Tag Archives: freedom board

FTF: FRDM-K64F, Kinetis Design Studio and Kinetis SDK

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I’m attending the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) in Dallas this year: As they say here: “everything is bigger in Texas”, that’s the motto of this conference ;-). The conference is packed, and I have a hard time to keep up with all the things going on. My focus is obviously everything around Eclipse and ARM microcontroller. The conference started yesterday afternoon with hands-on labs, and I was in the one were Freescale presented the new ‘Kinetis Design Studio’: a free of charge/unlimited Eclipse tool chain based on Eclipse Kepler, GCC and GDB. Freescale presented their new software library ‘Kinetis SDK’. And: There is a new Freedom board which gets handed out to the attendees: the FRDM-K64F :-).

Texas Style Glass Coverage

Texas Style Glass Coverage

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Zumo Robots in Bucharest

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Freescale opened its doors for students in Bucharest on March 28th. At the event there were more than 80 students and professors from Bucharest and across Romania with participation of the universities from Cluj, Constanta, Craiova, Iasi and Pitesti.

Two Sumo Bots

Two Sumo Bots

 

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Getting Bluetooth Working with JY-MCU BT_BOARD V1.06

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For my embedded course at the University of Lucerne of Applied Sciences and Arts I needed more Bluetooth modules for the Zumo/Sumo robots. I run out of stock as the modules are getting popular and are used in many student projects. So I ordered a handful more from DX/DealExtreme of the same HC-06 type/part number I already ordered a while back. I expected that they will work as the modules I had ordered from DX half a year ago. Was that naïve? Probably. Because they did *not* work, and caused me to reverse engineer the modules and to apply a hardware fix to get them working….

Set of JY-MCU Bluetooth Modules

Set of JY-MCU Bluetooth Modules

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RNet Stack as Component, nRF24L01+ with Software SPI

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The great thing with Processor Expert is: it writes the code for me :-). I’m using now the RNet wireless stack in more than 10 different projects, and keeping the projects up-to-date with the RNet stack sources in a traditional way gets harder and harder: I  need to make sure the paths are pointing to the right place, and if I pass the project to somebody else, I have to make sure all the sources are packaged with that project. Processor Expert makes things simpler: it can generate the source files into my project, and I can easily configure it.

So instead to copy and support files by hand, I decided to package the RNet stack files into a Processor Expert component: all still normal C files, but easier to configure and distribute.

RNet Component

RNet Component

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Starting Point for Kinetis Low Power LLS Mode

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In “IoT: FreeRTOS Down to the Micro Amps” I’m using an application with FreeRTOS to get down in micro amps low power mode. Well, nearly all or my applications are using FreeRTOS because it makes the application scalable and extensible. Still, for anyone not used to an RTOS, that might be a hard start. So here we go: how to get into the Kinetis Low Power LLS Mode *without* an RTOS.

Power Measurement

Power Measurement

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Tutorial: Thermal Printer, Part 1: Hardware Setup with FRDM Board

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One of my embedded projects is to measure the running time in a sports event (see “Sports Timing System in a Lunch Box“). The recorded time is stored in an EEPROM plus sent over USB or wireless connection to the host. It would be great if I could print out the time and ranking directly, so if there is no PC, the system can be small and tiny. So here is my next project and tutorial: Printing with the Freedom board!

Hello World on the Printer with FRDM-KL25Z

Hello World on the Printer with FRDM-KL25Z

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DIY Free Toolchain for Kinetis: Part 10 – Project Creation with GNU ARM Eclipse 2.1.1

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As mentioned in Part 9: There is a new GNU ARM Eclipse plugin 2.1.1, and this one makes project creation for Freescale devices easier than ever 🙂

  • Native Kinetis-L project templates for FRDM-KL25Z and FRDM-KL46Z boards
  • Easier than ever project creation for Processor Expert projects
GNU ARM Eclipse 2.1.1

GNU ARM Eclipse 2.1.1

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DIY Free Toolchain for Kinetis: Part 9 – Express Setup in 8 Steps

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On Monday the new semester starts, and yet again: we will do a Sumo thing :-). They can choose which tool chain they would like to use to develop their application for the ARM Cortex-M0+ used from Freescale. One option is to create a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ toolchain. Since the start of the series, things have evolved: there is a new GNU ARM tool chain available, Segger has updated their drivers, and most important the GNU ARM Eclipse plugin has been greatly extended to support Freescale parts and Processor Expert. So instead to read through all the previous tutorials, this one is about putting together a free tool chain less than 10 minutes (not counting the time to download around 500 MByte).

DIY Eclipse Toolchain

DIY Eclipse Toolchain

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FRDM with Arduino Ethernet Shield R3, Part 3: Embedded Web Server

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This is Part 3 of an ongoing tutorial to use the Arduino Ethernet Shield R3 with a Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board (or any other board you like).

In Part 1 I worked on the SD card, in Part 2 I have added basic network connection. Now time to run a web server with my FRDM-KL25Z :-). With this, I can get access to my board through the network, and the board will host a web page where I can do pretty much everything: showing status, or adding functions to turn on things like an LED 🙂

Web Server with W5100 on FRDM-KL25Z

Web Server with W5100 on FRDM-KL25Z

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FRDM with Arduino Ethernet Shield R3, Part 2: Ping

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In Part 1 of this series I have covered the SD card on the Arduino Ethernet shield. In Part 2 I’m hooking up the board to the network and will be able to ping it 🙂

Arduino Ethernet Shield with FRDM-KL25Z

Arduino Ethernet Shield with FRDM-KL25Z

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