hardware

Read and control I2C and SPI peripherals on Sipeed boards (LicheeRV Nano, MaixCAM, NanoKVM).

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Hardware (I2C / SPI)

Name: hardware
Rating: 68.8 (1 reviews)
Author: sipeed

Use the i2c and spi tools to interact with sensors, displays, and other peripherals connected to the board.

Quick Start

# 1. Find available buses
i2c detect

# 2. Scan for connected devices
i2c scan  (bus: "1")

# 3. Read from a sensor (e.g. AHT20 temperature/humidity)
i2c read  (bus: "1", address: 0x38, register: 0xAC, length: 6)

# 4. SPI devices
spi list
spi read  (device: "2.0", length: 4)

Before You Start — Pinmux Setup

Most I2C/SPI pins are shared with WiFi on Sipeed boards. You must configure pinmux before use.

See references/board-pinout.md for board-specific commands.

Common steps:

Stop WiFi if using shared pins: /etc/init.d/S30wifi stop
Load i2c-dev module: modprobe i2c-dev
Configure pinmux with devmem (board-specific)
Verify with i2c detect and i2c scan

Safety

Write operations require confirm: true — always confirm with the user first
I2C addresses are validated to 7-bit range (0x03-0x77)
SPI modes are validated (0-3 only)
Maximum per-transaction: 256 bytes (I2C), 4096 bytes (SPI)

Common Devices

See references/common-devices.md for register maps and usage of popular sensors: AHT20, BME280, SSD1306 OLED, MPU6050 IMU, DS3231 RTC, INA219 power monitor, PCA9685 PWM, and more.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
No I2C buses found	`modprobe i2c-dev` and check device tree
Permission denied	Run as root or add user to `i2c` group
No devices on scan	Check wiring, pull-up resistors (4.7k typical), and pinmux
Bus number changed	I2C adapter numbers can shift between boots; use `i2c detect` to find current assignment
WiFi stopped working	I2C-1/SPI-2 share pins with WiFi SDIO; can't use both simultaneously
`devmem` not found	Download separately or use `busybox devmem`
SPI transfer returns all zeros	Check MISO wiring and device power
SPI transfer returns all 0xFF	Device not responding; check CS pin and clock polarity (mode)

Repository: sipeed/picoclaw
Path: workspace/skills/hardware/SKILL.md
Commit: 49183d7

Last updated: about 15 hours ago
First committed: 5 months ago

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