instrument with i2c sensor

[mauromago]

Hi
I'm trying to make a musical instrument for my grandnephews for Christmas. It's something you see around on the internet and is often called a “light theremin.”
I have a AI Thinker Audio Kit board with an AC101 codec and two VL53L0X sensors. I'm using the Arduino IDE, but I could also switch to PlatformIO, which is already installed if needed.
The problem I'm encountering is that despite all my attempts, I can't get the codec and sensors to work. The codec should use GPIO pins 32 and 33 for the I2C bus, while I'm trying to put the sensors on pins 21 and 22. In any case, I get errors that seem to be conflicts, even when I tried to generate independent instances for the two buses.
If the problem has already been discussed (I haven't found it), I apologize for repeating. Please point me in the right direction and I will study it. If not... HELP.

Thanks in advance.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[pschatzmann]

Try first to make things work w/o VL53L0X to figure out what board version you really have.
Please note that the Codec is using the Wire object, so if you want to use some alternative I2C functionality, you need to use Wire1!

Staring from there you can try to figure out what pins are used for what functionality by checking the definitions in DriverPins.h e.g. check out PinsAudioKitAC101Class, PinsAudioKitEs8388v2Class or PinsAudioKitEs8388v1Class.

If you really have the AC101 Version (which can't be purchased for many years now) you should/must not use GPIO 21 since this is used by the Power Amplifer

[mauromago]

Thanks for the quick reply.
I'm almost certain that the card has an ac101 codec, because I can get it to play by declaring: AudioBoardStream out(AudioKitAC101); , whereas it doesn't produce any sound if I try with es8388, either version 1 or 2.
Tomorrow I will do the suggested tests and try not to use pin 21, although I'm not sure I can set sda to another pin.
I will also consider using different sensors that do not have the i2c interface, but I'm not sure I have any at home. If I order them now, the gift will be for Easter :-)

[mauromago]

Update
First of all, thank you again for pointing me in the right direction.
I started by scanning the I2C addresses to see what was there. I found address 0x1A for the bus on pins 33 and 32, then I tried pins 21 and 22 with the sensor, and as I expected, address 0x29 was found. Since you explained to me (a fundamental but not easy to find piece of information) that pin 21 is not usable, I went looking for another set of pins that could be used. In the end, I found that 19 and 18 would work. I then used the address scanner on the two buses and both returned the correct results; two I2Cs on this board can work :-)
I took the very simple program that used the AudioTools library and only emits a continuous note and mixed it with the I2C scanner for the two buses. The I2C addresses of both buses are read and the audio comes out.
This is the code I used:

#include "AudioTools.h"
#include "AudioTools/AudioLibs/AudioBoardStream.h"
#include <Wire.h>

AudioInfo info(32000, 2, 16);
SineWaveGenerator<int16_t> sineWave(32000);                // subclass of SoundGenerator with max amplitude of 32000
GeneratedSoundStream<int16_t> sound(sineWave);             // Stream generated from sine wave
AudioBoardStream out(AudioKitAC101);
StreamCopy copier(out, sound);  // copies sound into i2s
VolumeStream volume(sound);

// Arduino Setup
void setup(void) {  
  // Open Serial 
  Serial.begin(115200);
  AudioToolsLogger.begin(Serial, AudioToolsLogLevel::Info);
  
  Wire.begin(33,32);             // default: 21, 22
  Wire1.begin( 19, 18);     // I don't know the default pins !
  Serial.println("---------- Scanning Wire -------------");
  I2C_ScannerWire();
  Serial.println("---------- Scanning Wire1 ------------");
  I2C_ScannerWire1();

  
  // start I2S
  Serial.println("starting I2S...");
  auto config = out.defaultConfig(TX_MODE);
  config.copyFrom(info); 
  out.begin(config);

  // Setup sine wave
  sineWave.begin(info, N_B4);
  Serial.println("started...");

// set initial volume
  auto vcfg = volume.defaultConfig();
  vcfg.copyFrom(config);
  volume.begin(vcfg); 
  volume.setVolume(0.1); // Volume udibile
  
}

// Arduino loop - copy sound to out 
void loop() {
  copier.copy();
}


void I2C_ScannerWire()
{
  byte error, address;
  int nDevices;

  Serial.println("Scanning...");

  nDevices = 0;
  for(address = 1; address < 127; address++ )
  {
    Wire.beginTransmission(address);
    error = Wire.endTransmission();

    if (error == 0)
    {
      Serial.print("I2C device found at address 0x");
      if (address<16)
        Serial.print("0");
      Serial.print(address,HEX);
      Serial.println("  !");

      nDevices++;
    }
    else if (error==4)
    {
      Serial.print("Unknown error at address 0x");
      if (address<16)
        Serial.print("0");
      Serial.println(address,HEX);
    }    
  }
  if (nDevices == 0)
    Serial.println("No I2C devices found\n");
  else
    Serial.println("done\n");
}

void I2C_ScannerWire1()
{
  byte error, address;
  int nDevices;

  Serial.println("Scanning...");

  nDevices = 0;
  for(address = 1; address < 127; address++ )
  {
    Wire1.beginTransmission(address);
    error = Wire1.endTransmission();

    if (error == 0)
    {
      Serial.print("I2C device found at address 0x");
      if (address<16)
        Serial.print("0");
      Serial.print(address,HEX);
      Serial.println("  !");

      nDevices++;
    }
    else if (error==4)
    {
      Serial.print("Unknown error at address 0x");
      if (address<16)
        Serial.print("0");
      Serial.println(address,HEX);
    }    
  }
  if (nDevices == 0)
    Serial.println("No I2C devices found\n");
  else
    Serial.println("done\n");
}

Now I have to study everything else, but I'm no longer stuck.

[mauromago]

Happiness is made up of brief moments, those that range from the conviction that you have solved a problem to the moment you realize that this is not true. :-)
Getting the two I"C libraries to work on this board is really a mess. After today's tests, with the sensor on pins 19 and 18, I have serious doubts that I will be able to make it all work. The two buses are visible at setup, but then, when the audio library starts, the bus on the sensor becomes unreadable or almost unreadable. In order to read it, I had to slow down the bus speed to 50kHz and eliminate calls to the sensor function (VL53L0X) because I can't get the two to coexist.
Suggestions are welcome.

[pschatzmann]

Did you use VL53L0X on Wire1 and AudioDriver on Wire ?
Did you setup VL53L0X after calling AudoTools begin() ?
What Arduino ESP32 Core Version are you using ?

[mauromago]

What Arduino ESP32 Core Version are you using ?

ESP32 2.0.17

Did you use VL53L0X on Wire1 and AudioDriver on Wire ?

Yes

Did you setup VL53L0X after calling AudoTools begin() ?

Yes (should be)
Here the declarations and setup

#include "AudioTools.h"
#include "AudioTools/AudioLibs/AudioBoardStream.h"
#include <Wire.h>
#include <Adafruit_VL53L0X.h>

AudioInfo info(32000, 2, 16);
SineWaveGenerator<int16_t> sineWave(32000);
GeneratedSoundStream<int16_t> sound(sineWave);
AudioBoardStream out(AudioKitAC101);
VolumeStream volume(sound);
StreamCopy copier(out, volume);

Adafruit_VL53L0X vl53 = Adafruit_VL53L0X();
#define VL53L0X_ADDR 0x29

void setup(void) { 
  Serial.begin(115200);
  
  Wire.begin(33, 32);          
  Wire1.begin(19, 18, 100000); 
  Wire1.setTimeOut(10); // Ridotto a 10ms: se il sensore non risponde, molla subito

  auto config = out.defaultConfig(TX_MODE);
  config.copyFrom(info); 
  out.begin(config);

  sineWave.begin(info, N_B4);
  auto vcfg = volume.defaultConfig();
  vcfg.copyFrom(config);
  volume.begin(vcfg); 
  volume.setVolume(0.1); 

  Wire1.begin(19, 18, 10000);

  Serial.println("Inizializzazione VL53L0X...");
  // Inizializzazione senza debug seriale interno alla libreria
  if (!vl53.begin(VL53L0X_ADDR, false, &Wire1)) {
    Serial.println("Errore Hardware Sensore!");
  } else {
    vl53.startRangeContinuous();
    Serial.println("Sensore Online.");
  }
  
  Serial.println("Loop Start.");
}

that the debug output
Inizializzazione VL53L0X...
Errore Hardware Sensore!
Loop Start.
lastcode.txt

Sound is continuous, if I use VL53 library to read the sensor the sound is intermittent

[pschatzmann]

The actual version is 3.3.4!

Please read the Wiki. Here is a copy from https://github.com/pschatzmann/arduino-audio-tools/wiki/It's-not-working

Audio processing is all about providing the audio data fast enough, so make sure that you don't have any processing steps that prevent this. Otherwise try to isolate the audio in it's separate task.

• You forgot to change the log level to Warning or Error
• You introduced some delays which causes the audio to underflow. You are pulling your own leg if you add print statements in the loop...