Rocket Controller

ESPHome
1

Hi all,

just seen some cool devices from Rocket Controller, as DIN Rail mount.
Looks nice and has plenty of option (AC / DC IN / 8xGPIO)

What do you think?

Especially the expansion board on I2C is very interesting for a decent amount.

IMHO, nice to use whenever I need to have AC IN as source.

BTW: Does somebody know a DIN Rail mounted GPIO expansion I2C Board ?

2

I bought a relay board from Rocketcontroller with an RS485 interface. There is a manufacturing problem with the connector for the RS485 board, I have sent several emails to Rocketcontroller requesting assistance and have had no replies.

On the basis of this I would recommend not dealing with the company.

3

Okay… Yeah I connected the Tuya against it, unfortunately the device keeps restarting continously.
Indeed I wanted to connect RX2 and TX2 on PIN16/17 and the Jack for RS was not working.
Maybe I should consider to understand what I read.

Between the internal UART and RS should an RS Module plugged :frowning:
Okay, I want RX/TX so I am bridging these now.

Nontheless I did a lot of work to measure the board.

Here some useful links:

https://templates.blakadder.com/assets/ASTRA_controller.pdf

https://templates.blakadder.com/rocket_R4A4.html

And my work (BTW: The PINs for the RJ12 are wrong. 1 is 6 and 2 is 5 and so on)

Rocket_RS_Port
Rocket_RS_Port1920Ă—824 167 KB

4

I found this thread while looking up an ESPHome config for the ESP32R4 board, which I bought without much research first (it was very cheap for the money!).

Just to mention that the ESP32R4 I bought this month (Nov '23) works well. It came pre-programmed with Tasmota which I was able to reflash to ESPHome over the web interface. BUT if using a serial interface board you MUST cut 4x PCB tracks and bridge 3x pads the other side of the cut. They are very small, but I was able to bridge them by overloading the soldering iron tip and dragging it across the pads. The instructions are on their website, eg this. I then connected it to my RS485 device (a flipdot sign) and it worked fine.

Their website has some example configurations:

The only thing to note is that their example is wrong with regards to the status LED, you need to configure it like this:

status_led:
  pin:
    number: GPIO2

For the RS485 interface, this works:

uart:
  id: your_id
  tx_pin: GPIO17
  rx_pin: GPIO16

So in summary, although I haven’t thoroughly tested it yet, it seems a good solution for having an ESP32, relays and serial/I2C etc all on one board.

1 Like
5

hi!
anyone tried USB to TTL on this device? I have a ESP32R4 – 4 Relays controller V4.
It just won’t upload via the USB.
I tried pressing the boot button, holding it, reseting the device while holding boot button, etc… and nothing works…
Any ideas?
Thanks!

7

Simply cycle power the device with the PROG button pressed. Resetting it with that button pressed does not work.

1 Like
8

I bought a couple of these ESP32R4 boards… To be clear, I ordered the AC PSRam w/external antenna hoping for longer wifi range than the cheaper on board antenna esp32 wroom x4 relays I had got before.

Of course, I didn’t find this thread until after I have had problems…

I didn’t have issue flashing code to one in ESPhome using a cp2102 usb to ttl module and the example code from rocketcontroller.com.

But, even after correcting the led code and adding the uart code as mentioned above, the one unit I have flashed has a constant high frequency buzz. Any thoughts?

Also, the wifi range is even less than the cheaper esp32 x4 relays… Any others have that experience?

I’m wondering if these issues are related to morecoding errors or are “features” of this board?

9

Never heard of this brand but, just skimming through past user comments, they include example code being wrong, gpio pinout being wrong, hardware failures, you’re high frequency buzzing, and the biggest red flag of all is someone trying over and over to contact them for help/support and they’ve gotten no replies back. All of these complaints and the suspiciously low prices on these, id be very suspicious of this company and personally I would take a hard pass and avoid getting ripped off.

To answer your question, high frequency buzzing is typically hardware related but, its possible youve got something else going on too.

1 Like
10

Does seem like the company started with promise, much of which ended unfulfilled.

I actually bought mine from AliExpress; likely old stock from the failing company…

I’m going to try flashing the 2nd unit with the same code and compare.

11

Pretty sure they stull produce.
Tje expansion board was not available but now it is.
Pretty okay.

Never had hardware issues, it works as designed.
We should all be clear, it is still diy

1 Like
12

Btw the restarts were my bad.
Connecting gnd / rx / tx solved all my issues.

So gnd was missing between the devices
I still plan to use it as pool controller and for my sprinkler in the garden.

R4 will probaböy replace the cheap 16x relay board with esp8266, which is working but running out of mem with my programming

1 Like