First time with STM32

Post here first, or if you can't find a relevant section!
wally06
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 4:36 pm

First time with STM32

Post by wally06 »

Hello,
I'm new with this board (STM32F103C8T6)
After soldering all the pins, I plugged the USB to Windows 10: power led is on, and the second below is blinking but Windows says it doesn't recognize the material. So I'm looking for the drivers but don't find them :/
Last edited by wally06 on Fri Jun 12, 2020 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
ag123
Posts: 1655
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:30 am
Answers: 24

Re: Driver for windows 10

Post by ag123 »

a bare stm32f103 device / board has nothing on it, it is a blank piece of paper, for you to put something in it.
start here
https://github.com/stm32duino/wiki/wiki
https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32
and here
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3
and here
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=301
and here
https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/ ... STM32/wiki

welcome to the world of bare metal usb stm32 mcu, there is nothing between you and the metal :lol:
btw that board that you have is most likely a maple mini clone, it has a boot loader in it
but it is rather likely it is the old maple boot loader
more clues can be found in the last link above - read the installation section
and if you use the libmaple core (find out what is that)
you need to try your first blinky sketch, the board to select is likely "Maple mini",
and the boot loader to select is likely 'Original' 108k flash, or 'Bootloader 2.0' 120k flash - this boot loader is popularly known as stm32duino libmaple dfu boot loader.
note that the blinking may be simply a test firmware installed by the vendor, then all these clues won't work
you would need a st-link v2 or a usb-uart dongle
find out more from the links above
https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/st-link-v2.html
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2548

more additional (historical interest) reading to be done here, but the above should be enough to get started
https://www.leaflabs.com/maple
http://docs.leaflabs.com/docs.leaflabs.com/index.html
wally06
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 4:36 pm

Re: Driver for windows 10

Post by wally06 »

I thought it was plug and play like Arduino. Hope I could do something with it, thanks for the tips, I have so much too read :)
ag123
Posts: 1655
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:30 am
Answers: 24

Re: Driver for windows 10

Post by ag123 »

for the STM (official) core, you may even like to buy those nucleo or discovery boards from ST
https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/ ... -kits.html
https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/ ... oards.html
they are the originals before the 'pill' boards became popular
some of them are packed with peripherals on board e.g. some even have a lcd on board.
but check in the STM core page to see that it is supported if you are starting new with that
https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32
there is one that i've stm32f429 discovery
https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/ ... overy.html
ST added 2 MB (megabytes) dram on it and it has an lcd.
however, this doesn't seem to be on the list yet
you may like to start with the lower cost nucleo boards, less bells and whistles (extra pheriperials) but works well.
get at least the F1 cortex M3 (you already have it) or F4 cortex M4 families.
some of the F4 series e.g. the F405, F407 runs at a 'whopping' 168 mhz
and some of those videos found on youtube looks like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ETyFmAMFjY
but of course such an app takes much more than simple arduino to get there

libmaple is more specific to the 'pill' boards in particular the stm32f103c{8,b}
not likely to work on the other boards. there are some in the series of F3 and F4, are the *recent developments*
maybe call that alpha or beta but is embryonic
libmaple (roger's) core is a 'community' core as it stands today, there is no org behind it

these days there are many 3rd party boards, check the boards supported after installing the core from the menus and research for the boards
https://stm32-base.org/boards/
not all of them would 'work' (a lot of them don't), at least not straight out of the box (need some extra work and is more than newbie)
there are some *favorites*, u'd find them if you research this forum e.g. in the all other boards section
wally06
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 4:36 pm

Re: Driver for windows 10

Post by wally06 »

Thanks for so many documentation :)

For now, I uploaded some code via FTDI on bluepill STM32F103C8T6 and I used mcufriend to test the speed of graphictest on 2.8" ILI9341.
Yes, it's really faster than on UNO ! :D

Image

However, impossible to find the pins to use the Adafruit Touchscreen! On UNO it was XP=8, YP=A3, XM=A2, YM=9. I spent all the day to try many configurations of pins, but there are so many on STM! I really don't see how I could find them! I think I will consider that screen like not tactile anymore ^^
mrburnette
Posts: 633
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:23 am
Answers: 7

Re: Driver for windows 10

Post by mrburnette »

ag123
Posts: 1655
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:30 am
Answers: 24

Re: Driver for windows 10

Post by ag123 »

one of the 'favorite' lcds used (in the old forums) is the ILI9341 *SPI*
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ca ... li9341+spi
this one use a modest (fewer) pins compared to the 'parallel' ones and you may be able to find it in the (libmaple) libs.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2478
https://www.adafruit.com/product/1770
note that adafruit has the lib on github as well
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-2-8 ... phics-test
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_ILI9341
accordingly it works well with the official core.
for libmaple core, you may find one custom fit in the libs

but of course it isn't limited to just this, there are other 'popular' ones as well. notably the small i2c ones

i think ray like the 'nokia' ones
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ca ... t=5110+lcd
smaller less resolution, just plain grey lcd and accordingly visible in plain daylight without backlight
extreme low battery consumption it runs on the old phones after all
wally06
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 4:36 pm

Re: First time with STM32

Post by wally06 »

Again, about LCD screens, I bought a Gameduino 3 in the past:
https://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino3/
It's fast with many memory but I bought it mainly to trigger video files. However, there's a lack of control and the SD card reader is not so realiable...
So, I wonder if there's a STM32 kit (board+screen+code) to play back video as much as easily with a Gameduino :)
mrburnette
Posts: 633
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:23 am
Answers: 7

Re: First time with STM32

Post by mrburnette »

wally06 wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 12:39 pm Again, about LCD screens, I bought a Gameduino 3 in the past:
https://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino3/
It's fast with many memory but I bought it mainly to trigger video files. However, there's a lack of control and the SD card reader is not so realiable...
...
Flying pig in a tutu!
$39 for an LCD shield ... that is Raspberry Pi 4 buy in price for 2G RAM with $4 left over.

IMHO, you will never be happy with SD unless your board supports SDIO. SD over SPI is just deficient by design.
i think ray like the 'nokia' ones
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ca ... t=5110+lcd
smaller less resolution, just plain grey lcd and accordingly visible in plain daylight without backlight
extreme low battery consumption it runs on the old phones after all
Simple, low overhead software support, negligible power without backlight ... very usable for status display.

Image
https://www.hackster.io/rayburne/joysti ... dio-452602

Ray
ag123
Posts: 1655
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:30 am
Answers: 24

Re: First time with STM32

Post by ag123 »

i think i'd make my alarm clock out of a nokia one, my old radio clock the lcd got twisted so much it is fading out, the good thing about using a blue pill for a radio clock is that it can hookup with a esp8266 running at commands and time sync itself, and maybe add an additional lipo charger monitor to charge the phone :lol:
Post Reply

Return to “General discussion”