WCH new 10c CH570 RV32IMBC M&U mode 100 MHz 12k RAM 240k flash USB 2.4 GHz radio

[brucehoult]

The king is dead, long live the king!

The CH572 also supports BLE5. I think the CH570 is more like the old nRF24L01 from a dozen years ago -- I'm going to see if mine will talk to one I've got on a LeoStick protoshield.

Datasheet: https://www.wch-ic.com/downloads/CH572DS1_PDF.html

Dev board: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008743123631.html

$5 off with code :XJI0YRGF5ZXY

A few minutes ago the page said out of stock with 20 sold at the moment. A few minutes later it was 22 sold and 4 available, then I bought one (with the $5 discount) and there were 3 available. If it says out of stock then try again a little later.

Patrick says the first 300 people to use the voucher code will get the discount.

[westfw]

For me, it says:

This product can't be shipped to your address.

I don't know if that means "out of stock" or "come back when we figure out the new tariffs", or something else.

[brucehoult]

For me, it says:

This product can't be shipped to your address.

I don't know if that means "out of stock" or "come back when we figure out the new tariffs", or something else.

Allow me to quote my previous message: "A few minutes ago the page said out of stock with 20 sold at the moment. A few minutes later it was 22 sold and 4 available, then I bought one (with the $5 discount) and there were 3 available. If it says out of stock then try again a little later."

The "out of stock" and "can't be shipped to your address" messages happen at the same time. And disappear at the same time, in my experience.

For me it went from "we can't ship to your address" to "we have 4 in stock, order accepted, you'll have it by the 14th" and back to "we can't ship to your address" in the space of 20 minutes.

[brucehoult]

I just checked this second and there are 29 sold and 10 available.

[tszaboo]

12k RAM for a micro with BLE? I think the BLE stack we use at work, that stack alone uses 20-30k. And then you have a bunch of other peripherals.

[brucehoult]

I just checked this second and there are 29 sold and 10 available.

40 minutes later it's 34 sold 5 available.
[/quote]

Now 35 sold 4 available.

It's been "out of stock" at least three times today, and then 10 more are added. Obviously I don't know why so few.

[brucehoult]

12k RAM for a micro with BLE? I think the BLE stack we use at work, that stack alone uses 20-30k. And then you have a bunch of other peripherals.

No, the CH570 which I am talking about here does not have BLE. It has a 2.4 GHz radio, but doesn't come with a protocol stack. It is thought to be compatible with the nRF24L01 protocol which has been around for more than a decade.

https://www.instructables.com/NRF24L01-Tutorial-Arduino-Wireless-Communication/

The CH572 has BLE and will no doubt be more expensive, if for no other reason that licensing. It may also have additional RAM and/or flash dedicated to the BLE stack, with 12k RAM and 240k flash being available to the user application, as here on the CH570.

[brucehoult]

36 sold 2 available.  I think that's just the available count updating instantly, but the sold count takes a few minutes.

[brucehoult]

37 sold 1 available now lol.

[brucehoult]

39 sold 0 available.

But they've just added packs of five 20 pin chips for $4.46.

[brucehoult]

They've been stuck at 52 sold (total of both board options and bare chips) for a few days. But mine has arrived in rural New Zealand 7 days after ordering.

[temperance]

240 K Flash for 10 cent and a link budget several times that of the Nrf24L01 @1Mbps. Interesting.

[ftg]

Yep.
It has potential to be a very interesting part for many projects that are fine with nrf24-like radio.

[SiliconWizard]

So the CH570 has a programmable RF front-end with basic functionality over which you can implement custom protocols? That's cool.

[brucehoult]

So the CH570 has a programmable RF front-end with basic functionality over which you can implement custom protocols? That's cool.

We don't yet know if it's compatible with nRF24L01 (which has been around since 2004 but got super-cheap Chinese modules in the early 2010s) but it's certainly similar.

If you don't know nRF24L01:

- 125 "2.4 GHz" channels spaced 1 MHz apart

- 100m range in open air, maybe more at the nRF24L01+'s added 250 kbps speed (original was 1 or 2 Mbps). Here's a compatible advertising 5 km range! https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005001499957023.html  But it's no competitor to LoRaWAN.

- each device has a 5 byte ID

- up to 32 byte payload in each packet

- can have active sessions to up to 6 other devices on the same channel at the same time

- mostly UDP-like behaviour though there is an option for ACK and limited automatic retry.

- streaming and real reliability needs to be provided by the µcontroller software, if required.

They're very easy to use from a small MCU, via SPI. The Arduino library works well. https://docs.arduino.cc/libraries/rf24/

[ali_asadzadeh]

it's huge win for us, I have switched almost every new project to WCH or espressif, Other brand prices just does not make sense. I wish they had I2S too

[SiliconWizard]

it's huge win for us, I have switched almost every new project to WCH or espressif, Other brand prices just does not make sense. I wish they had I2S too

WCH CH32V2xx and CH32V3xx do support I2S. If you were looking for I2S on the lower-end, say the CH32V003 or such, what exactly would you do with I2S with 2KB of RAM? So pick the right MCU and WCH has them.
Similarly, the ESP32-C3 and -C6 do support I2S, I don't know about the other models, but ESP32 here again certainly has MCUs with I2S support.

[ali_asadzadeh]

TM8211 + CH32V003 or CH570  could make a nice 0.2$ Total BOM which has a MCU + 16bit DAC, useful for many things including Audio but not limited to audio itself

[brucehoult]

Patrick tweeted today that more dev boards are available:

https://x.com/patrick_riscv/status/1913053402357285019

I managed to grab two more (in addition to the one that arrived on the 9th, but without the extra chips this time) about 35 minutes after Patrick's post. I want to try a little network of them, because playing with just one is no more fun than a CH32V003. There were 8 left when I got mine, 6 after, and they're sold out now, sorry. I would have posted here but my electricity was off for 41 hours due to ex-cyclone Tam and just came back. I have twitter and Ali on my phone but not eevblog.

The $5 voucher code is supposed to work for the first 300 people, and there are only 82 sold so far (52 before today) so presumably 30 came in today (and I only just was fast enough!) and more will be trickling in,m hopefully without another two week gap.

[brucehoult]

And back in stock again: 10 boards, and 5 of the board plus two chips.