Chipkit Pi

I am running just as user "pi" launching from the following Desktop file called MPIDE.desktop

[Desktop Entry]

Name=MPIDE

Comment=ChipKitPi Integrated Development Environment

Exec=/home/pi/mpide-0023-raspberrypi-20130920/mpide

Icon=/usr/share/indiecity/pistore/clienticon.xpm

Terminal=false

MultipleArgs=false

Type=Application

Categories=Application;Other;

StartupNotify=true

MimeType=x-scheme-handler/indiecity;

Please note the newer IDE I found on the website you just listed

mpide-0023-raspberrypi-20130920

this one has the correct avrdude configuration file for the PIC32 chip used, you still need to put in your startup link to the serial library. Obviously it is Year-Month-Day format.

I used the "blink without delay demo" but with the following tweak as pin-13 seems to have no LED on it, which is different to Arduino

// constants won't change. Used here to

// set pin numbers:

const int ledPin =  14;      // the number of the LED-1 pin

//const int ledPin =  15;      // the number of the LED-2 pin

I am using a fresh install on a RPI 512 V2 with the new Raspbian Image with a 16GB flash card.

The demo now uploads and works as advertised!       

I would upload a text file of the compiler output I gleaned from a terminal launch but I cannot see how to do it.

Now to find out how to make a suitable "shield" for my CNC activities.....

Hi David again

Am making some progress - found a blog with useful info, having Googled for parts of that error message:

http://colinharrington.net/blog/tag/microcontroller/

So following his advice, I changed the permissions on the pic32 folder.

Now the sketch compiles but then falls over at the size determining phase - java-io.IOException: Cannot run program "avr-size" error=2, No such file or directory0. This error also appears in the java debugging terminal window.

I have searched the Pi for avr-size, and it doesn't exist.

This post seems to have the answer to this:

http://www.chipkit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=90

Installed gcc-avr package (sudo apt-get install gcc-avr) - another 43.6MB of damn disc space used - annoying, because I like PICs and have steered away from AVR micros, so I didnt expect to have to download their library as well.

I selected the chipKIT UNO32 - not sure if that is right - doesnt seem to be a definiton for the Pi one.

Yippeee - that worked. Its very slow, though, to compile such a short program - mind you the size is pretty big as well - binary sketch size 5980 bytes.

Then I tried uploading the binary after putting the kit into load mode - no error, and some minute or so later it said it had Done uploading.

However resetting doesnt show a blinking LED - maybe have to study the circuit to see if the sketch is correct.

Getting there slowly and painfully.

Tony

Hi David

I hope we havn't scared Ankur away - he doesn't seem to be putting his head over the parapet right now ;-)

Thanks for the other image file name. I had a job finding it, but eventually found it in a collection of XML structures on:

http://chipkit.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

I downloaded and unarchived on my Pi. I added that export link to the mpide script, and all ran nicely from a debug window as before.

However, when I try and compile the Blink script I get exactly the same error - no errors in the debug window from java, but the following on the Blink | Mpide window:

Cannot run program "/home/pi/mpide-mpide-0023-raspberrypi-20130817-test/hardware/pic32-tools/bin/pic32-g++":error=13, Permission denied

So I am not getting as far as you. Presumably there is something wrong in my java permissions. Unfortunately, I am no expert, so debugging tends to be done by determined Googling! Let me now if you have done something else to make it work as far as you have got.

Tony

Tony, I had more success with

mpide-0023-raspberrypi-20130817-test.tgz

unpacked into a local folder in the pi directory of the flash card, a later version methinks.

This compiled OK once MPIDE decided on the serial port, was trying for ttyS1 instead of ttyS0 even though I followed Ankur's Getting Started Guide.

When I tried to upload a compiled sketch ( blink demo ) I got the following error....

Binary sketch size: 5632 bytes (of a 122880 byte maximum)

avrdude: AVR Part "32MX250F128B" not found.

I thank you for your idea of exporting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/lib/jni idea, in the MPIDE start file, it worked well.

So now I need to know from Ankur what version of avrdude he is using, the current Raspbian one is version 5.11.1-1, or is there some configuration file that needs fiddling?

Close to working but not quite there.

Hi Ankur

Progress....

Managed to download the mpide-0023-linux-20120903, onto my Pi which had java for armhf already installed. Also had to install librxtx-java.

Also had to add a path in the mpide bash script in order to find rxtxserial:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/lib/jni

Then it sort of works when I type ./mpide from the mpide.... directory.

Can load and edit the sample sketches etc, but cannot compile due to a permission denied error.

Running mpide with sudo doesnt seem to be an option because it then cant find java.

Help gratefully received

Tony

Hi Ankur

In addition, I found a problem with the NOOBS image - its too big for my 4GB card - writing from my Mac, I get this error:

dd: /dev/rdisk1: short write on character device

dd: /dev/rdisk1: Input/output error

3782+0 records in

3781+1 records out

3965190144 bytes transferred in 467.537095 secs (8481017 bytes/sec)

Then trying to boot this image on the Pi, we get a Kernel panic because the 'block count 644608  exceeds size of device (642432)'

and unknown block (179,6)

So it woud be good if you made it a slightly smaller image to fit on all SD cards (mine is a SanDisk Ultra 4GB 200X SDHC card).

Doing a repair on the Pi by holding the shift key down while booting gets the image repaired, but without the ChipKIT installation, so quite pointless!

regards

Tony Abbey

Hi David,

If you dont want to download 2GB NOOBS image, you can still have the MPIDE on RPi from the below link:

MPIDE:

https://github.com/chipKIT32/chipKIT32-MAX/downloads

Installation Steps:

http://chipkit.net/started/install-chipkit-software/install-mpide-linux/

Regards

Ankur Tomar

Thank you Ankur, pretty much all I was after.

I was thinking of just updating my Raspbian and using the Java Linux version of MPIDE that works on my x86 PC but transferred to the Pi.

Is there anyway of getting the C compiler which is a set of binaries compiled for the Pi ARM V6 cpu without having to download that 2GB NOOBS image?

Is it in the Raspbian Repositry as a deb package?

A link to a website repositry would do but just the compiler package as a gz file added to this website would be better.....

OK, purchased two boards.

Now need to know what I/O it has got and how to program it.

Downloaded MPIDE for my Linux X86 Computer and it runs fine.

For use on the Pi I suppose a different compiler binary is needed?

Could do with a circuit diagram and some sort of user Manual !!

What shields work with it when installed on a Pi, do you have any in stock?

Where do I get the Manual for the Microchip Pic32 used on the board?