STM32 Nucleo and DFU USB Bootloading

Over the last few months I have been playing with the Nucleo development boards from STMicroelectronics. If you're unfamiliar with them, they are fast, mbed and Arduino (headers) compatible. This makes it easy like an Arduino to program and use. What sets them apart is that they are 32bit and have, depending on the model, tons of memory and flash. The Nucleo boards maintain the Arduino footprint but also have headers for the extra pins which gives this board plenty of GPIO for your projects.  In turn, you end up with multiple buses such as SPI, I2C, and UARTs for your consumption. They are priced very well and come in different flavors based on your needs. Each flavor is based on different ARM Cortex architectures such as M0, M3, and M4. One of the best features is real debugging via ST-Link/V2-1. The unfortunate thing due to the nature of mbed, you can only use the debugging features using a full desktop IDE such as Keil or some of the other free alternatives. But mbed allows you to export your code from the online IDE to the project format for those IDE's. So there's that.

Most of my projects spend very little time on the development board. Once they are working, I usually want to design a PCB for it. Therefore I prefer to use microcontrollers that support native USB programming, such as the popular ATMega32U4. With some AVR chips you can use the Arduino bootloader but most chips come with a DFU bootloader that can support flashing over serial and USB. In the case of STM32, it additionally supports CAN, I2C, and SPI bootloading. For some reason the Nucleo boards don't have the native USB connector onboard, but the needed pins are available for easy access. (The discovery boards do.)

Connecting USB Pins

To access these pins you can use a USB breakout or a USB Tester. Of course you could always cut open a USB cable, but seriously, why create a mess? If you have one of my USB, Testers it makes it much easier, plus all of the other features it provides. BUY ONE NOW!! Just kidding! The pins for D+ and D- are not labeled on the pin out of the Nucleo board out but if you look up the datasheet you can find them and match the pin names with the Nucleo pin out as shown below.

So far I have tested the L152 and F411 and both have been PA12, PA11 (D+, D-). Which is pin 6,7 from the top on the right most column of male headers.

STM32 Nucleo USB DFU Connections

100th Post Giveaway! CLOSED

The 100th post has arrived! So to celebrate, we're having a giveaway! I wrote about it earlier, and I still cannot believe that it is finally here. I've wanted to extend my gratitude to those who follow my blog here, and to the electronics community, especially when it comes to Opensource.

Thanks to our friends over at DFRobot for sponsoring this giveaway! 
A little background about them: as an online shop, they specialize in robotics. They make and sell a variety of boards (offering PCB services), tools, components, kits, etc. If it's about robots, chances are, they've got it. They also plenty of other electronic items. If you've yet to hear about them, go check them out!

The prize: Dreamer Nano V4.0

Source: DFRobot, with editing by heartsy

Description from DFRobot:

The Dreamer Nano V4.0 is a surface mount breadboard embedded version of the ATMEGA 32U4 with integrated Micro USB. It has everything that Arduino Leonardo has (electrically).Physically, it is just missing power jack to save space.

Using the ATmega32U4 as its sole microcontroller allows it to be cheaper and simpler. Also, because the 32U4 is handling the USB directly, code libraries are available which allow the board to emulate a computer keyboard, mouse, and more using the USB-HID protocol!

The Dreamer Nano v4.0 is compatible with most Nano shield in the market. It's suitable for projects that require a compact size controller system.

Specifications

• Microcontroller:ATmega32u4

• Operating Voltage:5V

• Input Voltage (recommended):6.5-12v (VIN) / 5v (Micro USB)

• Input Voltage (limits):6.5-12V

• Digital I/O Pins:20

• PWM Channels:7

• Analog Input Channels:12

• DC Current per I/O Pin:40 mA

• DC Current for 3.3V Pin:50 mA

• Flash Memory:32 KB (ATmega32u4) of which 4 KB used by bootloader

• SRAM:2.5 KB (ATmega32u4)

• EEPROM:1 KB (ATmega32u4)

• Clock Speed:16 MHz

• Compatible with most of Nano shield

• Size: 45x20x20mm

We think this prize makes a great starter microcontroller that is breadboard-able, and Arduino Leonardo compatible.


How to enter the giveaway:

• One comment, answering: How did you get started into (or what brings you to) electronics?
• Winner will be picked with a random number generator using an Arduino.
• The generator will be recorded in action & uploaded on the blog, in a new post.
• Be sure to log in when you comment. Anonymous types will not be accepted.

Giveaway is now until Thursday, November 22, 2013 at 11:59 PM PST. Winning announcement will be held that same weekend.

Should you have any questions, please send me an e-mail instead of leaving a comment. Good luck!

ARM-Powered Arduino DUE

Far removed from the legions of 3D printers featured at this year’s Maker Faire in New York was a much smaller, but far more impressive announcement: The ARM-powered Arduino DUE is going to be released later this month.
Instead of the 8-bit AVR microcontrollers usually found in Arduinos, the DUE is powered by an ATSAM3X8E microcontroller, itself based on the ARM Cortex-M3 platform. There are a few very neat features in the DUE, namely a USB On The Go port to allow makers and tinkerers to connect keyboards, mice, smartphones (hey, someone should port IOIO firmware to this thing), and maybe even standard desktop inkjet or laser printers.
The board looks strikingly similar to the already common Arduino Mega. That’s no mistake; the DUE is compatible with existing shields, so connecting a RAMPS board for your 3D printer should be a snap.
Here’s a PDF the Arduino and Atmel guys were handing out at their booth. A few DUE boards have already made it into the hands of important people in the Arduino community, including 3D printer guru [Josef Prusa]. Sadly, the folks at Arduino didn’t think media personalities needed a DUE before its release, so you’ll have to wait until we get our hands on one later this month for a review.

Source: Hack A Day

Ti Stellaris LaunchPad

Last week two of these arrived at my doorstep. It's the newly launched Texas Instruments Stellaris LaunchPad.

I pre-ordered directly from Ti a few months ago. https://estore.ti.com/Stellaris-LaunchPad.aspx

Freescale Freedom-KL25Z has arrived

A few months ago I jumped on the pre-order impluse buy for the Freescale Freedom-KL25Z. Thankfully I had forgotten about it until I recieved shipment notification. It was nice that I didn't have to wait too long. Today it as arrived. Here are some close-up pictures - thought it would be nice to have some since there doesn't seem to be any up yet.

If you would like to get one, I ordered it from element14\newark.com.

Here are the specifications as listed on Newark's website. I cannot wait to start playing with it!

FYI: If you order it now, I am pretty sure you don't get the headers. The orginal listing was a prototype board with headers and when they released the final version, it didn't have headers, so they included them with the pre-orders at no extra cost.

Even Better Renesas Promotion Board: RX62N

My friend sent this to me yesterday.

http://am.renesas.com/products/tools/introductory_evaluation_tools/renesas_demo_kits/yrdkrx62n/index.jsp?campaign=top_rdkrx62n


If you watch the two videos you can see it is an awesome board. I can't wait to get mine tomorrow. Shipping is super fast with Renesas. I hope to do some cool things with it.

Renesas Promotion Board for RL78/G13

Yesterday I received my free evaluation board Renesas is giving out to promote their Rl78/G13.

Head over to claim your own.

http://am.renesas.com/products/tools/introductory_evaluation_tools/renesas_demo_kits/yrpbrl78g13/index.jsp

They ship super fast. I put in the order at 4:25pm and had it before noon the following day.

Now to put it to the test...