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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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Trying out the samples

ntewinkel

This is really neat!

 

The samples are really well done and compile easily, and that makes me happy! image

 

I followed the user manual that came with the add-on boards: "DM-STF4BB User Manual".

 

The first thing I did was to hook up the display. That was very easy. The display comes with the ribbon cable and just plugs straight onto the base board.

The only thing to keep in mind is that the docs don't mention how to hook up the cable. From my way-back days I remembered red=pin1, and the connectors on both boards are marked with a little triangle - just make sure the red line is closest to the triangles on both sides.

 

I haven't tried the touch part yet, but this is a picture of it running the display demo:

image

That went so well I thought I'd try the camera next!

I hooked up the little thin cable that comes with it, making sure that the triangles match up as before.

But oh no! what's this??

image

Turns out that I had the connector cable upside-down. The shiny bits of the connecting ends need to be towards the board. That's something the docs could use a tweak on too, methinks. Maybe a picture. I like pictures image

So this is the wrong way:

image

The other thing that was unclear was that the docs said to make sure JP1 and JP2 are not fitted. They meant JP1 and JP2 on the base board, not on the main STM32F4 board... oops.

 

And here is the camera working! The display shows what the camera sees image

image

Apparently it's supposed to take a picture and store it to the SD card when the blue button is pressed, but for me it seemed to hang. I'm not sure if that's because it's slow to write to the card, or if my Lexar card is not compatible. I'll have to run some SD card samples some time soon.

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  • in reply to jealderson1

    Thanks Joe,

     

    Once I got through the tools install part the rest went very smoothly.

    I really think the biggest hurdle was because I'm on a Mac - on a straight Windows machine that would have likely been super quick.

    As far as I know, Arduino is the only one that runs on Mac (and I agree it's very limited in what it can do -tuned for hobby) - all the other dev boards seem to also need Windows.

    I think once I upgrade to a newer Macbook I might turn this one into my Windows machine dedicated to this sort of stuff image

     

    Keep in mind that I'm approaching this from a purely hobbyist perspective, so I may not be the usual audience. (I'm a software developer by day, tinkerer by night)