Cold and humid air are forming beautiful sculptures these days. The image shows the leaves of a Japanese Umbrella-Pine (Sciadopitys):
Frosted Sciadopitys Leaves
Happy Frosting š
Frosted Japanese Umbrella Pine
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Yearly Archives: 2016
McuOnEclipse Components: 12-Dec-2016 Release
Time is passing by so fast, and the year end is approache fast! I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge:
- Percepio Trace V3.1 for FreeRTOS which includes both Segger RTT continuous streaming and snapshot tracing in a single API
- Generation of sources and drivers so they can be used without Processor Expert using McuLibConfig, removal of dependency to NXP Kinetis SDK: components use a generic API approach to have them working with other SDKs.
- New contributed ExceptionsHandler component
- Callback Setter and Getter in USB CDC stack for simpler option handling
- GenericTimeDate with flexible RTC support and added Unix Timestamp functions
- LongKey events in Key component
- FreeRTOS with optimized task selection on Cortex-M4/M7
- Many smaller bug fixes and enhancements
SourceForge
Qi Wireless Charging Transmitter with 3D Printed Enclosure
For my Hexiwear university research project I’m exploring wireless charing options. I have built a DIY Qi charging station and created a 3D printed enclosure for it:
Qi Charging Transmitter
Red Sunday Morning
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A benefit getting up early on a Sunday morning is the chance to watch a beautiful sunrise:
Red Morning
Happy Sunday š
Flashing and Restoring the Hexiwear Firmware
The Hexiwear device is a great and versatile device with two microcontrollers on it. Developing firmware on a Hexiwear means changing what was originally on it. And sometimes it happens that I’m not sure if the changes are for good. Or that I accidentally destroyed the firmware on the NXP Kinetis KW40 BLE microcontroller :-(. So I had to find a way to restore the original firmware, and this is what this post is about.
Restoring the Hexiwear Firmware with a Segger J-Link
Sunrise with Fƶhn
A sunrise which reminds me that nature creates the most beautiful pictures:
Mythen Sunrise
Scene created by the Fƶhn wind moving clouds over the Swiss Alps, and the sun rising behind the Mythen mountains.
Happy Sunrising š
Prototype of tiny Hexiwear Docking Station
For a research project we are using Hexiwear to measure the effectiveness of teaching and learning. The Hexiwear is used as a networking sensor device in that project. For that project we needed a docking station with wireless capabilities:
Mini Docking Station for Hexiwear
Where is the Sun?
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Mother nature offered an interesting puzzle this morning: a sunrise with beautiful light sculptures. But where is the sun?
Morning sunlight without the Sun?
Tutorial: STMicroelectronics VL6180X Time-of-Flight LIDAR Sensor
For many of my applications I need to measure a distance. I have used ultrasonic sensors, but there view angle (beam) is not able to detect smaller objects, it very much depends on the object surface and angle, it is slow and not very precise. I have used infrared sensors, but here again it depends on the infrared reflection of the object in range, it depends the amount of reflected light is not really telling much about the distance, and yet IR reflection is subject of material and object targeted.
But there is yet another sensor type to consider: ToF! ToF (or Time-of-Flight) sensors have a built-in LIDAR: The sensor is sending out light pulses and measures how much time it takes for the light to come back. Similar to ultrasonic sensors (see “Tutorial: Ultrasonic Ranging with the Freedom Board“), but instead of ultrasonic it uses an infrared laser light. Or think about a radar system using an infrared laser light.
Vl6180x Breakout Board with tinyK20 (NXP Kinetis K20) Microcontroller-board
NXP MCUXpresso Software and Tools with Clocks Tool
About a year ago, on December 7th 2015, Freescale and NXP have announced the completion of their merger.Ā Now it is Qualcomm which wants to acquire NXP? It looks like these mergers are happening faster and faster. The reality is that merging products take more time than anticipated, and nearly one year later I can see the outcome of what comes out of the marriage between Freescale and NXP or between Kinetis and LPC: NXP has announced the MCUXpresso software and tools for Kinetis and LPC microcontroller:
Introducing MCUXpresso (Source: NXP video)
MCU on Eclipse 