Category Archives: Embedded

mbed for the Freedom Board

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I knew about mbed already for some time: watching students using it for an NXP enabled board. Pretty cool stuff: mbed is an online IDE and compiler with tons of software libraries for the supported platform. So I was dreaming to have something like this for my own boards like the Freedom board. But because mbed only supported two dedicated NXP boards, that was a road block.

But then mbed announced recently that the mbed SDK is open source. Wow, that is interesting! And finally the announcement last week: mbed supports the KL25Z Freedom Board. Now they have my attention :-).

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Pololu Line Following Robot with Freedom Board

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Because my first line following robot was this week at the Embedded World conference in Nürnberg, I have constructed another one around the Freedom FRDM-KL25Z board. It is based on Pololu part items and the Arduino motor shield, plus using a Bluetooth module I have used in an ealier post.

Pololu Line Following Robot

Pololu Line Following Robot with FRDM-KL25Z

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USB MSD Host for the Freedom Board

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Sometimes things take longer than anticipated. And this is definitely the case for my USB MSD Host project where I wanted to use a USB memory stick with the Freedom FRDM-KL25Z board.

Memory Stick attached to the Freedom Board

Memory Stick attached to the Freedom Board

But finally, I have things working. At least most of the time ….

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Switching Processor Package in Processor Expert

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When I create a new project for the KL05Z with Processor Expert, then it shows up as 48 pin LQFP package in the project:

48pin LQFP Package in Components View

48pin LQFP Package in Components View

However, when I look at my board, it has a KL05Z32 in a LQFP package with 32 pins:

FRDM-KL05Z Board

FRDM-KL05Z Board

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Freedom Logic Analyzer with Triggers

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The first FRDM-KL25Z Freedom Logic Analyzer firmware was missing one important feature: Triggers! But this weekend the firmware has evolved a bit :-).

Triggers

Trigger Settings

Trigger Settings

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DAC Example with the Freedom Board

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After working on an ADC example, a DAC one was missing. Julio E. Fajardo is a reader of this blog, and he was so kind to send me an example project for the FRDM-KL25Z. The example is able to produce produce different waveforms with the DAC. The project has two examples which they are enabled/disabled in main(). One example waveform the sawtooth:

Sawtooth_FDRM_DAC

Sawtooth_FDRM_DAC

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Skipping Breakpoints

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The challenge with small microcontroller like the ARM-Cortex-M0+ is that they have very limited debugging resources. As such, the number of hardware break points is very limited (see this post). For example for the KL25Z on the Freedom board, I only have 2 break points available if I want to do stepping:

No more hardware breakpoints available

No more hardware break points available

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Be Aware of the Baud Problem

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I’m using serial communication in different flavors for my project: with the shell, with OpenSDA USB CDC, to use printf(), and with the Bluetooth module. Processor Expert is a big helper, but as for any software, it is not bug free. And there is a problem with Processor Expert in CodeWarrior for MCU10.3 in respect with Baud settings for a serial interface.

Probing the Bluetooth Module Serial Connection

Probing the Bluetooth Module Serial Connection

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Processor Expert Configuration Registers View

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In “Using the Reset Button on the Freedom Board as User Button”, I had the problem to find out why a setting did not make it into my generated code. There is the fundamental question: “How does a setting impact my microcontroller register settings?”. There is an answer to that question: The Configuration Registers view:

Configuration Registers View

Configuration Registers View

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