W801

Anything not related to STM32
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Bakisha
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Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2019 6:50 pm
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Re: W801

Post by Bakisha »

Just4Fun wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 5:17 pm It seems they are making an Arduino core for the W801 available!!!

See here.
Thank you for that link. I have W806 board that was waiting more than a year in the box :D
Blinking leds works !
dannyf
Posts: 446
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

The most impressive thing about the w801 chip is code density. A minimum implementation (gpio, ticks and uart) is 3kb.

A comparable implement on a pic32 is 13kb, and 7kb on a CM3 chip.

The closet I have ever come close to that 3kb figure was on a pic24.
dannyf
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Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

I managed to shrink an empty main() to about <550 bytes compiled -> mostly irq tables, *under the stock sdk*.

so i'm changing my strategy, by re-porting my baremetal implementation to the sdk. so that it can be compiled under the sdk, yet no bloat.

i'm constantly amazed at c-sky's code density.
dannyf
Posts: 446
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

A quick progress report.

This is a very love it or hate it kind of china. Very bipolar, and extreme and exceptional.

Goods:
1. Specs are through the roof. This should be a 20usd chip.
2. Simplicity: this is a 32bit chip with 8bit chips peripherals. A few registers later you are up and running.
3. Some interesting peripherals - 16bit adc plus pga... Rtc oscillator calibration
4. Code density. A (minimalist) Arduino implementation goes (barely) under 2kb.

Bass
1. Piss poor documentation and conflicting documents and code. How many uarts does the w801 have?
2. Terribly software - written poorly.
3. Bonehead hardware designs: why do you need to pool uart interrupts. Or the timer interrupts?...

Overall I think it is more of a micro processor than a controller.

Still fun chip to play with.
dannyf
Posts: 446
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

Code is up and running both bare metal and on top of the sdk.

Workflow perfected. Click a button and it will compile and download so the chips.
dannyf
Posts: 446
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

btw, does anyone know of a good serial monitor that allows user selectble RTS settings? the typical serial monitors seem to reset the chip via rts - which in this case prevents the chip from running.

The only one I have found so far is XCOM but it is in chinese.
ag123
Posts: 1653
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:30 am
Answers: 24

Re: W801

Post by ag123 »

i've been using putty (in linux)
https://www.putty.org/
but that it doesn't seemed very feature rich (at least in linux)

to toggle DTR/RTS signals, i think those are literally 'usb' signals (i.e. usb cdc acm)
I think stm32loader does that from within python, using (pyserial), I think.
i think stm32loader 'ab'uses DTR/RTS signals to toggle reset and boot0, that saves having to toggle it manually.
dannyf
Posts: 446
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

Most serial comms, including putty, don't allow the user to toggle rts. :(

XCOM is the only one I found so far. But in Chinese. To be far, I haven't tried extensively either.
ag123
Posts: 1653
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:30 am
Answers: 24

Re: W801

Post by ag123 »

dannyf
Posts: 446
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:46 pm

Re: W801

Post by dannyf »

that requires me to install python on my computer. too lazy for that.

I wrote my w801 journey here, if anyone is interested: https://dannyelectronics.wordpress.com/ ... mpression/

I got gpio, uart, timer, pwm working. pmu has been a struggle so far. adc/i2c/spi/touch sensing on my to do list.

Some pluses and minuses, as I mentioned earlier. More geared towards the pico crowd.
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