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Blog Review of the Freedom KL25z Board
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  • Author Author: Former Member
  • Date Created: 26 Jul 2013 5:25 AM Date Created
  • Views 2148 views
  • Likes 2 likes
  • Comments 14 comments
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  • frdm_kl25z

Review of the Freedom KL25z Board

Former Member
Former Member
26 Jul 2013

image

 

At first glance, this board seems a little complex, to say the least: it has two USB ports, a million pads to solder headers on, a touch slider, an accelerometer and a large TQFP-80 ARM microcontroller. This is different to what most people coming from an Arduino background will be familiar with (a board that has just enough to program and run the microcontroller, no more). However, this is a 32-bit ARM we are talking about, a significant step up from the 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. Still, Freescale has really thought of everything when designing this board - the little things like the rubber standoffs and space to solder a coin cell holder allow this board to be used anywhere and everywhere. Plus, the beautiful black soldermask with ENIG plating makes this something you'd want to have hanging up somewhere in your house, on a project you can show off!

 

The board came with one of those mini CDs, which I promptly disregarded; it's completely unnecessary. Instead, I went over to the Freescale product page for the board, and was presented with a huge wall of text, much of which was a string of letters and numbers. Heading to the training/support tab, I found a training video I thought I'd try. However, this required the use of the CodeWarrior IDE. This was the low point of my experience; in order to download a trial version of the software, I had to create a full account with Freescale (giving out all sorts of details such as what the end product is), only to be presented with a message saying that my request will be processed, instead of a download link. Forget it!

 

Unable to bear the information overload on the Freescale site, I went to the element14 product pageelement14 product page, and found a really useful mbed quick start guide. It's dead easy to set up - as easy as getting an Arduino up and running. All you have to do is:

 

  1. Plug in the board using the SDA USB port with the reset button held (it'll appear as a usb storage device)
  2. Go to the mbed website and download a bootloader
  3. Place the bootloader in the root folder of the board
  4. Restart the board

 

Then, you create an account with MBED, and you can compile! You can also import demo programs with just a couple of clicks, and when you hit compile, you get a .bin file, which you place in the root folder of the board (which is now titled MBED), and voilà - your program will run! And MBED has a much more comprehensive list of demo programs than what I found on the Freescale website. The beauty of using an online compiler is that you can get up and running on any machine with an internet connection, and still have all your previous programs and projects, thanks to the miracle of cloud storage!

 

Now, the cherry on top of the board is its price. It costs roughly $15, as much as a meal at a café! I would definitely recommend this board to anybody wanting to go further with their embedded electronics projects. Perhaps this isn't the product of choice for people new to electronics and programming, but hey, that's what Arduino is for. A suggestion to element14 however: ship these boards with the headers as well, as you can then solder them on and get started quickly, instead of waiting around for another order to come in!

 

More high-resolution images and example code here:

http://zapterra.com/systems/2013/07/26/testing-the-freedom-board/

 

*UPDATE*

I've had some more time to play around with this board using mbed (still no reply from Freescale regarding the CodeWarrior IDE), and I can say this board is nothing short of amazing. Being new to ARM in general, I was afraid of a steep learning curve, but the documentation on mbed.org regarding this board is great. There are explained examples on using various parts of the board such as the touch slider, and since the whole platform is online, importing libraries and examples is really simple. Just be warned that if you don't have much background in C/C++ or microcontroller programming in general, then you will likely get a few headaches before you get any interesting code of your own running. That being said, the libraries and mbed framework in general is extremely well designed and not hard to work with at all.

 

*UPDATE 2*

Well, Freescale has replied to me directly in the comments, and even posted direct download links to the codewarrior IDE. Shows great customer care and support; better late than never!

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Top Comments

  • mcb1
    mcb1 over 11 years ago in reply to mcb1 +3
    Update that WILL be of interest. I ordered another KL25Z (Australia/NZ) and was surprised that it was packaged in its own bag. Included are the Header and Jumpers to fit to the board. Part Numbers 2215580…
  • mcb1
    mcb1 over 11 years ago +1
    Rahul Nice review I would agree with your comment about headers. The very least is the ability to add them to the order. Mark
  • Former Member
    Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to mcb1 +1
    Thanks! Yeah, I don't thing there's anybody out there who wouldn't add the headers to their order, as it really does save time and effort.
  • Former Member
    Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to FreescaleTools_and_Software

    Just saw this, thanks for the reply! It's nice to see a direct response from Freescale here.

     

    I can see why it's shipped without the headers from the factory, I'm sure adding the process of soldering through-hole components will drive up the cost of the board a fair bit. Not a problem since e14 gives an option to ship them as a package though.

     

    Regarding an IDE, I've actually settled in quite nicely to mbed image and I'm not really bothered about the lack of debugging so I'll stick with it. I'll try out codewarrior anyway though.

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  • FreescaleTools_and_Software
    FreescaleTools_and_Software over 11 years ago

    Hello Rahul

     

    First of all, thank you for your nice review from our FRDM-KL25Z board, it is nice to read that you appreciate our solution image

    I agree with you, MBed is a great evaluation tool, very confortable with its online format and ease of use with its existing libraries.

     

    Unfortunately, MBed doesn't offer (yet) debug features so you will have to choose a classical IDE toolchain.

    I recommend you Coocox, a free offline toolchain in the same community spirit than MBed or Aduino IDE.

    Else you can choose either an ARM toolchain from Keil (MDK-ARM) or IAR (EWARM) or our home-made solution Codewarrior.

     

    Concerning your issue to download Codewarrior 10.4, please try following links to start the download directly :

     

    Special Edition means that the IDE toolchain will not time limited but code compiled limited (64KB Kinetis-L or E, 128KB Kinetis-K ...)

    Online version means you will have to download a lighter installation package (650Mb) and you will have to download next the target package(s) (Kinetis, S12 ...)

    Offline version means you will have to download a full installation package (1.2Gb) including all Freescale MCU targets

     

    Special Edition: CodeWarrior for Microcontrollers 10.4 (Eclipse, Online)

    Special Edition: CodeWarrior for Microcontrollers 10.4 (Eclipse, Offline)

     

    About the headers, Freescale decided to remove them in order to reduce the board cost and make it accessible to the majority of the users.

    Fortunately, Farnell/Element14 has launched a new bundle FRDM-KL25Z BASIC BUNDLEFRDM-KL25Z BASIC BUNDLE including all the headers and an USB cable for less than 1£ more compare to the FRDM-KL25Z

     

    If you already received your FRDM-KL25Z and you want to acquire the headers, please find below their references and quantities:

     

    With Gold contacts

    1x Molex 15445812 = Samtec SSW-106-01-G-D

    2x Molex 15445816 = Samtec SSW-108-01-G-D

    1x Molex 15445120 = Samtec SSW-110-01-G-D

    2x Molex 22284023 = Samtec TSW-102-07-G-S

    or

    With Tin contacts

    1x Molex 15446812 = Samtec SSW-106-01-T-D

    2x Molex 15446816 = Samtec SSW-108-01-T-D

    1x Molex 15446820 = Samtec SSW-110-01-T-D

    2x Molex 0022284020 = Samtec TSW-102-07-T-S

     

    Don't hesitate to contact me if you need further informations

    Best regards

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  • Kuya.Marc
    Kuya.Marc over 11 years ago

    Greetings from Pasig City, Philippines!

     

    I have the FRDM-KL25Z board and have programmed it using GNU Tools for ARM Embedded in Linux CLI (command-line interface). I also program it using mbed.org online compiler. My latest project for this board is Speech Synthesis using SpeakJet, compiled using mbed.org online compiler.

     

    Very nice board! I'm hoping to build a SpeakJet shield very soon.

     

    Have a Nice Day!

     

    Marcos

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  • tech_kid
    tech_kid over 11 years ago

    Nice review Rahul.

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  • mcb1
    mcb1 over 11 years ago in reply to mcb1

    Update that WILL be of interest.

     

    I ordered another KL25Z (Australia/NZ) and was surprised that it was packaged in its own bag.

    Included are the Header and Jumpers to fit to the board.

     

    Part Numbers

                         2215580  6x2

                         2215581  8x2 (2 pieces)

                         2215582  10x2

                         2147192   2x1 header

     

    Interestingly these don't show if you search for them, but the code on the packet for the KL25z (2115294) translates to 2191861

     

    Also the CooCox Mini CD is NOT included.

     

    So thumbs up to E14 for listening and supplying. image

    Mark

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