It can happen to everyone using Eclipse: launching Eclipse with workspace, and then it is stuck loading it. As a last resort, create a new workspace and go on? Possible, but painful, right? For some time I have a strange issue nagging me: from time to time, I’m not able to switch to a workspace which worked before. The IDE starts loading, but then is stuck:
Eclipse Oxygen Stuck Loading Workspace
Using that 50 Watt laser machine (see “Getting Control over a 50 Watt CO2 Laser Cutter from China“) for several weeks now, I have added a few upgrades to the machine.
Magnets
For several projects I’m using library projects: I build a library and then use that library in the other project. If I change something in a library, I want to run make both on the referenced libraries and rebuild my application if needed. If you don’t know how to do this, then read on… 🙂
Shared Library Projects
(… actually it means workign around known Eclipse CDT bug too….)
ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers can have multiple memory controllers. This is a good thing as it allows the hardware to do multiple parallel memory read/writes. However this makes the memory map more complicated for the software: it divides the memory into different regions and memory segments. This article is about how to enable FreeRTOS to use multiple memory blocks for a virtual combined memory heap:
FreeRTOS with Segmented Heap Memory
Sometimes it is handy to know in the running application the start address, end address and the size of a linked section, e.g. to know the boundaries of RAM or FLASH areas. This means that from the application code I can get access to knowledge of the GNU linker:
Information about Linker Sections
The tools and IDE market is constantly changing. Not only there is every year at least one new major Eclipse IDE release, the commercial tool chain and IDE vendors are constantly changing the environment too. For any ARM Cortex-M development, the combination of Eclipse with the GNU tool chain provided by ARM Inc. is the golden standard. But this does not mean that things can be easily moved from one IDE package to another.
While moving between Eclipse versions and GNU versions is usually not a big deal at all, moving between the Eclipse build tool integration is usually not simple. While the GNU MCU Eclipse plugins are widely used (see Breathing with Oxygen: DIY ARM Cortex-M C/C++ IDE and Toolchain with Eclipse Oxygen), the Eclipse based IDEs from the silicon vendors or commercial Eclipse toolchain vendors are using their own GNU toolchain integration. Which means the project files are not compatible :-(.
NXP FRDM-KW41Z Board
The question has been: If I buy such a 50 Watt cheap laser cutter from China, how many Watts does it really have? I have read all these stories that usually what is advertised is only the theoretical maximum I could get, and will not be realistic at all. This article is about how I tuned the machine and how much I got out of it.
Different Laser Power
We are creating a new course (PRG-G) at the Lucerne University. This course teaches C programming and is part of the new curriculum in EE (Electrical Engineering). Every student will receive a microcontroller board on an extension board as give-away, in a custom card box for the board and cable. To make things a bit more exciting, why not laser engrave that box? That gives me a perfect excuse to experiment with the laser cutter 🙂
Laser Engraved Card Box
Eclipse is probably the most used and de-facto standard IDE for any development for ARM Cortex or any other devices. It is very easy these days to construct an unlimited and unrestricted IDE (see “Breathing with Oxygen: DIY ARM Cortex-M C/C++ IDE and Toolchain with Eclipse Oxygen“). Up to the point that I can pack it into a .zip file and pass it around e.g. in a class room environment, so no installer at all is needed with the exception of the debug probe USB drivers. As Eclipse is using a Java Virtual Machine (VM), it is a good idea to bundle the VM with the IDE, and this article is about how to do this.
Eclipse Oxygen running with its own Java Virtual Machine
There are people around me who think I’m crazy. And they are probably right. Who else would buy a machine from someone he does not know. I have to pay upfront. It is not clear how things will get delivered, what gets delivered, or if it gets delivered at all. Up to the point I can lose the money I have spent. Best of all: that machine is dangerous enough to potentially kill me. And it has the potential to put my home on fire too. Well, that sounds like an exciting weekend project, or not?
60 kg Weekend Project Box arrived on the front door
MCU on Eclipse 