Miniaturise Lora and Atmega 328p or similar

End Devices (Nodes) Hardware
1

I have a prototype that currently has an Atmega 328p and Hope RFM95 LoRa board soldered directly on top of this board. There are number of switch based sensors that trigger logic in the microcontroller which results in a message being sent to the TTN network. I am using a SW868-TH13 antenna.

The additional board poses issues for larger production runs and adds too much volume to the overall size of device.

I would like to find a way to integrate all these into a single PCB, so I I dont have to separately add the LoRa board when I take the product to larger production runs. Can anybody advise me on the process of:

  1. Integrating the components so that they can all be on a single board. Is it as simple as getting schematics for the HopeRF board and merging them with my existing board? Surely there will be issues with taking the HopeRF design?
  2. Are there ways of making the device even smaller? Any thoughts on combining LoRa capability with a similar simple processor like the Atmega328p into the smallest possible package, beyond the prototyping stage?
  3. How I can calculate costs for larger production runs going from prototype to 1000 units?

Sorry a bit of a mix bag, but hopefully somebody that has done this before might be able to help.

Thanks in Advance!

1 Like
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Hi,
interesting topic!
I am looking for something similar.
There are a couple of boards out that provide what you are requesting like:
https://www.attno.de/

How small do you consider small?
What are your additional requirements?

I have bought a couple of PCBs form the design used in the second link. I could send you some as I got a lot.

Thanks
Eckhard

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3

These boards are enormous compared to the TinyThing which is the same size as a Pro Mini.

But unless you are an LMIC firmware genius, they won’t be compliant with TTS CE so all a bit pointless really.