Add board "SenseCAP Card Tracker T1000-E"

[stefanbraun-private]

Hi,
I'm a fan of Helium LoRaWAN IoT, Python and SenseCAP T1000-A GPS tracker.
This device is closed-source and ready for endusers and applications.

This tracker exists as OpenSource variant T1000-E with similar hardware and sensors,
projects like Meshtastic support it already:

It would be cool to have T1000-E as board in official CircuitPython releases!
(MCU is nRF52840, it has only the internal 1MByte flash storage)

=>As experiment I compiled CircuitPython with T1000-E support (it's my first contact with CircuitPython).
REPL over serial console works. LED, button and buzzer works.
Perhaps someone with CircuitPython experience and a T1000-E can use my early steps?

I got stuck talking via SPI to Semtech LR1110 for LoRa and LoRaWAN,
perhaps I made mistakes in pin definition, and perhaps it needs a native Python module wrapping the Semtech C-Code... Perhaps someone already solved this challenge?

Details about my current T1000-E firmware,
compiled with my attached board definition files:

• drive "T1000-E", content of "INFO_UF2.TXT":

UF2 Bootloader 0.9.1-5-g488711a lib/nrfx (v2.0.0) lib/tinyusb (0.12.0-145-g9775e7691) lib/uf2 (remotes/origin/configupdate-9-gadbb8c7)
Model: Seeed T1000-E for Meshtastic
Board-ID: nRF52840-T1000-E-v1
Date: Jul 15 2024
SoftDevice: S140 7.3.0

• drive "CIRCUITPY", content of "boot_out.txt":

Adafruit CircuitPython 10.0.0-alpha.2-37-gf9ab642fdd on 2025-05-03; Seeed T1000-E with nRF52840
Board ID:Seeed_Tracker_T1000-E
UID:27CA7D32B083A7FB

• compiling CircuitPython:
  Tutorial step: ARM Cortex-M toolchain on Linux
  download and installation of "arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.Rel1-x86_64-arm-none-eabi"

nRF Bluetooth-stack compatible with T1000-E bootloader: download "SoftDevice S140" v7.3.0
(Seeed Studio uses same version in the Arduino example)
=>extract content of ZIP file "s140_nrf52_7.3.0.zip" into ./circuitpython/ports/nordic/bluetooth/s140_nrf52_7.3.0
nRF SoftDevice S140 v7.3.0

• Links with further information:
  SenseCAP Card Tracker T1000-E - product description

Meshtastic - hardware details T1000-E

Seeed Studio T1000-E - Arduino code examples
=>board pin assignment is in
~/.arduino15/packages/Seeeduino/hardware/nrf52/1.1.10/variants/Seeed_Tracker_T1000_E_LoRaWAN
(attached file "SeeedStudio_T1000-E_Arduino_pin-definition.zip")

Seeed Studio T1000-E pinout documentation

my Arduino test: T1000-E as Helium mapper for coverage mapping

Greetings,
Stefan Braun.

SeeedStudio_T1000-E_Arduino_pin-definition.zip

CircuitPython_Board-definition_Seeed_Tracker_T1000-E.zip

[stefanbraun-private]

By the way this is the current compiled CircuitPython firmware for T1000-E for getting the console output above,
just in case someone wants to test it without "getting hands dirty" setting up development environment.

It's the naked firmware, without libraries for directly reading battery level, light level, gyroscope, acceleration, GPS, BLE beacons, WiFi SSID sniffing, and sending data over LoRa-peer-to-peer or LoRaWAN...

firmware.zip

Greetings,
Stefan Braun.