Something what I say quite often is: “Google is your friend”. It means that the answer to many questions can be found with an internet search engine. And I have to admit that I have to ‘google’ my own articles to find solutions for problems I feel I have seen in the past too :-).
But for the one problem below I did not find anything: not on my own blog, and not anywhere else in the internet:
Exception
I’m in the middle of the university exam season: means writing exams and do grading. The same time the new semester is approaching too and I need to prepare the new course material. For the classes using NXP parts I’m using the Eclipse based MCUXpresso IDE, and I just received the announcement that a new version V11.3.0 is available: time to check out what is new.
MCUXpresso IDE v11.3.0 (Build 5222)
Eclipse includes a background parser called ‘Indexer’ which is used to assist the developer with various kind of information, for example jumping to a variable declaration or definition. Basically it is a parser running in the background collecting information about the sources and building up that ‘index’ data base.
indexer debug output
The company Feller sells a wall mountable ‘Smart Light Control’: this provides 4 push buttons compatible with the Philips Hue system (on, off, dimming, etc). Unlike many other remote controls and buttons it is a great design and available in different colors. Feller does have a ‘classic’ wall switch series too, so this one is perfect to replace or augment an existing installation and make it ‘smart’.
Feller Smart Light Control
I had a few of PCBs left over from the V3 MetaClockClock, and originally I planned to finish a build with them by the end of 2020. But as always: things took a bit longer than expected, so I finally finished it today on the first day of the year 2021.
The build uses the same hardware as in the previous V3, but instead of an ‘artistic’ canvas background I decided for a more natural and wood design:
V4 with Walnut Veneer
The Eclipse CODAN (Code Analysis) plugin is part of CDT and is a powerful static analysis tool finding all kind of possible bugs and issues. Still to my surprise not many C/C++ developers take advantage of it maybe because they are not aware that it exists?
ups! Programming error detected by CODAN
In this article I show a few tips how to effectively use it, especially with the NXP MCUXpresso SDK.
The holiday break at the end of the year is always a good time to finish projects started during the year. This one is about my ‘MetaClockClock’ Version 3.
2020 with Red Hands on Blue
The NXP MCU-Link is a powerful $10 debug probe for ARM Cortex-M devices and works with the NXP LinkServer for debugging. The LinkServer does not an implement a gdb server, so it limits its usage e.g. for scripting or command line debugging. But as MCU-Link is also a CMSIS-DAP compatible debug probe, I can use it with OpenOCD which is open source and implements a GDB server. This article shows how I can use it with the MCU-Link.
Debugging FRDM-KL25Z with MCU-Link
It has been snowing down to the lower areas in Switzerland the past days: Winter finally arrived in my area. So I consider last weekend the ‘weekend before winter’, at least in a meteorological sense. And because it was a wonderful ‘inversion’ situation with fog below and sunny sky above, it is a good time to share a few impressions.
Nebelmeer
The MCU-Link is a $10 CMSIS-DAP capable debug probe which works out-of-the box with the MCUXpresso Eclipse based IDE. This is great for development, but how can I programming with the push of a button or a script? The answer is no: there is an easy way to use the debug probe outside Eclipse from a shell script, and you can use that MCU-Link probe to do the job. This is especially useful as with the example below where I have to program 60 boards this week-end :-).
Batch Programming Boards with MCU-Link
