RoadTest: Cypress PSoC® 6 BLE Pioneer Kit (CY8CKIT-062-BLE)
Author: gsgill112
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools
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?: It is a complete package, Though if designer needs WiFi, a WiFi Shield would be needed.
What were the biggest problems encountered?: Getting the Tools Installed.
Detailed Review:
Hi to all the community members reading,
First of all I would like to thank E14 for selecting me as a RoadTester for this Kit. Moving on..
INTRODUCTION
This Kit is a IoT Personals Dream Come True [Full Stop]. It is not just a kit for professionals to make that wonderful NextGen IoT Product but equally a kit for beginners to get started with the entire ecosystem of development. Go through the Kit review for all the info and kit Walkthrough.
KIT REVEW
E-Ink Display
One of the most amazing things about the Kit is the E-Ink display and couple of sweet sensors thrown with the E-Ink Shield that comes with the kit.
The E-Ink or ePaper Display is manufactured by Pervasive Displays part No :E2271CS021 Pervasive: E-ink 2.71 inch epaper display, which simply means that it cannot be replaced with some other vendor.
The display is a 2-Color B/W display with a resolution of 264 x 176 px and 117dpi.
Further it is a SPI based Display so it definitely can be used with Arduino*
You can se the E-Ink in action in pictures above.
To conclude this section links of data sheets and driving waveforms app note is attached
DATASHEET : 2.7" TFT EPD Panel (E2271CS021) Rev.01
WAWEFORMS : COG Driver Interface Timing for small size G2 V231
Ready Code By : REPAPER :: https://github.com/repaper/gratis
SEEED :: Small e-Paper Shield V2 - Seeed Wiki
WYOLUM :: https://github.com/wyolum/EPD
* NOTE : E-Ink display do not have any storage, so you would require to store the entire image pixel matrix in the MCU which eats up some storage space on he MCU.
ISSUES FASED
The Greatest Issue I faced was setting up the Development tools. Apparently PSoC creator 4.2 is still in beta and has new dependency.
I am using a MAC Book and a linux based desktop system and guess what you don't have a IDE for that ?? What ??
Nonetheless Cypress gives you a set of instructions to set up everything
1. Download virtual box, it's free (Virtual Box downloads Link : http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/ Latest version is 5.0.10
)
2. download PSoC Creator BETA (https://community.cypress.com/docs/DOC-14408 )
3. Get a copy of Windows OS ??
4. Install Win OS and the Creator
NOTE Do a full install, On Win 7 you may need to download Few more dependencies ??
5. After all that Some how there was some issue and the app won't start ?? W.T.F
So I repeated all steps again and finally (Thank God It Started Working
)
BATTERY ISSUES
Coming Soon
SOME IMPORTANT LINKS
Virtual Box downloads Link : http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/
I was wondering what is PDM ??
Ans : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-density_modulation
Code Examples PSoC 6 : http://www.cypress.com/psoc-6-mcu-code-examples
Although they are already included in the PSoC 4.2 Env for PSoC 6 BLE Pioneer Kit
Link to the PSoC 63 Datasheet : http://www.cypress.com/psoc-6-mcu-psoc-63-ble-datasheet-programmable-system-chip-psoc-preliminary?source=search&cat=technical_documents
PSoC 6 Pioneer Kit : http://www.cypress.com/documentation/development-kitsboards/psoc-6-ble-pioneer-kit
CONCLUSION
In Conclusion
Endeless configuration options
Programmer can be used in various modes
Revised API References are awesome
Tutorial Follow Along Video Series on YouTube
OPTIONS TO SWITCH OFF BOTH CORES OR ONE CORE OR RUN HW APPLICATION (This is simply amazing
)
PSoC 6 is on Board (Not detachable)
Thanks
GS Gill
P.S-> MORE COMMING SOON
Top Comments
So far, so good. It will be interesting to see where you go with it from here. Were you able to connect any device or sensors? Did data move easily from/to devices?
I will be waiting to hear more about…
Nice introduction video, look forward to reading the updates you produce.
Kind regards