Blog

• May 2025 progress update
• March 2025 progress update
• Tanmatsu can now be pre-ordered

May 2025 progress update

May 2025 progress update

A lot of progress has been made on all the project disciplines, this month we have progress update on the hard- and software as well as documentation and production.

Software

The past weeks lots of progress has been made on the launcher firmware. The launcher firmware will allow you to start installed apps from a special partition on the flash chip. You will also be able to browse a repository with apps created by other users, manage system settings and automatically download and install new versions of both the firmware and apps.

Not all functionality has been implemented yet but all basic functionality works, you can start apps, install apps via USB and most importantly you can connect to WiFi and update the firmware once new versions become available.

The launcher firmware has been published on Github, you can find the repository here if you are interested in reading through the source code. And of course we accept contributions, feel free to create issues or pull requests and join in the fun of building open source software.

Hardware

After extensive testing with the first revision of the board we have manufactured and shipped out a batch of revision 2 boards to the developers who chose to be part of the field test. If you signed up for being part of the field test you should have gotten a notification that your order has been shipped. If not please contact us via email.

As mentioned previously the revision 2 boards are fully software compatible with the prototype revision 1 boards, but one big change was made compared to revision 1: these new boards use an EBYTE E22-900M22S LoRa module instead of the Ai-Thinker RA-01SH module earlier revisions used. This new LoRa module uses a TCXO, a temperature compensated crystal oscillator, to generate the reference clock for the LoRa radio chip. This prevents frequency drift due to temperature changes, which in turn results in improved range and receiver sensitivity.

In addition to the module having better performance there is another important reason for the change: this new module has already been certified for compliance with both CE and FCC regulations. This will make it easier for Tanmatsu to pass its own compliance testing at the test lab.

Currently we are working on getting the radio testing firmware for running tests like fixed frequency broadcasting and the test related documentation ready. This is a process that does not produce much visible results but which is required to be done before we can ship our product to the customers.

And about production: we are going to do one more production run (revision 3) to fix a couple of tiny production issues we found when manufacturing the revision 2 boards. While these issues do not cause any problems for the end user they do pose a problem for mass production. Specifically the new revision fixes an issue we found with the ESD diode on the USB-C port and a manufacturing problem with the audio jack.

We plan on having this lab test firmware ready soon and once the revision 3 boards arrive we will ship them to the test lab we work with to have the board tested for compliance with the relevant regulations.

Our current expectation is that the production version of Tanmatsu will ship before the end of August 2025.

Now that an extra board revision needs to be made we will have to do an extra production run. This means we will have boards left over from both the revision 2 and future revision 3 batch. If you are a developer or engineer and with to receive your order early then you can sign up for the field test to receive a fully software (and add-on hardware) compatible revision 2 or revision 3 Tanmatsu, which we will ship out much earlier than the final version of the product.

Documentation

More and more documentation gets written and published over at the documentation section of the Nicolai Electronics website. Be sure to check this part of our website every once in a while for more technical information, explanations on how the product works and getting started guides.

The Tanmatsu documentation website will soon be split off from the main Nicolai Electronics website, this will allow us to publish the markdown source files for the documentation in a Github repository, allowing the community to contribute to the documentation.

Github project and issue tracker

To give more insight into what is going on in between these blog posts we have created a public Github project which tracks progress and shows what we are working on. You can find the project here.

Linked to the Github project we have also created a central location for the community to send in issues. If you have a suggestion or bugreport you can create an issue on the issue tracker.

Community

Our Discord community is growing, if you want to get the latests updates, ask questions and see what other community members are up to please join us!

March 2025 progress update

March 2025 progress update

A lot has happened since our last blog post in January and we have got a lot of good news to share!

The project is still progressing according to schedule and the first parts of Tanmatsu have arrived.

Displays

We have received a shipment of LH397K-IC01 displays for the first batch of Tanmatsu boards. We’re really happy with how smooth the communication with the manufacturer went and that delivery of the package went without a hitch.

Batteries

It took a bit of effort to get the manufacturer to send us all the documents we need for compliance, but we are pleased to announce that the batteries for Tanmatsu have arrived and are ready for use in production.

The batteries Tanmatsu will ship with are 2500mAh batteries manufactured by Tewaycell. We have built up quite a lot of experience with the products of this manufacturer as we’ve succesfully used their batteries for many projects we have done with Badge.team over the past 10 years.

These batteries have a built-in protection circuit protecting the battery against over-current as well as under and over voltage conditions. By using these protected cells we can make sure that no matter what happens in the circuit on the mainboard the battery will be safely shut down if disaster strikes. And of course this circuit will automatically recover the normal battery functionality after the fault clears.

The batteries are fitted with a JST compatible PH-2.0 type connector. This connector with 2mm spacing between the pins is the same connector used by Adafruit and Sparkfun on most of their battery compatible development boards.

Keyboards

The keyboards have been ordered at the manufacturer (Solder Party) and are on their way to us right now.

ESP32-P4

The ESP32-P4 chip around which Tanmatsu has been designed is brand new and not yet available through all the regular electronic part distributors. Luckily this doesn’t mean we have to wait much longer: Espressif has contacted us to confirm they will be able to deliver the chips we need for the first production round very soon. Of course we will notify everyone once the ESP32-P4 chips have arrived at the factory to be used in production of the Tanmatsu mainboards. Join our Discord or Telegram community chat groups to be among the first to know when we receive the chips.

Compliance

Getting Tanmatsu fully compliant with both European (CE, UKCA) and FCC regulations has proven itself to be quite a challenge. Not because of any technical problems but because of the amount of extra administrative work building proper compliance documentation entails.

Besides the administrative work we have succesfully executed some initial pre-compliance tests to make sure Tanmatsu is not affected by external noise sources and we’ve checked that we do not see signs of unwanted noise being generated by Tanmatsu itself. Of course these initial tests are not conclusive and only a first step in what will be a long process.

The process of getting Tanmatsu compliant has caued a small change in the design, we have replaced the AI Thinker LoRa modules we originally planned on using with functionally equivalent Ebyte E22-900M22S and E22-400M22S modules. While these modules contain exactly the same LoRa radio there is one important difference to note: they come with CE and FCC certification. This means it will be less work to pass CE compliance testing once we are ready to start the lab tests.

Mechanical design

The mechanical design of the case Tanmatsu will ship with has seen some improvements over the past weeks. We have integrated pockets to hold the battery and speaker in place without using any glue to hold them down in the case. This allows you to easily replace the case with a different one without having to worry about transferring the battery or speaker. We will release the step and stl files for modifying and printing your own cases once Tanmatsu starts shipping. Can’t wait? Get in touch and tell us what you’re planning to do on Discord or Telegram.

Availability of spare parts

An open source project is only truely open if it’s possible for everyone to build the project themselves. Additionally we also value the ability of our customers to repair the products they buy, we value the right to repair and will make all parts you need to repair your Tanmatsu available. You can expect to find the display, battery and keyboard along with new 3D printed spacers, cases, frontpanels and even the nuts and bolts used to manufacture Tanmatsu to be listed in our webshop after the first batch of Tanmatsu boards starts shipping.

Tanmatsu can now be pre-ordered

Pre-ordering is now possible through our new webshop

Tanmatsu can now be pre-ordered for € 120 including VAT (€99,17 without VAT for customers outside of the EU). You can pre-order the Tanmatsu via our new webshop.

Project progress

The final prototypes are currently being manufactured over at JLCPCB. Meanwhile we are working on the launcher firmware which will allow users to install and run firmware binaries like apps. The launcher menu shows a list of installed apps (firmwares). When an app is selected the ESP32-P4 will reboot into the selected app.

AppFS is a combination of a firmware “filesystem” and an addition to the bootloader which allows installing and starting multiple firmwares dynamically. It was created originally as a way to install multiple applications on the PocketSprite keychain gameconsole. In 2022 we used the AppFS component as the core of the MCH2022 event badge launcher firmware.

Since then we have in collaboration with the awesome people from Badge.Team updated the AppFS code to make it work with the latest ESP-IDF revision and we have added support for the ESP32-C6 and ESP32-P4. We have published the updated and improved AppFS component which forms the basis of the Tanmatsu launcher firmware on GitHub and the ESP component registry.

The MCH2022 badge application launcher menu:

While waiting on the ESP32-P4 to become available in larger quantities, we will be working on finishing a fully featured launcher firmware for the Tanmatsu with OTA firmware updating support. Follow our website for updates and join our community channel on Telegram or Discord to be kept up-to-date with our progress.

Page updates

• 13-02-2025: the expected release date mentioned in this post has been removed. Tanmatsu will be shipped after the ESP32-P4 chip becomes available and regulatory compliance testing of the product has been succesfully concluded.