Hi Len,

You're re-inventing what the Widget event handler is already doing The Widget event handler gives you a reference to the Widget that was clicked when the even fires. If that's not enough for your scenario, you can tag a Widget through the ID property and you can also add / remove handlers to which Widgets click events will be broadcast if you don't want to use the generic one.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
-Fabien.

Are pictures other than bitmaps supported?

Yes: raw 16-bit / pixel bitmaps.

3. Is it possible to display serial video, say mJpeg or H.264 at a relatively low frame rate?

If you can convert mpeg frames or H.264 frame to raw 16-bit bit streams, you can, even though the frame rate will be limited by the bandwidth provided by SPI as well as the size of the (8KB) buffer currently used. Nothing prevents you from tuning the firmware for your application (Ah! The beauty of OSS !)

Cheers,
-Fabien.

Hi Steve,

There isn't one in this revision of the module and here's why: the ILI9341 IC driver of the display I'm using does have a PWM backlight control circuit that is configurable through software commands (Write Display Brightness (51h) page 141 of the datasheet). The manufacturer of the display omitted to connect it to the backlight I discovered this when the module board was already in production as I was focusing on the finishing touches of the driver. At that point, it was too late to change the design. The display manufacturer recognized the omission and did say that they would correct the mistake in a future revision of the display.

-Fabien.

Carb, So you know, I'm not using anything that has to do with Micorsoft.SPOT.Font. The font definitions in the C# code are only used to track the variables sizes of the characters in each font. The actual fonts are in the display's firmware. This makes things very efficient for display as the C# code only passes a font ID to reference a given font when needed. Hope it helps. -Fabien.

Hi Chuck, Sorry that I wasn't clear. Nothing is hard-coded. you can plug the display into any socket you like. You just need to specify which one it is in the initialization call. -Fabien.

Hi Charles,

Is there a way to Initialize the display without specifing the socket to be used?

Nope: to initialize a module you must have a socket associated with it.

I want to be able to plug in the display module and let the Netduino Go main board find the display module.

That's a different thing: you could send an SPI query identical to the one used in canvas.Initialize() to retrieve the module's ID and take it from there if it corresponds to the display.


What is the scenario for doing this?

Hi Eric,

SD cards modules aren't available yet but it's easy to connect one
http://fabienroyer.w...ng-out-sockets/
http://fabienroyer.w...-to-a-netduino/

I'm surprised to hear that the demo 'crashes' because the 2 places where the SD is referenced use a try / catch :

        public static void BmpImageTest(VirtualCanvas canvas) {
            try {
                var sd = new SDCardReader();
                sd.Initialize(GoSockets.Socket8);
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\03.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\05.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\09.bmp");
                canvas.SetOrientation(Orientation.Landscape);
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\00.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\01.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\02.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\04.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\06.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\07.bmp");
                DisplayBmpPicture(canvas, @"Nwazet\08.bmp");
                sd.Dispose();
            }catch(Exception e){
                Debug.Print(e.Message);
                Debug.Print("You need an SD card loaded with the demo photos to run this part of the demo.");
            }
        }

Here's the output when running w/o an SD card reader


Available RAM: 88380 bytes.
A first chance exception of type 'System.IO.IOException' occurred in SecretLabs.NETMF.IO.dll
SD Card or file I/O error: manual calibration required.
A first chance exception of type 'System.ApplicationException' occurred in Nwazet.Go.SD.dll
socket already bound
You need an SD card loaded with the demo photos to run this part of the demo.
<...>

Which specific line did you comment out? I'll gladly update the demo code if I can repro the issue.

Cheers,
-Fabien.

This is expected and I released a firmware update for the display that allows to scan for touch events w/o blocking earlier this week.
Please see this thread: http://forums.netdui...-announcements/

Cheers.
-Fabien.

The time for a hardware update will happen when we have exhausted our existing stock and at the moment, I have no idea when that's going to happen. As far as doing it yourself goes: I would not recommend modifying the touch display board unless you really know what you're doing.

Hi neslekkim, Brightness control can only be achieved with a hardware change, not a firmware change unfortunately. Cheers, -Fabien.

Yup I indicated that in the source code. This is a fact of life with touchscreens but only needs to be done (correctly) once. Cheers. -Fabien. PS: please note that calibration is only needed when using the touchscreen. It's not required if you only want to write to the display.

Chris,

 

"[color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]I'm guessing that 10.5 mbps was too fast for the module. That's a lot of data for a 48MHz microcontroller to handle that's also updating a display...so 5.25 mbps seems totally reasonable"[/color]

 

[color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]You guessed wrong.[/color]

 

• [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]The Touch Display module runs on a [/color]STM32F205RET6 [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]at 120 Mhz.[/color]
• [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;]The DAQ module runs on a [/color]STM32F051R8T6 at 48 MHz.

In both cases, the processing work that they perform is independent of the SPI communication throughput because it's buffered and asynchronous. A simple examination of our SPI over DMA source code would have avoid a misleading statement.

 

For the record, throughput has never been an issue with our modules until GoBus introduced SPI handling changes. 

Hi Bendage,

Sorry that you're having difficulties putting together your project from the binary assemblies.
I'll look into why that is and will make corrections as needed. I've also been thinking about creating tutorials and code snippets, similar to the ones I created for the DAQ module.

In the meantime, you can do the following:

• Go to the Nwazet source repository and do "Get Source" as a zip file
• Expand the zip file to a location of your choice
• Create a Netduino Go! project in VS2010 (any version)
• Paste the code generated by Nutshell into program.cs
• Right-click on the solution and do "Add Existing Project..."
• Add "Nwazet.Go.Core.csproj"
• Add "Nwazet.Go.Display.csproj"
• Make "Nwazet.Go.Core" and "Nwazet.Go.Display" dependencies of your main project
• Compile and deploy

See the attached picture to see the completed project.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
-Fabien.

GregR, Yup. An installer solution is what we'll be using to simplify things. -Fabien.

Bendage, I suspect that something went wrong when I recently merged multiple source trees during the release of the DAQ module code, even though I did a regression pass to make sure all projects built, deployed and ran. -Fabien.

public void DrawFill(ushort color)

This will get you unblocked for now Both methods should work though and I'll investigate what the issue is as soon as I get the chance. Cheers, -Fabien.

but what is Fabien doing here, he is using serial com?

http://forums.netdui...sue-with-42-rc5

Yup. I'm using a serial port on the Netduino Go! itself, not on the Shield Base.

-Fabien.

[font="arial, sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px;"]Hi Asbjorn,[/font]

In this video, I demonstrate how to build a simple breakout board to connect a Go! module to an FTDI ‘USB to Serial’ breakout board for the purpose of updating the module’s firmware. The application used to download the firmware to the module is provided by ST Microelectronics. This method has been tested with ARM Cortex Mx and STM8S chips and works very reliably.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB3nFQso2Vs

Cheers,
-Fabien.

Links & References

Nwazet Source repository
Nwazet firmware files
Map file for the STM32F051x
Adafruit FTDI Friend + extras - v1.0
Adafruit USB FTDI cable - TTL-232R 3.3V
Sparkfun FTDI Basic Breakout - 3.3V
Sparkfun FTDI Cable 5V VCC-3.3V I/O
ST Flash Loader Demonstrator
Netduino Go! IDC Cable Breakout
Netduino GO! Hacking - Breaking out sockets

Thanks Stan, You're correct: there must be a bootloader on the chip. Not all versions of the STM8S have a UART bootloader unfortunately, and those require SWIM programming. All ARM Cortex M chips do have one. Cheers, -Fabien.

About flashing the STM8S serially: this document by ST describes in details the STM8 bootloader and which STM8S versions feature a bootloader: http://www.st.com/in.../CD00201192.pdf This may be helpful for anyone considering building modules based on the STM8S and would like to ensure that they are easily field-upgradable. For versions that do not have an embedded bootloader, it is possible to add one in software and there are reference implementations provided by ST to do so. Cheers, -Fabien.

Chris,

2.5.0 is listed as the supported flashing tool on the STM32F051

While the tool is capable of flashing an STM32F0x chip, it is missing several STM32F0 device map files.
I created a map file for the STM32F051 Medium Density with 64K of flash (see the attachment) and tested it against an STM32F051 Discovery board.


-Fabien.

Thanks for the update Chris. You made my day Also, since we're on the subject of new modules: [nwazet has a new undisclosed module for release in early August ;-) So, definitely a busy summer... Cheers, -Fabien.

Hi Chris,

About this:

3. Reflashing using the USART pins (and ST's Flash Demo Loader application...or the reflash tool provided on Netduino).

1. Are you sure about the ST Flash Loader application? Version 2.5.0 does not support flashing the STM32F0x series. Can you please share a link to the updated tool?
2. About the 'reflash tool provided on Netduino': can you please provide a link to the RTM version of the tool? The last version I tested did not work properly with the Display Module.

Thanks,
-Fabien.