From 49603f2b8b28280edcc04cdc15bcf6fddf15f436 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jean-Pierre Martineau Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:13:18 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Why an SPI radio is added in config.toml and not on the device screen Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) --- docs/configuration.md | 9 +++++++++ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/configuration.md b/docs/configuration.md index 226f747..c28750c 100644 --- a/docs/configuration.md +++ b/docs/configuration.md @@ -82,6 +82,15 @@ shows how to install that. `/dev/spidev1.0` exists the device screen lists it as **SPI radio**, and `meshterm --spi` reaches it. Any other board is added with a profile that states how it is wired. +**Why a profile, and not a prompt on the device screen.** A USB companion describes itself: +plug it in and there is nothing to ask. An SPI radio says nothing about how it is wired, and +the wiring is a dozen facts — the bus, the chip select, the reset, busy, and interrupt pins, +the antenna switch, the TCXO — any one of which, wrong, leaves a radio that comes up deaf +rather than failing. Those are facts to look up once and write down, not to type into a +dialog. And the radio doesn't come and go the way a cable does: it is soldered, stacked on +a header, or built into the case, so its description belongs somewhere as lasting as the +hardware is. A file you write once, and can read back when something is off, is that place. + ### 1. Find your board's wiring The easiest place to find it is the board's `meshtasticd` configuration, which most vendors