Sometimes I have source files in my project which I do not want to get compiled (or excluded from build). Because as I’m using the ‘managed make’, all source files matching certain extensions (like *.c) are automatically included into the build.
To exclude a file from build, I right-click on it to get to the properties. There I can select a check box to have it excluded from the build:
File Excluded from Build
I admit: I love command line interfaces. Because that gives me usually much more control than any GUI (Graphical User Interface). I like the fact that they have put a UART interface on the RIoT board:
J18 UART on the RIoT Board
This gallery contains 9 photos.
This week-end tour with the motor bike was down to Italy and back through the alps. And it started with nice weather conditions:
At the university we have several projects with internet connectivity running. Yes, there is a hype around IoT, and in my view many false perceptions around this what it could or should be. Anyway, for these projects in many cases the Raspberry Pi boards are used, and I use a model B board of the Raspy too. I’m very happy with the Raspy, but I wanted to explore different options, so I ordered a RIoT board two weeks ago. When I looked at it the first time, I was thinking that this board could be a better (although larger) board than the Raspberry Pi one: more USB, more GPIO, micro-SD card, more processing power:
RIoT Board
Well, then this week the new Raspberry Pi B+ came out: more USB, more GPIO, but same processing power as the standard B model.
After the problems with level shifters (see “First Adafruit NeoPixel Blinks with the FRDM Board“) I received the ordered 74HCT245N. Put it on a bread board, wired it up, … only to find out that the device gets very hot… turned off power, and realized that had the device put in with a wrong orientation 😦 oh darn! That’s why I always order things like that in quantities of 3 or more :-). Corrected the mistake, and things are running (or blinking) again 🙂
74HCT245 Wiring for WS2812
Hochschule Luzern with Pilatus
For my boot loaders I need the functionality that I can keep memory ranges from being erased while downloading the rest of the application. P&E provides a GDB server which interfaces with their probes (P&E Universal Multilinks, Tracelinks, …) and as well with the OpenSDA present on many of the Freescale evaluation boards. In CodeWarrior there is an option for ‘Advanced Programming Options’ which allows to preserve memory of the microcontroller FLASH (see “Programming part of flash“). However, that option or button is not present in the Eclipse version of the P&E GDB server (e.g. in Kinetis Design Studio). So how can I preserve some areas of FLASH in Eclipse with GDB?
Preservation of Non-Volatile Memory in CodeWarrior
LEDs are getting smarter these days. An amazing example are the WS2812(B) or ‘NeoPixels’ from Adafruit: RGB LEDs with a built-in constant current controller and shift register! With a single wire data wire hundreds of RGB LEDs can be controlled. Exactly what I need for a project I had in mind for a very long time. So I ordered a bunch of different LEDs from Adafruit to experiment. Exactly the right thing on dark and rainy week-end. And the result is, well: bright and colorful 🙂
Adafruit NeoPixel LED Ring
I have used the ‘classic’ CodeWarrior IDE for years, before I moved over to Eclipse some years ago. And as with any IDE or tool switch, things are different in the ‘new world’. In summary, I don’t want to go back anyway, and Eclipse is my development tool of choice now. But from time to time I get challenged about something like “hey, this was possible in the previous tool, so how can I do the same in Eclipse?”. As a fan of Eclipse, this then gets my attention as I feel that Eclipse can do it, and it can do it better. 😉
So what about this one: In CodeWarrior the project view lists code and data size for each source file:
Code And Data Size in CodeWarrior
I admit: I’m sometimes a lazy person. In my projects, I only needed one ‘disk drive’ with the FatFS Processor Expert component: either a SD card or a USB MSD drive. But a reader of this blog wanted to use FatFS with multiple drives: using it with an SD card and a USB MSD drive. And actually FatFS does support this, I just had no need for it, thus I did not add anything special for it. But that reader let me think that I better add Multi-Drive support. Even if I do not need it now, that could be very handy in the future 🙂
FatFS Drive System (Source http://elm-chan.org/fsw/ff/en/appnote.html)
MCU on Eclipse 