Production Programming

[Panometric]

I read the SD card is not supported to boot or override existing settings. So in a production environment, what is the recommended way of programming a large number of modules with factory code? Must we connect each one via USB?

[jmarcelino]

@panometric
Depends what "large numbers" is. For say 100 you're probably be using the development modules (WiPy, LoPy..) , in that case flash over USB is perfectly doable. You can connect multiple expansion boards to a USB hub and flash in parallel, we have a script for that.

For larger deployments you're probably using the OEM modules (W01, L01 etc) in the case we recommend having programming pins available. All you need to program is power, UART TX/RX and two pins to control Reset and GPIO0 (P2)

[jcaron]

Haven't done "large numbers" yet, but we've always used USB. Beyond the scripts to load onto the device, there's also the firmware to update and (if you use them) the Pysense or Pytrack firmware to update as well. The former can be done via other means if the base firmware is recent enough (though many of the modules ship with very old versions), but I don't think the latter can be done by any other means.

If the base firmware is recent enough and you don't use a Pysense or Pytrack, you could do everything over Wi-Fi, though this is probably going to be a bit more fun.

If you really have "large numbers" Pycom may have a way to load the modules with custom code directly in factory?