MarkoeZ 68 Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 Hey Guys and Gals, I will post updates of my experiments with the evalbot in case anyone is interested. But feel free to post your own projects or relevant stuff as well. I left the topic title general, hoping some activity might evolve here. For now, I will start with an overview and drive tests with the pre-loaded firmware. Nothing new yet for those that know it, but i like to keep a nice and complete overview of my projects: And I figured out the port mentioned in the video, the evalbot actually has 3 (!!) USB ports. One for debugging/programming, one for USB Host, and one for USB Device Expect more soon. Cheers! MarkoeZ p.s. Anyone know of a good forum discussing the Evalbot/Stellaris Microcontrollers? (nothing wrong with this one ofc, but more dedicated perhaps) gatImmusepete 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkoeZ 68 Posted December 28, 2011 Author Share Posted December 28, 2011 Happy Holidays Everyone! Up next: playing the music from the bot itself Cheers! MarkoeZ P.s. I started with a bare motor test code sample, and then built a dedicated task for the display using the examples in the book. Not just an edit of the firmware. Also beginning too see the big advantage of having an os and multiple tasks available at once Good times. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bluehash 1,581 Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Yes.. that bot is pretty loaded and a good intro to Stellaris M3. It also has one of the higher end Stellaris chips. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gwdeveloper 275 Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Glad to see others are working with this too. Mine has only seen a little bit of programming but now I'm encouraged to do a little more. http://www.43oh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=883 The Stellarisware drivers are really easy to work with. FreeRTOS runs on the Evalbot if you're looking for something opensource (and easier to use). There's also CooCox CoOS. MarkoeZ 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkoeZ 68 Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 Glad to see others are working with this too. Mine has only seen a little bit of programming but now I'm encouraged to do a little more. http://www.43oh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=883 The Stellarisware drivers are really easy to work with. FreeRTOS runs on the Evalbot if you're looking for something opensource (and easier to use). There's also CooCox CoOS. Yeah, I've seen that project a week or so ago, when I was googling the evalbot while waiting for it to arrive (new toy coming, I think most of you recognise that? ) Nice "booster" /Proto board! Too bad it's not driving yet. And I see you added the code, that could prove useful in the future! Thanks. Will probably take a look at FreeRTOS soon. Will be more practical if I ever want to make something commercial using the Stellaris (although the thought of that seems ridiculous at this point). For now, just learning about how os's work in general, uC-OSiii seems ok for that task. Also like having a physical book to learn from. And there might be ones for FreeRTOS, but this is what i have at hand atm edits: grammar and spelling Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkoeZ 68 Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 An issue i found during my first tests, and an easy workaround (but fix would be welcome if anyone knows) When i hit "Download and Debug" in IAR it correctly loads the program onto the bot, and then pauses, like it's supposed to i think. But when i hit go, it always instantly hangs in "OSStartHang". With all example workspaces and projects. My Workaround: break the debugging when it hangs in OSStartHang, press on/reset button on the evalbot, click "go" in IAR, and it runs nicely and i can debug/pause/do whatever, like it's supposed to. Just posting this in case anyone else has this issue. Took me over 2 hours to realize debugging worked fine, just not the initial start. "Doh" moment. And again: Fix would be nice, or a direction to search Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkoeZ 68 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Small update on my first experiments: I've been trying the examples, and with the audio example I've already ran into the code size limit of IAR. not amused. Seriously thinking about switching to CCS, since i got the license (Is it possible to use uC or Free-RTOS with ccs? not googled yet) Also been playing with the wheels and motors, and i found out the motors and gears are actually not that bad. Gears will need some shielding, since one has already been stuck once by a tiny piece of string surviving under my couch, but power is pretty decent. It's just the wheels that need improvement, and some form of rotating support wheel instead of the static pins. As well as a balance change to keep it horizontal on 3 points then. But thats just a case of moving the batteries. And I've been playing with the idea of addition boards, and actually have a simple but useful idea that might be semi-commercially interesting (to the hobbyist market, so no big bucks. But still serving drinks, so all extras welcome ) Then i went to research the connectors, and was a bit shocked to find out they were almost 6$ a piece when sold in small quantities. And i want 2 connectors per addition board since one has voltage, and the other ground. I could use a GPIO pin set high or low, would work for current setup, but that will only give problems later on if more powerful stuff gets attached. So i went to the site of Samtec, the fabricator of the plugs, and filled out a sample request. For the through hole variant of the female connectors, for 2 prototype boards (part no. SFM-110-L1-S-D). My new friends were kind enough to send them to me, ordered from the States on 30 December, and delivered to the Netherlands on January 2nd :thumbup: Now, i do have a plan for the connectors, and i have a markoez.com email (it stated "no free e-mail" specifically before ordering) so not sure all applications get approved. But pretty nice service. That about sums it up for now. Cheers! MarkoeZ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gwdeveloper 275 Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Is it possible to use uC or Free-RTOS with ccs? Yes, it's in the community contributed ports. http://interactive.freertos.org/entries/189177-freertos-porting-on-code-composer-studio-4-lm3sxxxx-processor MarkoeZ 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkoeZ 68 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Is it possible to use uC or Free-RTOS with ccs? Yes, it's in the community contributed ports. http://interactive.freertos.org/entries/189177-freertos-porting-on-code-composer-studio-4-lm3sxxxx-processor Great! And thanks. First going to struggle my way through the book though, since I'm still completely new to operating systems. And beside the uC specific stuff, it's still pretty educational. Just got to filter it a bit. But Free-RTOS is up next Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kenemon 29 Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 That Samtec Co. is quality for sure. I got some of those connectors, and had some PCB's fabbed to mount them to, considering the 39$ price of the TI adapter. I should have the boards this week..... Did anyone buy the other kit with the touch panel, I kind of wish I had got that one, but the kids love the bot. I need to remove the explicatives from my oled experiments Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bluehash 1,581 Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Just a reminder for everyone - The Arm-HQ forum now has a Stellaris specific place. It would be nice if you could join up and post your adventures there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkoeZ 68 Posted August 1, 2012 Author Share Posted August 1, 2012 Evalbot 50% off at Farnell: http://export.farnell.com/texas-instrum ... tt=1835852 No coupon needed bluehash and pine 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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