The EsPiFF crowdfunding campaign begins!

EsPiFF packs an ESP32 and an RP2040 into a Raspberry Pi form factor, offering compatibility with existing Pi HATs and enclosures while providing rock-solid, 24/7 reliability. After designing it, testing it, demonstrating its utility in various deployments, and rev’ing it up to version 3.2, we’re finally ready to launch our Crowd Supply campaign!

We have used EsPiFF to replace a Raspberry Pi in…

• RAIN RFID cabinets to monitor insertion and removal. Our GitHub repo includes sample code to operate Chafon UHF-RFID (MU80x series) readers, Elatec TWN4 HF-RFID readers, and Nextion human-machine interfaces (HMIs). In one consistently problematic deployment at the Heillig Geist Hospital in Freising, Germany, we swapped out a Raspberry Pi for EsPiFF, and have not had a single issue since.
• Electronic-payment systems for coffee machines, including both multidrop-bus (MDB) and serial models. We use Qibixx MDB Pi HATs, which work just fine with EsPiFF, to ensure a steady supply of fresh coffee for day- and night-shift staff at the Palfinger factory in Löbau.
• MDB-based electronic-payment systems for vending machines. One such deployment is operating 24/7 at the Müller Milch factory in Leppersdorf, where a failure during the night shift would be particularly unwelcome.
• Cash boxes for electronic-payment systems with BV20 bill-validator interfaces and wired Ethernet connections to the online banking system.

What does your project require? If you don’t need the processing power of a Raspberry Pi, or a Linux operating environment, you might find EsPiFF to be more stable, more reliable, and more thermally efficient, even for projects that require the use of existing HATs and enclosures.

Looking for alternatives to Linux?

Apache NuttX is a real-time operating system (RTOS) that’s fully supported by EsPiFF. Known for its reliability, NuttX powers many open source drone controllers. If you consider all the things we managed to build, deploy, and maintain using the operating systems of yore—think MS-DOS 6, for example—you’ll find that NuttX is more than enough for may projects. It preserves the extreme stability of EsPiFF while providing all sorts of modern features, including a webserver, wget support, FTP clients and servers, and interpreters for languages like BASIC, LUA, Javascript, and WebAssembly, to name just a few examples.

If you like what we’re doing here, please consider telling your friends and colleagues about us. Thank you so much for your trust, your support, and your willingness to help us spread the word!

Yours,
- The MDC Team