MCU on Eclipse

On a lifelong learning journey …

USB MSD Host for the FRDM-K20D50M Board

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Erich Styger

The Freedom boards FRDM-KL25Z RevE and FRDM-K20D50M make it easier to use it as USB Host device, as they come with a special jumper to provide 5V to the USB device, so my earlier ‘hack’ is not needed any more :-). After I had USB MSD Host working for the FRDM-KL25Z, it was much harder to get the USB stack working for the FRDM-K20D50M board, because somehow the example Freescale provided with their USB stack refused to work properly on my board. After debugging it for several nightly hours, I decided to take my working Processor Expert project for KL25Z and added support for the K20. And the good news is: since tonight this is working :-).

FRDM-K20D50M as USB MSD Host

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FreeRTOS Heap with Segmented Kinetis K SRAM

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Erich Styger

While working on a project for the FRDM-K20D50M, I faced a problem: I was running out of SRAM for my application. The GNU linker reports: “section `.bss’ will not fit in region `m_data'”: 😦

bss will not fit in region m_data

But my device has 16 KByte of SRAM, and I knew I use much less than 10 KByte. So what is the problem? Continue reading →

Using the FRDM-KL25Z as USB Keyboard

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Erich Styger

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I miss my old DELL laptop. Ok, the new one I received from IT services is not bad. It is faster and has a better screen. But I’m not really happy with the new keyboard. With the previous keyboard I was able to do a ‘PrtnScrn’ with a single key press. With the new one I need to press Fn + PrntScrn. And this is impossible to do with one hand:

Impossible to reach Fn+Prnt Scrn with one hand!

Yes, I have two hands ;-). But many times I need to do ‘print screen’ while having my other hand on the mouse :-(.What else can I do?

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Using the HC-06 Bluetooth Module

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Erich Styger

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After my first post using a Bluetooth module, things have evolved a bit. The challenge with these Bluetooth modules is: they look the same, but having different firmware. I did not fully realize that until I have ordered another bluetooth module from dx.com:

DX.com Bluetooth Module (HC-06)

That module comes already on a carrier, so I assumed I can use the same driver as for my other module. I was wrong :-(.

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Tutorial: Arduino Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield – Part 2: Timed Servo Moves

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Erich Styger

You have decided: More than 52% voted in Part 1 that the next topic should be Timed Servo Moves. So here we go :-).

This is about how to move the servos over time, instead of moving it to the given position as fast as possible. I’m using a linear approach here: moving the servos linearly over time.

Moving Servo Motors

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Tutorial: Arduino Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield – Part 1: Servos

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Erich Styger

This post starts a small (or larger?) series of tutorials using the Arduino Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield with the FRDM-KL25Z board. That motor shield is probably one of the most versatile on the market, and features 2 servo and 4 motor connectors for DC or stepper motors. That makes it a great shield for any robotic project :-).

Arduino Motor Stepper Servo Shield with FRDM-KL25Z

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Character LCD with 4 Lines

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Erich Styger

Character LCD’s (like 2 lines with 16 characters each) as in this post are easy to use. Much easier to use compared to full graphical LCDs.

The ones I’m using have either 1 or 2 lines, but I saw that there are 4 line displays too. So far my LCD component only supports one or two lines.

4 Line LCD (Source: Ezequiel Bazotti)

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Tracked Robot Update: Ultrasonic, Line Sensor and Shell with SMAC 802.15.4

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Erich Styger

The FRDM-KL25Z tracked robot from my earlier post has gone trough several upgrades:

Tracked Robot with Ultrasonic Sensor

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How to use MCUonEclipse GitHub without Git

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Erich Styger

Not everyone is familiar with Git, and not everyone wants to use it. Although I think using Git or SVN is something every software engineer today needs to master 😉 To make it easier for the ‘non-Gitter’ to use the Processor Expert components, they are available now as *.PEupd files as described here. However, the *.PEupd files are just a snapshot, and not the latest and greatest. So how to use the latest component sources and example projects without Git?