Review of STMicroelectronics STM32F0DISCOVERY for STM32F0 Cortex M0 MCU

Table of contents

RoadTest: STMicroelectronics STM32F0DISCOVERY for STM32F0 Cortex M0 MCU

Author: evan.stoddard

Creation date:

Evaluation Type: Evaluation Boards

Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True

What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: Arduino

What were the biggest problems encountered?:

Detailed Review:

So I just recieved my product in the mail.  (Pictures soon to come)

It came in some somewhat cheap packaging and now protection against electrostatic.  Very little documentation except for a piece of cardboard that said go to st.com/stm32f0discovery.

 

 

 

There wasn't a great deal of demo software and no IDE specific to their product.  They did offer a patch for some ide's specifically for arm processors so I wasn't totally left in the dark.  The demo software I would say left something to be desired.  There wasn't a great deal of it first off.  Second, the demo's weren't very interesting.  If you were to take a look at the IDE for the arduino there are built in examples that can be easily used in other projects and the examples themselves teach how to program very well.

 

 

 

 

My third area of complaint is how to program the device.  Now I'm kind of new to working with microcontrollers.  Although, I have done a fair amount of work with arduinos and love them.  They are easy to program, the code is easy to understand, and there are built in libraries to use.  The libraries are hard to find for this and the code is actually quite complex.  I am looking at cheap microcontrollers such as these for education purposes.  I'm 15 and in high school and some of the teachers have asked me to look for devices that would be great to use in labs to help teach.  This I don't find very easy to teach with because of the hard language.  If you told a student to download the IDE for arduino and look at some of the examples, I guarentee you that the student will get a better understanding and learn faster as well as be more engaged.  With this product the student has to download some demo software for the ide and patch it.  Then they have to find the demo software (which is hard to find), and then try to figure out the demo code.

 

 

 

 

The board itself is very well built.  It doesn't feel like a cheap device.  It seems like it will last a long time.  The arm processor doesn't heat up a great deal which is nice.  There is a decent amount of memory and it's speed is acceptable and it's $8.  It's nice that there is a user button and two user leds.  There is one thing that I would change, and that is to have terminals instead of pins.  If your not sure what I mean then look at the picture below of the arduino.

http://arduino.cc/en/uploads/Main/ArduinoDiecimilaComponents.jpg

 

 

The arduino has terminal ports (sorry if im not using the correct term).  I like those because sheilds and quick prototyping is easy to do.  Plus there is less soldiering which is great for education and it's easy to reuse for multiple projects.

 

 

 

 

My final fit about the device is that it's software is only available for windows.  Now, I'm a mac guy and I'm not saying that the world should change, but it would be nice to see it run on more than one platform.  Even if it's only for windows and linux.  I'm just made because I had to use up hard drive space on my mac for windows image.

 

 

I'm not trying to say that this is a terrible device.  There are somethings I like about it.  For 8 dollars it is a pretty powerful device and there is a great deal of stuff you can do with it.  I'm currently looking at devices that would go great for teaching electronics or engineering and I think for an entry level class or a high school class this just isn't it for education.

 

 

I hope you find my review helpful.  Again, I don't have a great deal of knowledge on programming microcontrollers.  I just got into the scene so please keep any comments friendly and make suggestions respectfully.  I treat many of you with respect so please do the same.  Sorry if there are any spelling or grammar errors.  There was a lot to say but not a lot of time to say it.  Again, I hope what I have said will help.

 

 

 

 

God Bless

Anonymous