Table of contents

RoadTest: Freescale Freedom FRDM-K64F Development Platform

Author: sunnyiut

Creation date: 10 Mar 2015

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?: null

What were the biggest problems encountered?: Though its an IOT kit, A DVD with software bundle and manual may ease the process of developing with the Freedom K64 board.

Detailed Review:

IOT

This part of the review will be covering only the onboard program for uploading the data into IBMcloud. The rest of the review on the project that was planned using the Freedom K64 development board will be submitted soon.

Intro

A big thanks to Dr. Christian DeFeo for his support with this Roadtest. It took a long time to get the boards on hand. But on return I got a full ARM mbed IOT starter kit from IBM and Freescale, which is amazing. However, the IOT part was not listed in the roadtest, but I think its my duty to right a few words about my experience with this smart development kit. So, here is the first part - a brief review on the IOT kit and IBM cloud.

Whats in the BOX!!

Inside the box the two boards are neatly placed with the quick starting guide and USB cable beneath

Freedom FRDM-K64F

Powered with : MK64FN1M0VLL12 MCU

USB connectivity : crystal less dual role USB interface

Onboard Ethernet port

Onboard MicroSD card slot

6 axis FXOS8700CQ accelerometer and magnetometer

Kinetis SDK support

ARM® mbed™ IoT Starter Kit

ARM microcontroller enabled to connect to the IBM Internet of Things Foundation directly. The firmware provides visualizing the data acquired from the sensors in real time.

Sensors:

• Temperature Sensor (LM75B)
• Accelerometer (MMA7660)

Other Components:

• Potentiometer
• Joystick
• LCD display
• Buzzer

Powering UP IOT kit

• The IOT extension plugs onto the FRDM K64 board firmly.
• Connecting the USB cable directly powers up the FRDM board
• An Ethernet cable is required to establish the communication with the IBM cloud
• The internal firmware acts as the bridge in between the PC and the Cloud. The kit appears as a drive containing IBM.HTM file in the mbed disk.
• Opening this IBM.HTM file triggers the data uploading and the status from the sensors and other components can be visualized on the site.

Acceleration X-axis:

Acceleration Y-axis:

Acceleration Z-axis:

Joystick movements in different directions:

Variation in Potentiometer 01:

Variation in Potentiometer 02:

Change of temperature by touching the top of the sensor by the tip of the hand:

Registration

The registration process of the IBM Internet of Things Foundation was a little bit confusing for me.

After signing up I got a 30 day trial to Bluemix and the Marketplace.

Bluemix:

Marketplace:

In bluemix, under the Organization ID there should be an Internet of Things menu or Icon according to an online tutorial, but for me, I got some of the options showing 'disabled'. I was not so sure about it. However, I was planning on working out these stuffs little bit more, but could not manage enough time to get back into it and two days back got a notification that the 30 days trial is over . However, the sensor data can be visualized any time through the cloud.

So, this is the short review of the IOT kit and hopefully I'll be back soon with the FRDM development board and my submitted project plan.