Controlling GPIOs on a BLE module

15 Jan 2015

ACKme BLE modules control peripheral devices via GPIOs (General Purpose Input Output devices). GPIO commands and variables enable access to GPIOs, to control and monitor analog functions such as analog-digital converters (ADCs) and PWMs (Pulse Width Modulators). In the case of the ACKme Wahoo evaluation board, peripherals include the tri-color LED, the speaker, user buttons and the thermistor ADC.

Features Demonstrated

GPIO commands and variables:
get gp u - List GPIO usage, direction and initialization.
- gfu - Configure GPIO function
- gdi - Set GPIO direction, for a GPIO functioning as stdio (Standard Input/Output)
- gge - Get GPIO value, for a GPIO functioning as stdio
- gse - Set GPIO value, for a GPIO functioning as stdio
Controlling LEDs
Controlling a speaker

For more on controlling peripherals, see Peripherals.

GPIO Functions and Pins

See Peripherals, GPIO Functions, Defaults and Pins table for the functions and defaults of the Bobcat and Wahoo GPIOs.

Viewing GPIO Usage

To see the current GPIO usage, read the GPIO usage variable. The default Wahoo GPIO usage is:

> get gp u

! # Description

# 0 i2c_sda

# 1 i2c_scl

# 2 user_tx

# 3 none

# 4 none

# 5 user_rx

# 6 none,factory

# 7 reserved

# 8 none

# 9 mode_sel

# 10 status_led

# 11 none

# 12 none

# 13 speaker

# 14 stream_gpio

PWMs

Speakers and LEDs can be controlled with a PWM (Pulse Width Modulator) output. The pwm command provides control of the frequency and duty cycle of a PWM output. PWMs are associated with specific GPIOs.

To use a GPIO as a PWM, any existing function on the GPIO must be de-assigned, with the command gfu <GPIO> none. The the GPIO is set to the pwm function with the command gfu <GPIO> pwm. Then the pwm command assigns the frequency and duty cycle.

LEDs

The example below uses the Wahoo tri-color user LED. This contains a red, green and blue LED, which can be combined to form a wide range of colors:

Wahoo GPIO	LED Color
14	Red
10	Green
11	Blue

These same GPIOs are associated with the Wahoo system indicator LEDs, if fitted.

The LEDs can be turned on or off individually by configuring them as output GPIOs, then setting the GPIO level. Note: GPIO 10 (green LED) defaults to the status_led function on Wahoo. It must be de-assigned to none before it can be used for another purpose.

To setup the tri-color LEDs:

TruConnect commands	Comments
gfu 10 none gfu 11 none gfu 14 none gfu 10 stdio gfu 11 stdio gfu 14 stdio gdi 10 olo gdi 11 olo gdi 14 olo	Free up GPIO 10 Free up GPIO 11 Free up GPIO 14 Assign GPIO 10 to stdio function Assign GPIO 11 to stdio function Assign GPIO 14 to stdio function Set red, green and blue GPIOs to output, initial level low

TruConnect commands

Comments

gfu 10 none

gfu 11 none

gfu 14 none

gfu 10 stdio

gfu 11 stdio

gfu 14 stdio

gdi 10 olo

gdi 11 olo

gdi 14 olo

Free up GPIO 10

Free up GPIO 11

Free up GPIO 14

Assign GPIO 10 to stdio function

Assign GPIO 11 to stdio function

Assign GPIO 14 to stdio function

Set red, green and blue GPIOs to output,

initial level low

Now you can turn on separate red, green and blue leds by setting GPIO values with the gse command. For example:

TruConnect commands	Comments
gse 10 0 gse 11 0 gse 14 1	Turn green off Turn blue off Turn red on

To set the Wahoo tri-colour LED to a color combining the three LEDs, issue three pwm commands, one for each LED GPIO.

First set each of the LED GPIOs to pwm function with the gfu command:

gfu 10 none

gfu 11 none

gfu 14 none

gfu 10 pwm

gfu 11 pwm

gfu 14 pwm

The ratio of low_count and high_count arguments determines the duty cycle of the PWM, as described in the pwm command documentation. The duty cycle impacts the brightness of the LED, lower duty cycles provide make the LED brighter. The lowest available PWM frequency, about 128Hz, may be used without any detectable flashing of the LED.

For example, to set the named color 'RebeccaPurple':

pwm 14 614 409

pwm 10 818 205

pwm 11 409 614

The Color PWM Table shows the pwm commands for a sample color range.

Speaker

A speaker connected to a GPIO can be controlled with the PWM command or using the beep command.

The Wahoo speaker tone is controlled via GPIO 13 and a PWM. The pwm command documentation describes how to set the frequency and duty cycle of the PWM.

To set the pwm function on GPIO 13:

gfu 13 none

gfu 13 pwm

To play a middle C (C4), the command is:

pwm 13 250 250

To turn the note off:

pwm 13 stop

See the Musical Note PWM Table for pwm commands to play a range of notes on the speaker.

The beep command plays a tone of specified length through a speaker. To use this command, the GPIO wired to the speaker must be set to speaker function with the gfu command.

The following example shows how to set up the Wahoo speaker on GPIO 13 to allow the beep command, assuming GPIO 13 is currently set to another function:

> gfu 13 none
Success
> gfu 13 speaker
Success
> save
Success
> reboot
[COMMAND MODE]
> beep 100
Success

ndutton