Improved hardware support

[dynamicdave]

Sorry, VERY late to the party.

ESP Easy appears to offer support for the MCP23017 IO expander.
I've not tried it, but here's a link to the docs.

https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/index.php?title=MCP23017

They also offer support for PCA9685 to do PWM.
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/index.php?title=PCA9685

Here's a link to the Slot Racing Car project I did with some of my IoT students.
The project used a Wemos D1 Mini (ESP8266 12F) driven from a RPi-Zero-W via MQTT.

Slot car racing - - - just pure fun

I make no excuse at all - this is just pure fun. My students will love it !!!! I've just bought a slot car racing set from a local charity shop and have connected it to a WeMos D1 Mini on a breadboard driven from Node-RED via MQTT. On the breadboard is a PCA9685 (16-channel, 12-bit PWM module). It took some time sorting out the best PWM frequency and range settings, but eventually settled on 1500Hz with a range also of 1500. The car goes from a slow "creep" to just below "max speed", as at …