Category Archives: Embedded Components

Everything about Processor Expert Embedded Components

A new Freedom Board: FRDM-K20D50M with ARM Cortex M4

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Freescale/Farnell/Element14 announced last week a new Freedom Board: the FRDM-K20D50M :-). As you can expect, I was not able to resist, and ordered one from my local Farnell store right away. So I did my first steps with it on this sunny and wonderful weekend (yes! we skipped Spring Time and entered Summer Time right away!).

I do not need to compare the board with the previous Freedom boards, as I have found an article here. I a nutshell: I get pretty much the same as with the FRDM-KL25Z, but instead of an ARM Cortex-M0+, it has an ARM Cortex-M4!

The new FRDM-K20D50M Board

The new FRDM-K20D50M Board

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Extended Driver for the MMA8451Q Accelerometer

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In “Tutorial: Accelerating the KL25Z Freedom Board” I used the MMA8451Q accelerometer on the FRDM-KL25Z board in a very primitive way: I’m reading directly some low-level registers from the device through an I2C low-level component. No calibrating, no special device feature setting, only raw values. Since then, things have been evolved: In “Tutorial: Creating a Processor Expert Component for an Accelerometer” I started to create a driver for this accelerometer, and since then a lot more functionality has been added.

Tracing Accelerometer Values to the Shell

Traced Accelerometer Values to the Shell

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Tutorial: Creating a Processor Expert Component for an Accelerometer

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If you are a frequent reader of this blog, then you know: I’m a big fan of Processor Expert components. While there are many Processor Expert components delivered with CodeWarrior, it lacks many components and device drivers beside of the normal on-chip peripherals. But value gets added to an embedded project with all the external devices, sensors and actuators. That’s why I have created many more components which are available on my GitHub site. Readers of this blog have asked several times to create a tutorial on how to create a Processor Expert component. So why not working on that on a long Easter weekend full of cold rain and snow?

So here we go: a tutorial how to create a Processor Expert component for the MMA8451Q accelerometer found on the FRDM-KL25Z board:

MMA8451Q Accelerometer on the FRDM-KL25Z Board

MMA8451Q Accelerometer on the FRDM-KL25Z Board

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Copy of Processor Expert Components

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Many times I have Processor Expert components carefully configured in one project, and then I want to have the same thing in another project. There is actually an easy way to carry out this: to copy components from one project to another.

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Maze solving FRDM-KL25Z Robot goes backward for Dead-Ends

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The maze solving robot based on the Freedom FRDM-KL25Z and Pololu Zumo shield has new features:

  1. For dead-end paths, instead turning around, the robot is driving backward
  2. Higher speed for going forward/backward/turns
  3. In the finish area, the robot turns around
  4. It reverts the solution path, so the robot can directly run from the finish area to the start
FRDM-KL25Z Robot on Practice Area

FRDM-KL25Z Robot on Practice Area

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Freedom Robot solves the Maze

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Finally I have found some time over the past week-end to enhance my Zumo robot. After I had my line following robot based on the Pololu Zumo chassis and the FRDM-KL25Z, I thought it should be easy and logical to solve a maze. Logical: yes. Easy: not that much. In fact it took me longer than expected. As always, there are a lot of tiny and important problems to solve (the maze alone was easy 🙂 ).

Zumo in the maze

Zumo in the maze

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Editor Templates in Eclipse

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Eclipse is a good IDE. At a first glance, it does the job. Good enough. At least for myself, I was not that much excited when I used it the first time. I came from the Microsoft Visual Studio world, and have used many other proprietary IDE’s. So Eclipse was just ‘yet another one’. But what Eclipse makes really great is the incredible wealth of functionality which is not visible right away. Yes, this is the same for any other software tool: it takes time to explore, and once you know things well, you do not want to switch or even consider something different. Same for me.

The other thing is: after some time, I get used to things, and I do not appreciate it that much any more. Only until someone reminds me that maybe things are not that well-known? This is what happened to me two days ago: I did some editing in Eclipse, while a colleague was watching me doing this. Then he said something like this

“Hey, what did you do? What was that?!? How did you do that?”

I do not remember his exact words, as I was surprised as well. I did not do anything special? Kinda standard Eclipse thing. Well, maybe not.

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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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