stm32f411 - adafruit

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ag123
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stm32f411 - adafruit

Post by ag123 »

https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/03/05/ne ... ent-board/

adafruit seemed to be reselling some stuff?
i'd guess those living closer to adafruit's home location might find it more convenient
mrburnette
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Re: stm32f411 - adafruit

Post by mrburnette »

I would not get too excited ... just like with the RP2040, Adafruit is pushing CircuitPython:
This dev board is for the more advanced users, we don’t have detailed tutorial usage for it – check online communities for STM32 boards to get project ideas and code samples! You can use STM32duino for Arduino support, and both MicroPython and CircuitPython have support for this chip.
ag123
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Re: stm32f411 - adafruit

Post by ag123 »

well for circuit python, adafruit has a somewhat pricier but better soc board with stm32f405
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4382
it is very close to micropython board
https://store.micropython.org/product/PYBv1.1H
but i'd get the micropython board as the pins are easier to access, nevertheless Adafruit's stmf405 feather board is pretty attractive too for its design features. the micropython board and more recently Adafruit's feather, is one of the most compact 'tiny' stm32f4 boards one can actually buy.
a lot of 'tiny' boards such as those for drones did not provide access to many of the pins. for its premium price and form factor, there is a real use case, wearables such as a diy smart watch. stm32f405 has plenty of resources to do that and is comparable to socs for the old 'pebble' and current fitbit watches.
(edit: oh wow, both adafruit f405 feather and micropython f405 boards are sold out ! (for now), it just show how popular they are and maybe it has something to do with the global chip shortage. this soc & maybe even board is possibly used in some rather important real world applications)
but of course this is very competitive and there is already one with esp32
https://www.amazon.com/BIGTREETECH-T-Wa ... 08NK11BWM/

either way agreed about RP2040 too ! given both Rpi, Adafruit, Arduino, i'd think there are others are getting into the game, I'd guess Arm based mcus may see better support in the 'Arduino' world. I'd see is as a pretty good thing. I'd think RISC V won't be too far behind, I'd guess.

i'd guess this isn't too surprising as it is good to stock alternative decent boards so that their customers have a selection to choose from, and it may be more convenient to purchase say locally in New York. i'd do that if i lived there and wanted a board in a hurry. Adafruit's prices while not the cheapest are relatively affordable. And i'd guess there may be more 'support' for it, e.g. Adafruit's forums
mrburnette
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Re: stm32f411 - adafruit

Post by mrburnette »

ag123 wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:24 pm well for circuit python, adafruit has a somewhat pricier but better soc board with stm32f405
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4382
it is very close to micropython board
https://store.micropython.org/product/PYBv1.1H
but i'd get the micropython board as the pins are easier to access, nevertheless Adafruit's stmf405 feather board is pretty attractive too for its design features. the micropython board and more recently Adafruit's feather, is one of the most compact 'tiny' stm32f4 boards one can actually buy.
...

I got a Raspberry PICO the week after they were released and did some playing with Adafruit's CircuitPython. I am familiar with microPython on ESP devices, but I must say I think Adafruit's incarnation is actually easier to use and deviates in positive areas. From years of Arduino experience on Arduino's forum, ESP8266 and ESP32 Arduino forum, and STM32duino, I feel that many Arduino users is normal needs would benefit from CircuitPython; that is projects with mainstream sensors and rather straightforward data transformation requirements.
https://circuitpython.readthedocs.io/en ... icropython

CircuitPython supports a large number of microprocessor boards: https://circuitpython.org/downloads

CircuitPython libraries are vast and growing: https://circuitpython.readthedocs.io/pr ... ivers.html


As a C programmer for 40 years and a C++ one for 30 years, I find microPython strange, but is a good way. In some ways, it makes programming fun again and there is enough power in the language to handle most any needs.
ag123
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Re: stm32f411 - adafruit

Post by ag123 »

i'd guess adafruit's intent is to allow young students to get started without having to grapple with the rather intimidating and dicy plays going down to bare metal programming and compiler tool chain. circuit python can come pre-installed on the boards adafruit sells, and blinking a led is just issuing a command.
this compares quite directly with Lua
http://www.eluaproject.net/
and even perhaps go
https://embeddedgo.github.io/

they are useful in this case and also useful in situations that don't after all needs to get down to 'bare metal' to get the results
a problem though is that the overheads means that it couldn't squeeze into an mcu like stm32f103c8 with 20k sram
accordingly forth works, and is the leanest of all the interpreted languages that runs on stm32f103c8 and did many use cases
https://jeelabs.org/article/1608d/
i've not really explored it but had to admire the attempt, it is really cool to have done that

back to c (and maybe c++) and maybe even down to 'bare metal' (i.e. messing with registers)
assembly is simply too unreadable for a program more complex than a blinky, short of commenting the codes properly
even a blinky would be unreadable if it isn't appropriately commented as there would be initialization and such.
c and best of all c++ is good as they allow all that structures and procedures to be expressed
c++ 11 in addition helps avoid a lot of cases needing to use pointers by using references instead. this has prevented quite some problems messing with pointers. it is so easy to swap pointers and forget what links to what. that makes for the most fluid and flexible programs that could be near impossible to debug

c/c++ 11 etc has made 'bare metal' development looked 'too easy', i'd say the compilers has reached an extent they are technologies in themselves
that has enabled all these development on arm micro controllers with barely 20k of sram, and hardly more flash. and some with even less

and because c/c++ is so lean and expressive, it makes even 'arduino' works pretty much like a little 'os'. literally and with a little more resources they made apps on smart watches and such happen in under 1 M of sram and flash, graphics, apps, games, etc. and no less toggling hardware at real time speeds
GonzoG
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Location: Prudnik, Poland

Re: stm32f411 - adafruit

Post by GonzoG »

ag123 wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:55 pm i'd guess those living closer to adafruit's home location might find it more convenient
Not for this price. Those boards sell for 3-4$ on aliexpress...
Even in Poland you can get them in shops for about 9$ (with all taxes).
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