The tinyK22 board is a tiny micro controller board we use at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. It is used in many research project, used in lectures and labs and used in most student projects. Because there was no small and breadboard friendly NXP Kinetis board with a debug interface available, we developed one featuring the NXP K22FN512, named the ‘tinyK22‘. Because of the success and high demand we stated a new large production run and used this to upgrade the board to the new Rev 1.3: you might notice already the color change :-).
Tag Archives: software
FreeRTOS and Eclipse Indexer for >5K Lines Source Files
Eclipse has a great built-in source code parser and browser (aka ‘Indexer’). It is basically a built-in compiler which parses the source files and assists the user with code completion and navigation help, making Eclipse this awesome productivity tool. On the downside this background parsing could potentially slow down things, and therefore Eclipse has some default settings to prevent this. Unfortunately, the FreeRTOS Kernel ‘tasks.c’ file is above-and-beyond of a ‘sane’ source file and will hit the default limits: as a result the ‘tasks.c’ file is not indexed and things like ‘Open Declaration‘ might not work for the file ‘tasks.c’.
Grouping Eclipse Projects with Working Sets
Typically I have many, many projects listed in the Eclipse Project Explorer, usually more than 100 projects: from example projects, projects on git, lecture module projects, research projects or just some hobby projects I’m working on. With the default Eclipse settings, all these projects are listed in a ‘linear’ list. What I found really useful is the ability to group them into ‘Working Sets‘:
Import Projects from git into Eclipse
As a VCS (Version Control System) I’m using git in all my projects. And not only for software or firmware projects: I’m using it for hardware design (KiCAD, FreeCAD, …) or for documentation (LaTeX, …) too.
The nice thing with the Eclipse IDE is that it supports nice git integration, making importing projects from git repositories easy.
DIY Portable Video Conference, Sharing and Teaching Device
COVID-19 is by far not over, and in Switzerland the infection rate is going up again (2nd wave?). During the spring 2020 semester university lock-down we moved pretty much everything to a ‘distance learning’ setup. With that experience and with the request to prepare for the fall semester, I have constructed a DIY conference and teaching device which should make things simpler and easier: a combination of video camera, speaker phone and a muting device:
MCUXpresso IDE V11.2.0
At the university the end of a semester means that you have to get ready for the next semester. I always tend to use the latest and greatest tools for the labs. This week I received the notification that a new version of the Eclipse based MCUXpresso IDE is available, time to check it out for the next semester.
Eclipse Gems, Tips & Tricks: Code Folding
This article is part of a ‘mini series’ about hidden gems, tips and tricks around Eclipse.
The topic of this one is how to ‘fold’ text in the editor.
Eclipse Gems, Tips & Tricks: Working Sets
This article is part of a ‘mini series’ about hidden gems, tips and tricks around Eclipse.
The topic of this one is how to organize projects in the workspace with ‘Working Sets’.
Eclipse Gems, Tips & Tricks: Block Comments
This article is part of a ‘mini series’ about hidden gems, tips and tricks around Eclipse.
The topic of this one is how to comment and un-comment a block of source code.
Eclipse Gems, Tips & Tricks: Highlight Usage and Definition
This article is part of a ‘mini series’ about hidden gems, tips and tricks around Eclipse.
The topic of this one is how to quickly mark and show where a variable is used and defined in the code.









