No repl on ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-5

[dsl400]

Could not get https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-5 to work.

Tried all the make commands found around here especially ones on #423

python3 make.py esp32 clean --flash-size=16 BOARD=ESP32_GENERIC_S3 BOARD_VARIANT=SPIRAM_OCT DISPLAY=rgb_display INDEV=gt911 IO_EXPANDER=ch422g PORT=/dev/ttyACM0

any suggestion would be highly appreciated

[dsl400]

Figured it out finally!!!

I removed BOARD_VARIANT=SPIRAM_OCT

python3 make.py esp32 clean --flash-size=16 BOARD=ESP32_GENERIC_S3 DISPLAY=rgb_display INDEV=gt911 IO_EXPANDER=ch422g PORT=/dev/ttyACM0 

edit: False alarm ! the spiram is not working :(

[kdschlosser]

do you have a datasheet for the board you are using? I have seen many times where the MCU's being used are not the packaged ones that Espressif sells and that the board manufacturer has used a different SPIRAM chip than what espressif uses and this has caused issues.

I would need to look at any information that is available for the board you are using.

[dsl400]

according to waveshare https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-5#With_Touch_Version this is the recommended configuration

this is the esp device

[dsl400]

the issue seems to be in the build configuration, the oficial version of micropython works correctly

https://micropython.org/resources/firmware/ESP32_GENERIC_S3-SPIRAM_OCT-20250809-v1.26.0.bin

[dsl400]

Following the steps manually I built only micropython in this repository and flashed it

I used idf.py menuconfig to configure flash size and enable SPIRAM and set it to octal then used idf.py -p /dev/ttyACM0 flash to build and flash

[kdschlosser]

OK I know what is going on. I completely forgot about this...

Depending on the version of the board you are using you may have to add some additional build commands...

If your board is UART for the REPL then you need to add the following commands...

--enable-cdc-repl=n --enable-jtag-repl=n --enable-uart-repl=y

and if your board is using the CDC for the REPS then you need to add these build commands..

--enable-cdc-repl=y --enable-jtag-repl=n --enable-uart-repl=n

[dsl400]

tried both without success :(

python make.py esp32 clean  BOARD=ESP32_GENERIC_S3 BOARD_VARIANT=SPIRAM_OCT --flash-size=16 PORT=/dev/ttyACM0 --enable-cdc-repl=n --enable-jtag-repl=n --enable-uart-repl=y

python make.py esp32 clean  BOARD=ESP32_GENERIC_S3 BOARD_VARIANT=SPIRAM_OCT --flash-size=16 PORT=/dev/ttyACM0 --enable-cdc-repl=y --enable-jtag-repl=n --enable-uart-repl=n

[kdschlosser]

leave the PORT command out and follow the instructions at the end when it is done compiling.

[dsl400]

same problem

[dsl400]

I managed to obtain a build that has both lvgl and SPIRAM after fiddling for hours with the configuration files. My personal guess is that "CONFIG_ESPTOOLPY_FLASHMODE_QIO=y" is the problem
In order to find out I will need to do more tests

[dsl400]

After more fiddling I managed to isolate the problem to these lines of code in the file esp32.py

 if board == 'ESP32_GENERIC_S3':
        base_config.insert(1, 'CONFIG_SPIRAM_XIP_FROM_PSRAM=y')

With this lines commented I can get a working binary.
I also deleted the repo and started fresh to be 100% sure that this is the issue.

final build command

python make.py esp32 clean  BOARD=ESP32_GENERIC_S3 BOARD_VARIANT=SPIRAM_OCT DISPLAY=rgb_display INDEV=gt911 IO_EXPANDER=ch422g --flash-size=16 PORT=/dev/ttyACM0

I also tested the display and the touchscreen using this demo from another discussion
demo.py

to upload the demo and run it I used

mpremote connect /dev/ttyACM0 fs cp "${SCRIPT_PATH}/demo.py" :demo.py
mpremote connect /dev/ttyACM0 exec "exec(open('demo.py').read(), {})"

[kdschlosser]

any of the CONFIG_* parameters you can turn on and off from the command line. so you don't need to edit anything just add CONFIG_SPIRAM_XIP_FROM_PSRAM=n to the build command. you can change any of the config options that the ESP-IDF takes right from the command line.

[kdschlosser]

There is something amiss with your ESP32 to not be able to have that setting set to y. That is something that should work on any ESP32-S3 with at least 4mb of SPIRAM. I suspect there is something else going on but I don't know what it is.