Chris Walker

Slaxtrack, AT91SAM7XC512 should work. No official support, but Atmel tells me that that it will drop in without any code/wiring changes. Chris

Hi Charles, If you manually update your Netduino Plus through MFDeploy, the ER_CONFIG file will wipe out this info. To avoid this, don't flash the ER_CONFIG file. [Also, we're working on a program called Netduino Update which will automatically repopulate this data for you in the future.] For now, open up MFDeploy. Go to the Device menu, select Configuration > Network. Enter your new MAC address and IP settings there. Chris P.S. The MAC Address for your Netduino Plus is printed on a sticker on the back of your board. If you don't have the sticker any more, we can post a few MAC addresses here that you could use.

Are you sure you are powering it properly? Sounds like the mini is only running off the ftdi power, if that's even possible?

Bill,

For being 32-bit, the Netduino Mini uses surprisingly few mA. Especially without any LEDs to power.

But you bring up a good point--the FTDI adapter may not be able to supply enough power for the Netduino Mini _and_ connected components.

Chris

Hi kalai, Welcome to the Netduino community! Rev B of the Netduino adds an internal analog reference (AREF). You can still use the external AREF if you want to enable it. Rev B also removes the two "dummy I2C resistors". Chris

Here are some quick tips on getting up and running with your Netduino Mini...

Pins
* The pins on the Netduino Mini are numbered 1-24.
* Pin 1 is at the top left (just left of the cutout notch) and has a "1" printed next to it.
* Pin 12 is at the bottom-left next to the gold erase pad.
* Pin 13 is at the bottom-right.
* Pin 24 is at the top right (just right of the cutout notch).

Power
To power your Netduino Mini:
* Attach 7.5V-12V power to pin 24 (top-right corner just right of notch at top). And from your power supply, attach ground to pin 23.
* If you would rather power your Netduino Mini via a 5V regulated power supply, you can supply 5V regulated at pin 21 instead.
* If you power your Netduino Mini via 7.5V-12V power (pin 24), you will get a 5V regulated power output at pin 21.

Programming
To deploy a Netduino Mini app (and debug), you'll use serial communication. Here are a few options.
* BASIC Stamp board: just plug the Netduino Mini into the BASIC Stamp 2-compatible board and use the existing serial cable/virtual serial port (USB) connectivity.
* RS232: cut the end off of an RS232 cable and wire the RX, TX, DTR, and GND wires to pins 1, 2, 3, and 4. Or use an RS232 breakout adapter (with the same wiring--but no cable cutting).
* 3.3V TTL: attach a 3.3V TTL cable to pins 11 (cable's RX) and 12 (cable's TX). Attach the cable's GND connector to pin 4. If the cable has a DTR wire, connect that to pin 3.

In Visual Studio, set the deployment to Serial instead of USB and select your COM port. That's it. [If you're using TTL via pins 11 and 12, read the following section.]

Switching serial deployment port
The Netduino Mini may be programmed over its RS232 UART (pins 1, 2) or its 3.3V TTL UART (pins 11, 12). By default it uses the RS232 UART.

If you want to use the 3.3V TTL UART (pins 11, 12) instead:
* Connect your computer to the 3.3V TTL UART (pins 11, 12).
* Open a serial connection to your board (115200 bps, No parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no flow control) using Putty, HyperTerminal, Tera Term or other terminal software.
* Press ESC. You will see a prompt offering to let you select the deployment/debug port.
* Select the TTL UART (COM1).
* You will see the Netduino Mini reboot and start sending debug data over the port.

HardwareProvider (pin enumerations)
To create a Netduino Mini app instead of a Netduino app, select "Netduino Mini Application" instead of a "Netduino Application" when creating a new app in Visual Studio. If you do not have this option, download and install the the v4.1.0 SDK (November 2010 Refresh) or newer.

To manually convert a Netduino project to a Netduino Mini project:
* Remove the SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.Netduino.dll reference from your project.
* Add the SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.NetduinoMini.dll reference to your project.
* Remove the "using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.Netduino;" statement from the top of your Program.cs file.
* Add a "using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.NetduinoMini;" statement to the top of your Program.cs file.
* Now, typing "Pins." will give you a list of GPIO pins. These GPIO pin numbers match the physical pin #s on the Netduino Mini.

We'll put together a quick start document to replace these early instructions. In the meantime, enjoy your Netduino Minis and please share what you build with the community!

Chris

EDIT: updated for launch day, v4.1.0 refresh SDK

Hi Paolo, If you power your Netduino via USB, this pin will provide voltage from the USB line. USB power should be 5.0V, but it varies between 4.5V and 5.5V. If you want true 5V regulated output on this pin, just plug in an AC power adapter--and you're good to go. Chris

As far as an oscilloscope, I'd rather save my pennies for what you have hinted on regarding future products from Secret Labs but if I'm unable to figure this out sooner than later I might have to take the plunge...

For figuring out what's going on with digital signals like SPI, let me give you my personal $150 recommendation. This is what I use at home, and it's a pretty fantastic yet inexpensive piece of hardware.
http://www.saleae.com/logic/

It won't give you as full of a range of details as a really nice oscilloscope+logic analyzer unit, but it's amazing what $150 will do. If you're going to play a lot with electronics, a logic analyzer is a great investment.

Chris

It looks like your Netduino Plus isn't getting a DHCP-allocated address on the second network. What happens if you do the following? Microsoft.SPOT.Net.NetworkInformation.NetworkInterface.GetAllNetworkInterfaces()[0].EnableDhcp(); Chris

I believe it is 4-digit shield by SheildStudio. Edit: It is actually visible on the picture, in the right bottom corner.

Good catch, CW2.

ShieldStudio even has 'starter' C# code for the shield.
http://shieldstudio....d-and-netduino/

Chris

Wow oz. Yet again, great stuff. I wonder if we could add an SD card and MIDI file parser to that and then users could insert an SD card and it would be a "music player"... Chris

Hi all.
I'm in a trouble controlling a SDCard(1GB) with FAT16-formatted.
I changed the firmware of my netduino v.4.1.1-alpha usin MFDeploy.exe.
I use GPIO_PIN_D3 as CS-pin of SDCard.

Hi lynxeyed, thank you for the post and for testing out the latest firmware.

Currently, the MountSD() feature currently ignores all parameters except for the PATH varaible. In the first Alpha, it only supports using GPIO_PIN_D10 as the CS pin for the SD card.

Can you try to place a jumper wire between pin D10 and pin D3?

Also, if you need to move back to the standard firmware (while waiting for the chip select feature to be exposed in an updated v4.1.1 release), you can put your Netduino in TinyBooter mode to downgrade the firmware. If you haven't done that before, we can help point you to some instructions for that.

Does this help answer your question?

Chris

Netduino community members are building some pretty terrific projects. But they've been missing something...the ability to connect their standard Netduino to the Internet.

While a Wiznet add-on solution cannot provide the performance and capabilities of the Netduino Plus's native networking, it provides a networking option for standard Netduino users.

I have attached some very early, unfinished, experimental drivers that have been tested with the following Ethernet shields:
* Arduino Ethernet Shield (original)
* Arduino Ethernet Shield (new design) requires soldering of optional 3x2 'ICSP' connector
* DFRobot Ethernet Shield

To use this driver in your solution, include its project in your solution and add a reference to it from your project's "Add Reference..." dialog. I'll post a sample project below this post.

What you can do with this driver:
1. Send/receive data to devices/servers on the Internet (using System.Net.Sockets.Socket)
2. Request web pages
3. Act as a TCP server (web, web services, sockets, etc.)
3. Use web services
4. Stream data

Disclaimer: these drivers are not complete and have not passed our QA standards for release code. If we are not comfortable with the performance of the drivers and/or the supported hardware, this software may be released as a community contribution instead of as an official driver.

This driver is released under the Apache 2.0 license. It is an open source driver.

The attached driver has the following limitations (and maybe more):
1. Static IP only: the Wiznet chip does not support DHCP natively.
2. DNS is not yet supported. You must connect to servers via IP address
3. No support for HttpWebRequests, at least yet.
4. We may tweak the object model in future releases.
5. Wiznet limit: maximum of 4 simultaneous socket connections
6. Wiznet limit: server ports may only serve one client at a time

While this software is experimental, it is safe to use on production-firmware Netduinos. If you're interested in building Internet-connected devices with Netduino, please help us test this code. If you find any bugs or have bugfixes or recommendations, please post in this thread. We'd love your participation!

Chris

EDIT: updated drivers posted on 25-Nov-2010

Version: 4.1 ALPHA 1 (version 4.1.0.0 a1) WARNING: This software is pre-release software. It may temporarily cause your Netduino to cease functioning properly. It requires communication with your Netduino via a serial port. You will need to erase your Netduino completely and flash it with "serial" firmware. This will require special tools and possibly access to a 32-bit Windows machine. If you're an early adopter and would like to help us test early MFDeploy support on Mac or Linux, this alpha release may be for you. This software is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license (open source) and includes code from the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework v4.1 Porting Kit. MFDeploy is a tool which ships with the .NET Micro Framework v4.1 SDK. It allows the user to do certain diagnostics, configuration, and reflashing with their Netduino. It also allows you to manually switch/update .NET MF firmware. Limitations in this release: * Supports only serial communication with Netduino or other .NET Micro Framework device. No USB support at this time (although USB to UART cables and USB to RS232 adapters are supported). NOTES FOR MAC OS X USERS: * Mono on Mac OS X does not support auto-enumeration of serial ports at this time. You will need to manually add your serial port's path to the software before compiling/running it. To do this, in the Debugger project modify the Streams.cs file: uncomment line 640, and copy and paste the path to your serial port in all three respective parameters. * You must unzip and copy the attached .dylib patch file over your existing Mono 2.6.7 installation to enable serial port communication. It should be written over the existing file in '/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/lib'. HOW TO USE THIS PROGRAM: * Unzip the attached MFDeployMono_v4.1_Alpha1.zip file into a folder on your computer. If you've installed the .NET Micro Framework v4.1 QFE1 PK, you can copy these files into the "\MicroFrameworkPK_v4_1\Framework" folder if desired (although this will replace the PK's standard MFDeploy code and may require tweaks to the PK's build process). * Open up the Tools\MFDeploy folder, and open up the MFDeploy.sln solution. * Compile and run. That's it! [NOTE: Mac users will need to edit line 640 in the Streams.cs file as noted above] SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: * Tested on Mac OS X 10.6.4 and Ubuntu Linux 10.10 Beta * Requires Mono 2.6.7 and MonoDevelop 2.4 * Mac OS X installation requires .dylib patch file (see above) * USB to UART cable (or USB/RS232 adapter + RS232 shield for Netduino) Enjoy, and please let us know how this works for you. Chris Secret Labs LLC

We are working on a new "Netduino Update" application which will make it even easier to upgrade firmware on the Netduino.

We wanted to make it work with Mac and Linux. This afternoon, we successfully flashed the .NET Micro Framework runtime onto a Netduino using Mac OS X--and using Ubuntu Linux.

[ NOTE: We have also posted MFDeploy v4.1 (alpha 1) for Mac and Linux. MFDeploy enables firmware flashing of Netduino via its GUI. ]

WARNING: this is prototype code. It is meant for our "early adopter hackers" who would like to see some of the community's preliminary work getting .NET Micro Framework support working natively on the Mac and Linux. If you are not a power user, do not use this code.

I have attached an early prototype console version of this tool. It has the following limitations:
1. The serial port is manually specified in code (in two places)
2. The path to the Netduino firmware (ER_CONFIG and ER_FLASH) is manually specified in code
3. MAC OS X: the Mono runtime on Mac requires a patch file for serial support to work (patch is attached).

We tested using Mono v2.6.7 and MonoDevelop 2.4 on a Macbook running OS X 10.6.4 and on a notebook running Ubuntu Linux 10.10 (beta). We used a KeySpan USA-19HS serial adapter plugged into a CuteDigi RS232 shield. The Netduino was flashed with the v4.1.0.2 "serial" TinyBooterDecompressor.

This is prototype code. Your results may vary.

Instructions:
1. Make sure you have Mono v2.6.7 installed on your computer (it comes with Ubuntu 10.10)
2. Make sure you have MonoDevelop v2.4 installed on your computer
3. MAC OS X ONLY: Download the libMonoPosixHelper.dylib.zip file. Unzip and write over the existing file in /Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/lib. This patchfile is for Mono v2.6.x on the Mac only.
4. Download the Netduino "SERIAL" TinyBooterDecompressor and Netduino firmware. v4.1.0.2 firmware is here.
5. Flash your Netduino using the "SERIAL" TinyBooterDecompressor. On Mac OS X, you'll need to use a Virtual Machine using Windows (sorry, we're working on making a tool for Mac to do this too). SAM-BA is available for Linux so you can do this natively--but there may be compatibility issues with SAM-BA and various serial adapters (so you may want to use a VM with Windows instead).
6. Download the NetduinoUpdate_Mono_Proto1.zip file (attached). Unzip it to a folder on your computer. We recommend "/Users/[username]/Projects" on Mac and "/home/[username]/Projects" on Linux.
7. Open the NetduinoUpdate.sln file in MonoDevelop.
8. In the NetduinoUpdate project, modify Program.cs as follows:
8[a]. Replace the two "selFiles.Add(...)" function calls in lines 27-28 with the full path to your Netduino SERIAL firmware files
8[b]. Replace the "new MFSerialPort(...)" constructor call in line 48 with the full path to your serial port.
9. In the Debugger, project, modify Streams.cs as follows:
9[a]. Replace the "CreateInstanceForSerial(...)" function call in line 638 with the full path to your serial port.
10. Build your project in MonoDevelop, attach your Netduino via serial cable, and run the sample.

You should now see your Netduino being flashed with the serial firmware using 100% C# code, running natively under Mono on the Mac/Linux.

That's "first light" for us. More to come. Enjoy, and please let us know how this works for you.

Chris

For the Gadget Shield, PWM would be used to modulate the colors of the RGB LED (low frequency, duty cycles varying from 0% to 100%) as well as generate 38 kHz waveforms for the IR transmitter LED (38 kHz frequency, obviously, at 50% duty cycle).

Hmm, let me get more details on what you need here...

For the RGB LED, it looks like you're using digital pins 5, 6, and 10. The PWM on the Netduino drives all four of these--and then PWM feature to drive duty cycle is already in the firmware. What additional functionality do you need? The ability to change the frequency?

As for the IR transmitter, the upcoming v4.1.1 release will allow you to set the low-level PWM frequency (based on a standard divisor of the 48MHz MCU clock speed) and then set custom intervals/periods for PWM square waves. Is this enough for what you need to do--or do you need something where you can submit a byte array and then have a sequence of pulses sent with different periods? A constant 38 KHz signal with 50% duty cycle will be easy with 4.1.1 -- but I want to see what else you might need here...

Chris