From my previous MetaClockClock project, I still had some hardware available. So I decided to build my largest build so far: to clocks with 78 clocks each.

From my previous MetaClockClock project, I still had some hardware available. So I decided to build my largest build so far: to clocks with 78 clocks each.

In Tutorial: Getting Started with MCUXpresso SDK – Repositories with VS Code and Tutorial: Getting Started with MCUXpresso SDK – west I showed how to get the MCUXpresso SDK. In this article it is about tweaking and streamlining the project.
The result is a clean, portable and self-contained MCUXpresso SDK project.

Recently I have been asked “How can I debug a Linux application with VS Code?”. I’m covering that topic in my ‘Embedded Application Development Course on Linux”.

I realized, that I have never covered that topic in any of my blog articles. So here we go: I show how easy it is to use VS Code to debug a Linux application. You can use this for example with an Raspberry Pi. Or for example the NXP i.MX93 which I’m using in this article.
Continue readingIn “Tutorial: Getting Started with MCUXpresso SDK – west“, I demonstrated the ‘west’ tool’s usage. It helps in acquiring an SDK repository. Instead using the command line tool, I can use the NXP VS Code extension to do the same.

In my earlier tutorial I showed how to install the necessary SDK tools. In this article I’m going to install the SDK sources. For this I’m going to use west. This is a command-line ‘meta-repository’ tool.

The engineering and development landscape is constantly changing. This includes the embedded tooling and SDKs.
Back in the year 2017 I have used the version 2 (see Tutorial: Using Eclipse with NXP MCUXpresso SDK v2 and Processor Expert). Back then, it was Eclipse with make. Now we are in 2026 and things have changed to VS Code, cmake, ninja, python and west.

Luckily, although more and different tools are needed these days, the installation experience has improved significantly. It has shifted from installing multiple different tools to a streamlined installation process.
Continue readingI have to run multiple +10h CNC jobs. So, I decided to upgrade my Shapeoko 4 CNC machine. I equipped it with a Raspberry Pi and a new dust collection system.

It is the last day of November. And tomorrow the Advent starts with December 1st. Over the last weeks I have spent the weekends with building an Advent Calendar. This year it is one without any electronics. The CNC machine has cut a pine wood tree. And the 3D printer created round threaded and numbered containers, with a shiny star on top of the tree:

I recently upgraded from Win10 to Win11. Windows 10 was not great for building performance compared to Linux. And I feel that with Windows 11 things got worse too.
Dev Container in VS Code uses docker-based environments. This enables me using a full-featured development environment, with isolated dependencies. This is especially very useful for development in the embedded systems space. There I have to use many different SDKs, toolchains and libraries. Using Dev Containers is super easy. But file I/O operations with building etc/is not that great.
The solution is to use a Docker Volume with VS Code and Dev Container:

In “Getting Started with Rust on NXP LPC55S69-EVK” I demonstrated how easy it is to run a ‘blinky’ with Rust. I used the Embassy framework.

In this article, I show how one can create a standalone Rust project for an embedded target.
Continue reading