Sixth Sense Design Challenge: Technical Documents

Hi Phil,

I really appreciate you doing this. I'll ask them my fundamental questions that I am stuck on and add detail to my next blog (which is due soon).

Rod

Hello Challengers

I have been in touch with ST direct and they have recommended emailing them here:
AMS-support-EMEA@st.com

If you get stuck with this support email we can try kick it up a notch after.

Phil

14rhb
dougw

Hi Rod,

I hope you get the info you need, I don't have these boards, and don't want to push you away from the IDE you're using, but to be honest if I had to work with these boards, I'd try mbed. It will I believe be very quick to get moving with that. But I don't know if this is worth exploring for you or not, if you've already invested time using the current IDE.

The two boards are supported by mbed:

https://os.mbed.com/platforms/ST-Nucleo-F411RE/

https://os.mbed.com/teams/ST/code/HelloWorld_ST_Sensors/

Anyway if you're interested, if you've not used mbed before, there is a intro (focussed on NXP/Freescale, but the principle is the same) here:

Working with FRDM Boards and ARM mbed

The "How do the boards work", "What Runs on the Debugger Microcontroller" and the "Working with the Online Tools" sections info especially, should be identical for your ST board.

Hey Rod, I will see who I can summon!

Dear E14 Community and fellow challengers,

Something else I don't quite understand and I've been going around in circles is how to start my own project using the SensorTile. I could do one of two things:

(1) Load up an existing SensorTile project in my IDE of choice (TrueStudio), modify it and use that.

(2) Start a fresh project in my IDE.

For option (1) I can do this as shown in my example above where I added my name to prove to myself I could change the code. The difficultly I have is how do I add the UART to this existing project or any other peripherals. I've searched all the files for that project and can only find reference to UART pins at the very lowest level....no library or functions I can call. I used STM32CubeMX to create my own project using the STM32L476 (as used on the SensorTile) and activated the UART before inspecting that code. I somehow need to combine that with my existing sensortile project (and hope nothing clashes re: resource constraints).

For option (2) I thought I would need the CubeL4 (for SensorTile) and CubeF4 (for base Nucleo board). Either from the Eclipse Addin for TrueStudio, or via the separate program, I can run STM32CubeMX which is designed to make the code for either (a) a standalone MCU or (b) a vendor board. The SensorTile is not listed under the vendor boards (v5.0.1 of STM32CubeMx).

The STM32 website talks about packages such as the FP-SNS-ALLMEMS1/2 and STLKT01 as if they integrate into either STM32CubeL4/F4 or MX but I cannot get them to add in. I can load the projects in them and run them but again I have no idea how to heavily modify the functions of them.

Any pointers would be really appreciated.

e14phil This seems a bit of a stumbling point, for me at least: do you know if anyone from the STMIcroelectronics team is watching the E14 community? I recall for some roadtests the vendor has jumped straight in to assist. There seems to be a wealth of information, almost too much, and I cannot always converse what I am having trouble with.

Rod

Thanks Douglas,

I've currently programmed my SensorTile (clicked into the SensorTile Cradle Extension) with STLKT01-Datalog and it pushes out the data I need to the USB port. I need to check that it also goes to the boards pins as then I can plug it into the Nucleo board and use that for my robot....I'd leave the SensorTile running the STLKT01-Datalog software.

I modified the latter code to proove to myself I could and it now outputs the following for example:

               
TimeStamp: 19338



 Acc_X: 16, Acc_Y: -22, Acc_Z :987
 Gyro_X:-1750, Gyro_Y:-1610, Gyro_Z:560
 Magn_X:-211, Magn_Y:-90, Magn_Z:-672
 Press:996.25, Temp: 0.00, Hum: 0.0
Rodders Data Node.

               
TimeStamp: 19358



 Acc_X: 16, Acc_Y: -22, Acc_Z :987
 Gyro_X:-1680, Gyro_Y:-1680, Gyro_Z:490
 Magn_X:-210, Magn_Y:-85, Magn_Z:-678
 Press:996.26, Temp: 0.00, Hum: 0.0
Rodders Data Node.

I'll have a look for the UART example, thanks.

Rod

I hope to be digging into the software next weekend. I expect we will have to program both the Sensor Tile MCU and the Nucleo MCU, although the Sensor Tile is pretty capable by itself so you may not need the Nucleo. There may be an example on the ST web site of the Sensor Tile sending data via the UART - I think I saw a mention of it.

Hopefully someone could help me with a basic understanding on the SensorTile and associated boards. My understanding is that the small SensorTile board contains a STM32L476JG MCU along with other parts and it is this that I need to program. I can:

(1) use the SensorTile directly in a design, soldering to the side pins

(2) solder the SensorTile into the Cradle and use the 5-pin header to program it or

(3) plug the SensorTile into the Cradle Expansion board

I think when it was delivered there was some firmware already on the SensorTile as I was able to download an app called ST Blu Node and as I moved the Sensor Cradle around I could see a cube rotating about my phone screen plus many other really cool functions.....sometime later I managed to upload my own code and lost all that.....but have finally got back to that position. I'm using Atollic TrueStudio as my IDE.

Does anyone know if that cool data is also pushed out to the SensorTile Cradle pins, maybe as UART data, and therefore if I plug that into the Nucleo F4 board I could read them? Currently when I plug the SensorTile cradle into my laptop via USB it doesn't show up so there is no way of pulling that data out via PUTTY or the like. The data is obviously getting generated as I can see it in my phone app (ST BLU )

[if any of that doesn't make sense it is because I am not really sure still about the whole setup - please ask and I'll try and explain my problem more clearly.]

Rod

Yeah I already have STM32F411RE board

The SensorTile support link didn't work for me. Here is a SensorTile support link I think was intended...