Javascript Disabled Detected

You currently have javascript disabled. Several functions may not work. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality.

The Netduino forums have been replaced by new forums at community.wildernesslabs.co. This site has been preserved for archival purposes only and the ability to make new accounts or posts has been turned off.

STM8S-DISCOVERY - KIT

Started by Mike Hole, May 12 2012 07:24 PM

Please log in to reply

18 replies to this topic

#1 Mike Hole

Advanced Member

Members
39 posts

Posted 12 May 2012 - 07:24 PM

Thinking of getting to know module development would you say the STM8S-DISCOVERY - KIT is a worthwhile purchase? http://www.amazon.co...36849703&sr=8-5

Back to top

#2 Chris Walker

Secret Labs Staff

Moderators
7767 posts

LocationNew York, NY

Posted 12 May 2012 - 07:28 PM

Hi Mike, That board is a good pick. As you get closer, you'll probably want to deploy your code to an STM8S103 chip on a DIP adapter to get everything finalized...but STM8Discovery can be a great starting point to working with STM8S. Chris

Back to top

#3 Fabien Royer

Advanced Member

Members
406 posts

LocationRedmond, WA

Posted 12 May 2012 - 07:32 PM

Hi Mike, IMHO, this is all you need to prototype STM8S-based modules at a very cost-effective price. It has all the MCU pins broken out, a small through hole prototyping area and has a built-in ST-Link programming interface. You can easily solder an SMD 10 position FCI connector in the middle of the prototyping area for connecting the STM8S Discovery board to your Go! board. Combined with IAR KickStarter Edition, this is a rock-solid development setup. I hope this helps. Cheers, -Fabien.

Store: nwazet.com
Blog: fabienroyer.wordpress.com

Back to top

#4 Mike Hole

Advanced Member

Members
39 posts

Posted 12 May 2012 - 07:47 PM

Great stuff cheers both. Good thing it's a UK reseller too!

Back to top

#5 Nevyn

Advanced Member

Members
1072 posts

LocationNorth Yorkshire, UK

Posted 12 May 2012 - 09:04 PM

Great stuff cheers both. Good thing it's a UK reseller too!

Mike,

Have a look at RS Components web site - that board is £6.12 ex VAT at RS. You will have to pay shipping and VAT but it should still work out a little cheaper.

Regards,
Mark

To be or not to be = 0xFF

Blogging about Netduino, .NET, STM8S and STM32 and generally waffling on about life

Follow @nevynuk on Twitter

Back to top

#6 Fred

Advanced Member

Members
302 posts

LocationUK

Posted 12 May 2012 - 09:36 PM

The STM32F4 discovery board is also a great price and a similar processor to the Go main board. I got one to get me started on native ARM coding (along with the STM8S for module development). If you get your order up to £20 then Farnell does free shipping and is another good UK supplier.

Back to top

#7 ItsDan

Advanced Member

Members
101 posts

Posted 13 May 2012 - 02:46 PM

I used the SWIM connector on the discovery board when programming the Protomodule, worked great. I didn't use the onboard chip much but only because I had other chip(s) ready to go.

Follow the adventures of the Box of Crappy Surplus

Total BOCS Traveled Distance: 9708 miles | States Visited: 5
Track the Box

Back to top

#8 neslekkim

Advanced Member

Members
350 posts

LocationOslo, Norway

Posted 15 May 2012 - 08:48 PM

I find there are more of these discovery boards, stm8l also, and two stm32 boards, which of all are recomended if one want for 32 and 8 chip? And for using the swim connector, is it only to plug cables into it, and go?, or does one need other components? (seems to remember talk about stlink/2? I want to buy various of these to try to learn about these, but wanted to be sure what to get so I can try to order most in one go.

--
Asbj�rn

Back to top

#9 nakchak

Advanced Member

Members
404 posts

LocationBristol, UK

Posted 15 May 2012 - 11:06 PM

I find there are more of these discovery boards, stm8l also, and two stm32 boards, which of all are recomended if one want for 32 and 8 chip?
And for using the swim connector, is it only to plug cables into it, and go?, or does one need other components? (seems to remember talk about stlink/2?

I want to buy various of these to try to learn about these, but wanted to be sure what to get so I can try to order most in one go.

AFAIK there are 3 Discovery boards which are most applicable to Netduino GO development:

The STM8SDiscovery kit which features a MCU in the same series as the ones used on the RGB LED module and Pot Module in the GO! starter kit.
The STM32F0Discovery kit, Chris announced today that the network and SD card modules would be using the same family MCU
The STM32F4Discovery kit which features a MCU in the same series as the one on the main GO! board.

I'm sure others can clarify further but as I understand it the STM8S range of MCU's are suitable for most module development, the newly announced STM32F0 range of MCU's offer higher performance than the STM8S range, but not as much as a full blown STM32F4 MCU would, but are significantly cheaper than STM32F4's so offer commercial advantages as well as ample power for most applications. And finally the STM32Fn range are best suited to complex modules and heavily integrated platforms, but also cost the most and from the cursory glance I have given the data sheets also require the most amount of design to use. i.e. the STM8S is available is 20 pin SSOP packages, whilst the STM32Fn devices start with 48 pin and end with 176 pin LQFP packages, which are obviously much harder to hand solder and also design boards for, whilst DIP adaptors for SSOP packages are readily available...

All of the discovery boards can also be used a programmer/debugger as well I believe..

Back to top

#10 Fred

Advanced Member

Members
302 posts

LocationUK

Posted 16 May 2012 - 09:51 AM

They're so cheap and each board includes a programmer/debugger, so I'd just get one of each! I'm not sure what advantage a separate ST-LINK/V2 debugger has over the one that's included on the dev boards for half the price, but you shouldn't need anything other than a discovery kit to get going.

I've not used them much yet, but the one warning I'd give is that the toolchain for the STM8 is more of a pain to set up, including waiting a few days for a trial activation key from Cosmic for their C compiler.

Neither the STM8 or STM32 is particularly well documented for a newbie to get up and running. We're so spoiled with the Netduino and Visual Studio. When I have time (always the excuse) and if someone doesn't beat me to it, I might knock up an idiot's guide to getting started and compiling the ST demo code and writing blinky from scratch.

Back to top

#11 Nevyn

Advanced Member

Members
1072 posts

LocationNorth Yorkshire, UK

Posted 16 May 2012 - 11:03 AM

I've not used them much yet, but the one warning I'd give is that the toolchain for the STM8 is more of a pain to set up, including waiting a few days for a trial activation key from Cosmic for their C compiler.

The IAR development environment is a doddle to set up. Works straight out of the box with no additional components required. The Kickstart version is free but only allows applications up to 8K.

Neither the STM8 or STM32 is particularly well documented for a newbie to get up and running. We're so spoiled with the Netduino and Visual Studio. When I have time (always the excuse) and if someone doesn't beat me to it, I might knock up an idiot's guide to getting started and compiling the ST demo code and writing blinky from scratch.

This is an understatement - information out there is scarce!

I've written some blog posts covering getting started with IAR and the STD Peripheral Library for the STM8S and also the Atollic environment for the STM32.

Interrupts
Setting up an interrupt handler.

Using Timers
Using a timer to generate a regular clock signal.

Connecting the IDE to the STM8S003
Using the ST-Link/V2 to connect the STM8S003 on breadboard to the IAR IDE.

First Project For STM8S
Creating your first project using the IAR IDE for the STM8S using the STD Peripheral Library.

STM32 Discovery Board - First Impressions
First attempt at writing a simple program using the Atollic development environment.

Arron Chapman has also written a couple of posts:

PWM
Generating a PWM signal from the STM8S.

Getting Started/Toggling a Pin
Toggling a pin using direct register access on the STM8S.

Hope people find these useful,
Mark

To be or not to be = 0xFF

Blogging about Netduino, .NET, STM8S and STM32 and generally waffling on about life

Follow @nevynuk on Twitter

Back to top

#12 CW2

Advanced Member

Members
1592 posts

LocationCzech Republic

Posted 16 May 2012 - 11:11 AM

I'm not sure what advantage a separate ST-LINK/V2 debugger has over the one that's included on the dev boards for half the price

AFAIK the on-board programmer is limited to a particular protocol (e.g. SWD-only, SWIM-only) and supports only selected microcontroller family. ST-LINK/V2 is an universal JTAG/SWD/SWIM programmer for all STM8 and STM32 devices.

Back to top

#13 nakchak

Advanced Member

Members
404 posts

LocationBristol, UK

Posted 16 May 2012 - 11:29 AM

I'm not sure what advantage a separate ST-LINK/V2 debugger has over the one that's included on the dev boards

I think some of the discovery boards can only be used as a debugger or a dev board but not at the same time, I might be totally wrong...
Plus i think the embedded ones on the discovery boards are constrained to a smaller selection of chips, whilst the stand alone debugger works with all STM8 and STM32's, but for most people a discovery board would be all that is needed...

For me personally I like having a little box that is dedicated to debugging/programming as I tend to want to debug something just as I have everything breadboarded up on a separate project, although that could be avoided if I would only concentrate on one thing at a time, ah well

When I have time (always the excuse) and if someone doesn't beat me to it, I might knock up an idiot's guide to getting started and compiling the ST demo code and writing blinky from scratch.

I too am contemplating doing something similar, as time is the ever present issue, might make sense to collaborate?

Nak.

Back to top

#14 neslekkim

Advanced Member

Members
350 posts

LocationOslo, Norway

Posted 16 May 2012 - 01:38 PM

AFAIK there are 3 Discovery boards which are most applicable to Netduino GO development:

The STM8SDiscovery kit which features a MCU in the same series as the ones used on the RGB LED module and Pot Module in the GO! starter kit.
The STM32F0Discovery kit, Chris announced today that the network and SD card modules would be using the same family MCU
The STM32F4Discovery kit which features a MCU in the same series as the one on the main GO! board.

Thanks, ordered all three, and the stlink/v2 due to some comments further down in the thread.
Will be interresting to try these.

--
Asbj�rn

Back to top

#15 Chris Walker

Secret Labs Staff

Moderators
7767 posts

LocationNew York, NY

Posted 16 May 2012 - 03:08 PM

Hi Mark,

The IAR development environment is a doddle to set up. Works straight out of the box with no additional components required. The Kickstart version is free but only allows applications up to 8K.

I totally agree. With built-in support for SWIM debugging and supporting 8KB of flash on the STM8S chips...it's a great free resource. We've purchased the full AVR version for some of our Zigbee work...it's a nice toolset.

Not Visual Studio nice, but a lot better than others that we've tried.

I've written some blog posts covering getting started with IAR and the STD Peripheral Library for the STM8S and also the Atollic environment for the STM32.

Wow, those are NICE Mark. Thanks for writing those up, they should be really helpful to folks getting started with STM8S.

Chris

Back to top

#16 Nevyn

Advanced Member

Members
1072 posts

LocationNorth Yorkshire, UK

Posted 16 May 2012 - 08:14 PM

Wow, those are NICE Mark. Thanks for writing those up, they should be really helpful to folks getting started with STM8S.

Thanks, just trying to help.

I've just added a new post on the SPI problems I had at the weekend.

Regards,
Mark

To be or not to be = 0xFF

Blogging about Netduino, .NET, STM8S and STM32 and generally waffling on about life

Follow @nevynuk on Twitter

Back to top

#17 Fred

Advanced Member

Members
302 posts

LocationUK

Posted 17 May 2012 - 12:32 PM

AFAIK the on-board programmer is limited to a particular protocol (e.g. SWD-only, SWIM-only) and supports only selected microcontroller family. ST-LINK/V2 is an universal JTAG/SWD/SWIM programmer for all STM8 and STM32 devices.

I've read this a few places, but can't actually find a device that would need JTAG over SWD (for STM32) or SWIM (for STM8). The only advantage I can see is that you have one debugger in a nice plastic case rather than trailing wires from an embedded ST-LINK/V2 on one of the discovery boards.

Back to top

#18 CW2

Advanced Member

Members
1592 posts

LocationCzech Republic

Posted 17 May 2012 - 01:00 PM

I've read this a few places, but can't actually find a device that would need JTAG over SWD (for STM32) or SWIM (for STM8).

If I am not mistaken, ST-LINK/V2 on STM32F4 Discovery board supports only SWD, so it cannot be used to program STM8 over SWIM, similarly ST-LINK on STM8S Discovery supports only SWIM, so it cannot be used to program STM32 over SWD. I have not examined the hardware in detail, so I don't know if it is just simple limitation like pins not broken out or for example a different firmware...

Back to top

#19 Fred

Advanced Member

Members
302 posts

LocationUK

Posted 17 May 2012 - 01:36 PM

Thanks. Yes - I got that the discovery boards were limited to either the STM8 or STM32, whereas the standalone can do both. I've got both STM8S and STM32F4 discovery boards, so no problem there. I was wondering if there were any MCUs that require JTAG. (Just like some MSP430 devices need JTAG and can't be flashed or debugged over SBW.) I don't think there are, so with a STM8S discovery board, a STM32Fx discovery board and some jumper wires I'm covered. I'm trying not to buy more toys than I need these days as I have so much unused stuff for projects I never get round to. Sorry if this if going a but off-topic, but this forum currently seems like a pretty good resource for STM development! Their own forum is sketchy on the basics.

Back to top

Back to Netduino Go

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

STM8S-DISCOVERY - KIT

0 user(s) are reading this topic

Sign In