Freedom's Precompiled Examples No Longer Work

[drewjensen]

Hey Everyone,

First time diving into ARM coming from the Arduino platform. First I have to say the setup is some what hectic, nothing near what needs to be done for Arduino. Anyways, on to my problem. I installed everything, not necessarily in order and I got things working and was able to swap out examples. I had to unplug the usb cable everytime (more on that later). Then I got to the Keil MDK and it wasn't able to find the uLink I believe. So I figured I screwed something up during the IDE install. Somewhere in that time I wasn't able to upload examples anymore. So I thought, what the heck, I've need to do a fresh install of my W7 bootcamp. So here I am today after fresh install of W7 and I followed the freedom boards instructions to the T. During the "Quick Setup" I was never able to change the example on the board, it's still stuck on the last one I put on it a few days ago. I do remember that when I dragged an example it would give confirmation that it was coded or something like that. I do not get that at all. Please help me out guys and I'm getting frustrated and already wanting to go to NXP since I can develop natively on OSX. Only reason I'm using Freescale is because their M0+ are cheap for mass production and NXP has yet to put pricing out on theirs since they're still in "development".

[Monica]

Drew, how is it going? Did this suggestions got you through any improvement?

Regards

[drewjensen]

I'll see tonight if it works out. The RGB LED still is out and the board "seems" to work minus that, so I got another being sent out from my supplier to replace it.

[drewjensen]

After installing the PExDriverSuite it seems to be working. That is until the instruction said to load the FRDM_KL25Z_OOBE_Demo.srec. RGB LED went blank and data led was solid. What the crap is going on? I reset a few things and reloaded the up to date OpenSDA App and got the data led blinking again but the RGB is blank. I look in and see a small black dot, did the LED burn out? Seriuosly, this is horrible already, I'm regretting going w/ Freescale.

[JimDon]

Sorry to hear you are having problems. It is a new platform, so there is not as much information as other older platforms.

Hard to say exactly what problems you may be having, but this is how you set up for developement.

If you wish to code, you need to go back to the boot loader and flash the DEBUG-APP_Pemicro_v102.SDA file. However, it does not come up as a ulink, as Kiel MDK supports OpenSDA, and you should select this. You do also need the P&E Drivers as you noticed

The latest versions are here:

PE Microcomputer Systems OpenSDA

I also doubt you need to consider re-installing Windows in the future to solve these problems.

You may wish to consider Code Warrior if you are willing to use Windows. It has a very nice feature called Processor Expert that generates code. There is a learning curve to it, but it is quite powerful once you get the hang of it.

These are the directions from P&E for installing the Debug SDA:

1.Hold down the Reset Button (located in box #2 above) and then power the board by connecting to the USB port (located in box #1 above). You will notice the LED blink (located in box #3 above), indicating that the board is now in Bootloader mode. You can release the Reset Button at this point.

2.Open Windows Explorer and locate the "BOOTLOADER" thumb drive.

3.Drag the DEBUG-APP-Vxxx.SDA file onto the thumb drive (any application or firmware file can be drag-and-dropped onto the device at this point).

4.Remove and replace the USB cable. The Freedom Board is now updated to the latest firmware or application.

Also, here are some sample Kiel Projects:

http://cache.freescale.com/files/32bit/software/KL25_SC.exe

[drewjensen]

So you're saying Codewarrior over Keil? I though Keil is suppose to be the "default standard" that is most used amongst companies. I was thinking I might as well learn what is most widely used. I have no problem with Codewarrior, I just thought Keil was better.

As far as the bootloader goes, I'll give it a shot tonight. Just because I'm new, I'm curious as to how the standard workflow for a project goes. I realize I code in the IDE, but what about libraries and such? I'm just so use to Arduino handling most of this for me I guess, and I'm looking for a good place to start. I know it'll be a huge learning curve, but I'm willing. Do most ppl code in C or C++ for ARM these days?

[JimDon]

Keil supports many chip makers CW only supports Freescale, so it is probably true that it may be the default.

I personally prefer CW, but you should give them both a shot and see which you like.

On the other hand, Processor Expert can be quite handy.

The bad news is that ARM chips  from different manufactures are only the same in certain ways that are not that important. The instruction sets are the same, but on the other hand ARM Ltd. states that ARM is not designed for assembly language programming, and is optimized for "C" compilers. Other than GPIO, the IO modules are not specified by ARM Ltd.The also spec the NVIC, so at least you know how to turn on interrupts at the highest level.

As for C++, it is not used that often, as to really leverage C++ you need dynamic allocation, and these MCU's do not have much ram. I rarely use even malloc. I think the only reason Arduino is C++ is that at the time it was very fashionable, and after all it was designed by artists for artists. It is also easier for beginners is some way (like string handling) but much less efficient is terms of memory usage. Also, on "free"  IDE's the free limit for C++ is usually much much lower tan "C".