples on how to create a web server, a web client, how to send a mail and a lot of other examples.

The WiFi module used on this board is the Texas Instruments CC3000 device. This device will let you configure the device network parameters from an iOS or Android device leaving room in the Arduino for other more important stuff. The module is shipped with the latest 1.28 firmware which matches version 1.4 of the host driver found on our github.

Just like the Arduino Leonardo this board also have LED's for Rx and Tx, a bright green LED that indicates that the power is on. But we replaced the boring old yellow LED with a more wireless'esk blue one =)

The board includes a chip antenna which makes it ready to run out of the box, no external cables or antennas are needed. Please also notice that this board has its own USB VID/PID combination which means that it does not infringe on Arduino license terms.

Details

The basic hardware is directly compatible with the standard Arduino Leonardo board. The CC3000 WiFi module is connected to the SPI bus and uses three of the available pins on the board D5 - D7. If you for some reason do not want to use the WiFi module you can disable it by keeping D5 (VBAT) low. In this case pins D6 and D7 can be used for other purposes.

D5 can also be used to conserve power. When D5 is brought low the CC3000 module will shut down and consume very little power. When D5 is brought high again the CC3000 will start up and you can send the required data to a server and then bring the CC3000 down again. This way you can actually power the LeoFi from a battery.

For normal usage the Sweet Pea WiFi library will configure the pins as required for you, so there is no need to do any configuration in your sketch.

You might notice on the right side of the board that it has a protruding section which is not in line with standard Arduino boards. This is where the antenna is located. This small section of the board is essential to the functionality of the board. You should keep this part of the board away from large metallic objects or other PCB's with large ground planes.

Another difference from the standard Arduino Leonardo board is that there is a 700mA 3.3V regulator. This regulator was introduced in order to supply the CC3000 WiFi module with a clean and stable 3.3V power source.

IC1 (74LS125) was introduced to handle the 5V to 3.3V level translation of the SPI bus between the ATMega and the CC3000.

The applications for the LeoFi is endless, but just mention a few things we made here: Temperature collection. Connecting multiple DS18B20's to a LeoFi board and then sending the data to Xively. Bot Controller. Having the LeoFi receiving commands and sending them through I2C to another Arduino board that controls a robot. * Furnace Alarm. An furnace monitor that monitors temperatures and alarm outputs on a wood pellet burner and reporting the status to Xively.

Tools

The standard Arduino IDE is used to create sketches for the SweetPea LeoFi. On the documentation wiki you will find a patch that you should apply to the standard V1.0.5 IDE. This patch will expand the IDE with all the required functionality to handle the LeoFi board.

That is all for now. Please get in touch with me if you have any further questions.

For European customers only

If you are a European citizen we are forced to charge a 25% sales tax (25% VAT) on your order. European companies who supply a VAT registration number does not have to pay tax.