Author Archives: Erich Styger

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About Erich Styger

Embedded is my passion....

Hacking the Teensy V3.1 for SWD Debugging

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I *love* the Freescale Freedom boards, and you probably recognized that with all my projects using them. The Freedom boards are small, inexpensive and can be easily extended with Arduino shields which makes them a great platform for prototyping. But sometimes I just need an ARM microcontroller with some headers, and then the 85mm x 55mm size of the Freedom board is not ideal. That’s nothing new, but I realized that yet again when I did my Adafruit NeoPixel clock: the FRDM board was rather bulky, even if hidden behind that clock. I need something much smaller: the Teensy board!

Size Comparison FRDM vs. Teensy

Size Comparison FRDM vs. Teensy

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USB with the TWR-KL25Z48M Board: Check Jumper J18!

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When I ordered my first Freedom FRDM-KL25Z board, I placed an order the Tower TWR-KL25Z48M shortly afterwards. But I was so happy with the FRDM-KL25Z, and because the FRDM board is much less expensive and easier to handle, that Tower board was sitting in my board shelf, waiting for a maybe a student project or to get any other use of it. Well, I can tell that my students wanted the FRDM board, not the Tower board ;-). But when I saw this week in the Freescale forum a user asking for a USB example for that Tower board, I thought that now I could at least use that board to help someone out.

MKL25Z128VLK4 on the TWR-KL25Z Board

MKL25Z128VLK4 on the TWR-KL25Z48M Board

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Converting S19 Files into Binary Files with GNU objcopy

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Typically I can create with my build the file I usually need (like an S19). See “S-Record Generation with gcc for ARM/Kinetis” how to do this in CodeWarrior, or “Binary Files for the mbed Bootloader with Eclipse and GNU ARM Eclipse Plugins” how this works in Kinetis Design Studio. The basis of all this is the GNU objcopy utility (see “S-Record Manipulation with GNU objcopy and Burner Utility”). So what if I just have an S19 (S-Record) file and need it in a different format, e.g. as .bin (binary) file for the mbed bootloader which only accepts .bin (raw binary) files?

Converting S19 to BIN

Converting S19 to BIN

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LED Clock with Kitchen Hot Pan Protector

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When I showed my 60 NeoPixel LED clock prototype to my daughter and her girlfriend, and they both wanted to have one right away :-). Well, that clock was just a proof of concept, with lots of temporary wiring. So I decided this week-end to beautify it and to make it look nice and clean(er). There is nothing like a week-end project with adding a few more LEDs and features :-).

Adafruit Neopixel Clock with 60+24+12 LEDs

Adafruit Neopixel Clock with 60+24+12 LEDs

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A Compendium: is this what you are looking for?

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When I started this blog back on February 1st 2012 with a ‘hello world‘ post, I did not know where and how this well end up. WordPress.com (the host of this blog) counted 1862 views in that first month. 30 months later (time is flying by!), views they are beyond 100k every month! Thanks to you all for commenting and liking posts, which is very encouraging. And there was one suggesting made recently which I would like to address:

Compendium Page

Compendium Page

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Zumo Robot with WiFi and GPS

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It always takes longer than expected: actually 4 weeks from the first board out of the reflow oven (“First New Zumo Board out of the Reflow Oven“), until I have it working on the Pololu chassis. But now I have a mobile Robot with WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, nRF24L01+ and all the stuff I have dreamed off 🙂

New Zumo Robot

New Zumo Robot

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Adding the CAM8000-D Camera Module to the RIoT Board

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One reason for me to buy the RIoT board was that it has a camera connector. So I had ordered the CAM8000-D module from Farnell (part number 2362812). The Farnell product page was not clear if it comes with the 30pin FPC cable, but luckily, it shipped with it:

Unpacked CAM8000-U Camera and Board

Unpacked CAM8000-U Camera and Board

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Adding the Wi-Pi WiFi Dongle to the RIoT Android Board

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The wired Ethernet connectivity works out of the box with the Freescale RIoT board :-). But to make it more ‘IoT’ capable, a WiFi connection would be a big plus. The element14 site did not tell which WiFi dongles are supported, and a thread in the element14 forum on that topic has not really provided much information. With some risks I decided to order the Wi-Pi WiFi dongle which seems to be popular in the Raspberry Pi community (thus that Wi-Pi name?). And as I anyway have a Raspy, my thinking was that if it does not work with the RIoT board, I still can use it with the Raspy 🙂

Wi-Pi WiFi with the RIoT Board

Wi-Pi WiFi with the RIoT Board

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Flashing a new Android Image to the RIoT Board

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I understand the challenges of board vendors: they produce many boards, and typically they have an early/first firmware version on it. And when that board gets shipped to customers, that firmware typically is old and outdated :-(. Same for the RIoT board I have received: I was desperately trying some advanced features, only to realize that the firmware on the board is an older one from this year. So time to update the Android on that board.

Freescale RIoT Board

Freescale RIoT Board

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