Register Read
After building an RFM95 Windows 10 IoT Core C# library I wanted to see if I could source a couple of RFM69HCW hats and write another library. For some applications the RFM69HCW with the variety and number of low-power client devices available plus, its built in payload encryption and addressing make it a better option. For the RFM9X library I purchased several RM9X Raspberry PI Hats but I can only find a couple (May 2019) of suitable RFM69HCW ones.
I wanted a lightweight RFM69HCW library which didn’t try to hide how the chip functioned, and in the future could be configured to work with other vendors’ shields.


The first step was to build a basic universal windows platform (UWP) background task to confirm that I could reliably communicate with the AdaFruit shield over the SPI bus by reading a single register value (RegVersion the silicon version specified in the vendor datasheet).
/* Copyright ® 2019 May devMobile Software, All Rights Reserved MIT License Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE CS : CE1 RST : GPIO25 IRQ : GPIO22 (DIO0) Unused : GPIO23 (DIO1) Unused : GPIO24 (DIO2) */ namespace devMobile.IoT.Rfm69hcw.AdafruitSPI { using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Threading; using Windows.ApplicationModel.Background; using Windows.Devices.Spi; public sealed class StartupTask : IBackgroundTask { private const byte RegVersion = 0x10; public void Run(IBackgroundTaskInstance taskInstance) { SpiController spiController = SpiController.GetDefaultAsync().AsTask().GetAwaiter().GetResult(); var settings = new SpiConnectionSettings(1) { ClockFrequency = 500000, Mode = SpiMode.Mode0, }; SpiDevice Device = spiController.GetDevice(settings); while (true) { byte[] writeBuffer = new byte[] { RegVersion }; // RegVersion byte[] readBuffer = new byte[1]; Device.TransferSequential(writeBuffer, readBuffer); byte registerValue = readBuffer[0]; Debug.WriteLine("Register 0x{0:x2} - Value 0X{1:x2} - Bits {2}", RegVersion, registerValue, Convert.ToString(registerValue, 2).PadLeft(8, '0')); Thread.Sleep(10000); } } } }
The AdaFruit hat uses chip select 1
/* Copyright ® 2019 May devMobile Software, All Rights Reserved MIT License Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE The RaspyRFM is plugged into the Raspberry PI of pin 17-26. From the docs for the dual RFM69 mini 17 -> 3,3 V 18 (GPIO 24) -> DIO1 bei Einzelmodul, DIO0 Slave bei Doppelmodul 19 (MOSI) -> MOSI 20 -> GND 21 (MISO) ->MISO 22 (GPIO 25) -> DIO0 23 (SCK) -> SCK 24 (CE0) -> NSS Master 25 -> GND 26 (CE1) -> DIO2 bei Einzelmodul, NSS Slave bei Doppelmodul */ namespace devMobile.IoT.Rfm69hcw.SeegelSpi { using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Threading; using Windows.ApplicationModel.Background; using Windows.Devices.Spi; public sealed class StartupTask : IBackgroundTask { private const byte RegVersion = 0x10; public void Run(IBackgroundTaskInstance taskInstance) { SpiController spiController = SpiController.GetDefaultAsync().AsTask().GetAwaiter().GetResult(); var settings = new SpiConnectionSettings(0) { ClockFrequency = 500000, Mode = SpiMode.Mode0, }; SpiDevice Device = spiController.GetDevice(settings); while (true) { byte[] writeBuffer = new byte[] { RegVersion }; // RegVersion byte[] readBuffer = new byte[1]; Device.TransferSequential(writeBuffer, readBuffer); byte registerValue = readBuffer[0]; Debug.WriteLine("Register 0x{0:x2} - Value 0X{1:x2} - Bits {2}", RegVersion, registerValue, Convert.ToString(registerValue, 2).PadLeft(8, '0')); Thread.Sleep(10000); } } } }
The Seegel hat uses chip select 0
Based on the datasheet the RegVersion (0x10) register the value (ox24) returned by both hats was correct.
'backgroundTaskHost.exe' (CoreCLR: CoreCLR_UWP_Domain): Loaded 'C:\Data\Programs\WindowsApps\Microsoft.NET.CoreFramework.Debug.2.2_2.2.27505.2_arm__8wekyb3d8bbwe\System.Threading.Thread.dll'. Skipped loading symbols. Module is optimized and the debugger option 'Just My Code' is enabled. Register 0x10 - Value 0X24 - Bits 00100100 Register 0x10 - Value 0X24 - Bits 00100100 Register 0x10 - Value 0X24 - Bits 00100100
Next step is to dump all the registers of the HopeRF module