So here I have 50 new NXP Kinetis K22 Robot boards (see “Zumo Robot with Magnetic Encoders“), and they all need to be programmed with the first firmware on the bench:
Programming Robot Boards
The challenge is: how to do this in a fast an efficient way, without the need for an IDE or even host PC machine?
I’m using the tiny and inexpensive Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ transceiver (see “Tutorial: Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ with the Freescale FRDM-K64F Board“) in many projects: it costs less than $3 and allows me to communicate with a proprietary 2.4GHz protocol in a low power way (see “IoT: FreeRTOS Down to the Micro Amps“). I have that transceiver now running with the tinyK20 board too:
nRF24L01+ Transceiver with tinyK20
New in this release:
Segger SystemViewer V2.30
Many times it is very useful to debug multiple boards at the same time. For example if I’m debugging a communication stack between two boards: that way I can debug the protocol on both sides. Eclipse is a great framework which allows that. This post shows how to debug multiple boards (e.g. the NXP Freedom boards) in parallel from the same Eclipse IDE using GDB and the Segger J-Link:
Two NXP Freedom Boards debugged at the same time
The reset and signal line of a microcontroller is probably the most important signal to a microcontroller. And if things go wrong, then a first thing to check is the reset line. So having control over reset is an important aspect for embedded development. You would think that if you download a program to a microcontroller, the debug probe would put the device into reset at the start with a short pulse like this:
Reset Signal in Logic Analyzer
When I create a project in Eclipse (e.g. in Kinetis Design Studio with the GNU ARM Eclipse plugins), I have to specify the name of the project during creation time:
Project Name in Eclipse
But what if I change my mind later on and want to use a different name? How to rename the project?
When I left for the week-end, I missed to take with me my Segger J-Link debug box. I have one P&E Universal Multilink at home, but I needed a Segger J-Link to use the SystemViewer with my robot. I need that for a FreeRTOS trainig I will deliver in Poing/Germany on Monday at Avnet/Silica.
But I had a Freescale KwikStk board at home, and I did remember that I can use that board as a Segger J-Link to debug my custom hardware (see “Freescale Kinetis KwikStik (part 1)“).
Debugging Custom Board with KwikStik
A lot of good things happened in the last three weeks, so here is a new updated McuOnEclipse component release, with the following main improvements:
First off: The tinyK20 project is progressing fine and is now on Hackaday.io :-).
For a research project we would like to use the tinyK20 to log gyro sensor data. For this I have created a quick-n-dirty project to explore how feasible it is. The tinyK20 has all the pins on the outside of the board, so I’m able to put it on a bread board:
tinyK20 on Breadboard
One of the most important aspects for developing complex realtime applications is get insights into what is going on the target. Segger just has released a free tool which gives an incredible useful insight view and visualization:
Segger System View for FreeRTOS
MCU on Eclipse 