Using MCUExpresso to flash a hex file using LPC-Link2

[chakie]

We have a project for an LPC-1768 done using MBed and normally flash the boards over the air or via USB using our custom software and bootloader. This works fine. However, brand new boards that do not have our own bootloader yet need to be flashed with Flash Magic using an LPC-Link2 connected to the board. It seems NXP hasn't done drivers for the LPC-Link for almost 10 years, so it doesn't work anymore on Windows 11. Flash Magic pretends to be cross platform but it only works under Windows, so that's what we have to use. The LPC-Link2 doesn't seem to be compatible with just about anything, so Flash Magic it has been for many years. Would be awesome if the LPC-Link2 worked well with something under Linux or macOS, but alas, here we are. My old Windows 7 that had Flash Magic died and I now have no way to flash new boards.

So, enter MCUExpresso. I thought that surely this software can use the LPC-Link2 and flash my own hex image, but so far I haven't seen any way to flash external stuff. I don't want to have a project or anything in MCUExpresso, the software is developed elsewhere, I just want to use it as a flasher.

Can this be done or am I fscked? I don't want to debug or anything fancy, just to flash in a given file, like Flash Magic would do.

[chakie · Accepted solution]

Of course just when I had written this I found some docs mentioning the "Advanced GUI Flash Tool". It detects the LPC-Link2 just fine on my Mac and lets me select an externally built .bin file. It also flashes extremely quickly, much faster than Flash Magic did, the entire process seems to take under two seconds, but as the board boots up fine it seems to be ok. The tool also shows me the command line it uses and that let me create a script for the flashing from our own workflow.

Nice, now I'm happy.