The new semester is approaching fast! And I’m under pressure to get everything lined up and ready. This time, I want the students of the INTRO (Infotronic) course at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts to have some fun with building and programming Mini-Sumo Robots 🙂
No chance to escape!
Rigi Schwinget (Picture: Roman Koch)
Every three years, there is the “Eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest” in Switzerland. A really big thing for us here. If you are not familiar with what this is, then have a read about the long tradition of  Schwingen in Switzerland.
Wondering what “Schwingen” or wrestling has to do with a technology blog? It is about having fun with robots!
Self-Motivation: I write this post in the hope to cut the number of ‘please help me’ emails in my inbox ;-):
If you want to debug one of the Freescale boards with OpenSDA (FRDM-KL25Z, FRDM-K20, FRDM-KL05Z, FRDM-KL46Z48M, FRDM-KL02Z, TWR-KL47Z48M, …), and if you get this dialog …
No Device Available
… then read on.
The ARM Cortex specification includes the ‘SysTick’ (System Tick Timer): a dedicated system timer which is intended to be used as time base for an RTOS. While technically it would be possible to use any periodic interrupt timer, I’m using as well the SysTick for my FreeRTOS ARM ports. And because Processor Expert includes a nice timer interface, I’m using the TimerUnit_LDD:
TimerUnit LDD for SysTick
While this is great for flexibility, it has its price in efficiency. That TimerUnit_LDD adds overhead. So I want to get rid of the TimerUnit_LDD and use a more efficient way.
As I was so pleased with the FRDM-KL46Z board, that I have ordered the Tower version of it, the TWR-KL46Z48M:
FRDM-KL46Z with TWR-KL46Z48M
What I missed so far was USB support for the KL46Z. So time to have a quick look at board(s) and to add USB support for it.
Looks like a flood of new Freedom boards is coming out 🙂 : I have found out about this new one: The FRDM-KE02Z.
FRDM-KE02Z Board
For many projects I need to store configuration or sensor data. For this I’m using either an SD card or program the internal flash memory of the microcontroller. Using the internal flash is a good thing as it does not need an external component. However, the typical number of programming cycles is limited to 10k-50k which is a limiting factor if data has to be recorded over a long time or very often. That’s why I’m using the very popular external 24xx external EEPROM devices from Microchip.
24LC512 connected to FRDM-KL25Z
I love the Freedom boards, like the most recent FRDM-KL46Z for about US$15. But if I think that the ‘Freedom’ board is to big, cost too much and has too much on it, then here is one which is built for only US$5 :-): The MC HCK (pronounced “McHack”):
MC HCK Board Assembled (Source: http://mchck.org/blog/2013-08-06-self-built-mchck-for-5-dollars/)
One of the ‘goodies’ of the FRDM-KL46Z is the Freescale MAG3110 magnetometer. The MAG3110 is a tiny 2×2 mm device:
MAG3110 on FRDM-KL46Z
What was missing so far is a Processor Expert component for it. This post is about closing this gap…
Freescale has added a new Freedom board: the FRDM-KL46Z:
FRDM-KL46Z with Box
My opinion? The best Freedom board so far, I love it!
MCU on Eclipse 