It has been a while since my first post about the ESP8266 (see “Cheap and Simple WiFi with ESP8266 for the FRDM Board“). The ESP8266 is a new inexpensive ($4.50) WiFi module which makes it easy to connect to the network or internet. Finally this week-end I have found the time to write up a tutorial:
how to implement a WiFi web server for the ESP8266 WiFi module and the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board:
WSP8266 Web Server
FRDM-KL25Z with ESP8266 WiFi Module
I want to make some noise with this post!!! This tutorial is about adding music and sound capabilities to the Freescale Freedom board, and to have a lot of fun with it :-). I need this ability for a larger project working on for a while. But I thought I share that sub-part how to play sound files. So with this tutorial I can turn my Freescale Freedom board into a music or sound player :-). And adding sounds is a cool way for any project, and as the music is stored on an SD card it fits easily hours of music or sounds.
MP3 Player with FRDM-KL25Z and Adafruit Music Maker MP3 Shield
From time to time it is good to do some cleanup work: what has grown organically sometimes needs some cuts and moves. The same applies to the McuOnEclipse GitHub repository (https://github.com/ErichStyger/mcuoneclipse) which has grown to 522 MByte, 8364 files and 1444 folders. I already moved out the Processor Expert component releases (see “McuOnEclipse Releases on SourceForge“). Time to cleanup and move something else: the Processor Expert component sources.
McuOnEclipse_PEx
I have received several requests to post a quick note when there is a new release (16-Nov-2014) of the McuOnEclipse components on SourceForge (see “McuOnEclipse Releases on SourceForge“). I have published today a new release, and with following major improvements:
McuOnEclipse SourceForge
In my earlier post I used a hacked together shield for building a clock based on Adafruit’s NeoPixel/WS2812 (“LED Clock with Kitchen Hot Pan Protector“). The new design supports now 8 parallel data streams, integrated realtime clock and wireless connectivity with the nRF24L01+ module.
NeoPixel Shield for FRDM Boards
Processor Expert components have an interesting concept: Events. Events are shown in green color with the ‘E’ (for Event):
TimerInt Component with Events
Freescale had announced at FTF back in April this year that they will use Kinetis Design Studio and the Kinetis SDK for all new Kinetis devices. The switch from CodeWarrior to Kinetis Design Studio (see “Comparing CodeWarrior with Kinetis Design Studio“) was not much of big deal for my projects (although CodeWarrior still has better features), and projects are rather easily portable. However, the move to the Kinetis SDK has been massively disruptive: Before it was easy to move projects from one device to another with Processor Expert, even from S08 to ColdFire to Kinetis. Now with the Kinetis SDK everything is very different. At least Freescale now officially supports FreeRTOS, and for myself as a big fan of that open source RTOS, that was some good news.
Blinking Red LED with FreeRTOS Task using Kinetis SDK, FreeRTOS and Processor Expert
So in this tutorial I’m showing how FreeRTOS can be used with the Kinetis Design Studio. That makes at least using the Kinetis SDK bit more familiar to me :-).
The cool thing with Processor Expert is that it gives me guidance through the settings. And there is a nice (rather hidden feature) which proposes me values I can enter:
💡 First, switch to the non-Tabs (classic) view, as the classic view is using the screen real estate better, and shows you *all* the information needed, and does not hide some.
So if you have some values to correct because other settings have changed:
Values to Enter
When I create a new Processor Expert project for a board I already have the components configured, then an easy way to transfer components from one project to another is to copy-paste the components. In the ‘source’ project I select the components I want to use, choose Copy (or CTRL+C shortcut on Windows):
Copy of Processor Expert Components
Sometimes I think that a problem should be solvable in a few minutes, and then it turns out that it lingers around for months. Very, very frustrating! Such a thing is getting the USB 4.1.1 stack running on the FRDM-K64F board. I have that board since April 2014, and it took me 7 months to get the FSL USB stack running on it :-(.
FRDM-K64F Board
MCU on Eclipse 