Mihai - BMD

Context switching in SMP RealTime OS

Moving away from the single core STM32F4 brought me to the RP2040 - a dual core M0+ created by Raspberry Pi Foundation. I find the documentation for the chip itself quite good and the actual softwer support quite extensive covering the entire range of

Microcontrollers

STM32 - Cortex M4 - #5 i2c+dma

When communication with other devices (usually slower ones) the DMA offers the advantage of relieving the microcontroller from the cumbersome task of controlling the peripherals, copying bytes or waiting for communication events. Here I have a classical example where I want to use the

STM32 - Cortex M4 - #4 lcd display

A visual feedback is necessary for every project! The LCD display is one of the most basic method to achieve this an by far the simplest.

Another fancy clock

A simple clock design build from scrach using Kicad, a 3d printed housing and controlled by the ATmega328P processor.

Microcontrollers

Rotary encoder for STM32

A rotary encoder is one of the easiest way to get simple users interaction with the microcontroller. I would like to include this into one of my future projects and because of this I made a simple library based on RTOS events and interrupts.

Projects

ST-Link Bridge - I2C EEPROM

A small application to read and write eeproms (e.g. AT24C04) using the ST-Link Bridge functionality. This is quite useful for projects using additional eeprom memory that needs to be checked out.

Up the Pfänder

The Pfänder is the hill that overlooks upon Lindau at the eastern shore of the Constance Lake. Compared with the tall standing mountains behind is not that impressive, but at over 1000 m is still a small challenge to climb with my bicycle.

3D Prints

Drawing the plans

I have made some updates to my 3d printer and from the parts that remained I though I could make a very simple project. Browsing through the internet I did

Checking up on my CPU

I got to revisit my AMD Threadripper CPU in order to clean up the cooler and refresh the thermal paste. Even today I'm impressed of the amazing achievement that AMD

Microcontrollers

STM32 - Cortex M4 - #3 adc

The ADC allows a the application to read analog voltages using a single ADC from a maximum of 16 external sources with maximum 12 bit resolution. Clock (digital part) Getting

Microcontrollers

STM32 - Cortex M4 - #2 oled

Since some time now I have a couple of very old OLED displays - 128x128 pixels. These are driven by the ssd1339 chip for which I found the datasheet online.

Microcontrollers

STM32 - Cortex M4 - #1 blink

Since the Cortex M4 offers some clear advantages and improvements over the M3 I started working on this as a side project. The goal is to make this a feasible

Microcontrollers

STM32 evaluation & development

STM32 is a uC family developed by STMicroelectronics based on the 32-bit ARM architecture. Overall a very interesting platform for embedded development with multiple choices regarding features and power. The

Google Ads.... a magnet for scams

Lately a lot of ghost shops, dubious vendors and fake adds show up in google search or youtube videos. The chances are that if this is not an add from a reputable firm like Amazon or Apple it is a scam. This is because

Projects

A repeating signal... DCF77

After some discussions with the colleagues I was intrigued about how the DCF77 Signal is encoded and how hard it would be to practically decode this. So as any other

Microcontrollers

ATtiny85 - a tiny chip from...Microchip

ATtiny85 is a small form factor microcontroller from Microchip (originally developed by ATMEL). It has 8k of flash and 512 bytes of RAM, 6 I/O pins with various functionality. Due to its small form factor is ideal for small projects and learning. The

New Workbench...

By the time I finished work on my house I was left with some left over wood from various scaffolds and wood flouring. A couple of old Ikea kitchen drawers also were at hand. Making this new workbench was a little nice project where

Manjaro Linux - my new desktop environment

After reading a few reviews and opinions I wanted to switch my main desktop environment to the Manjaro distribution. Basically it is a dual boot system with windows for the

Projects

ESP32 Cooler Controller #2

HW is build, tested and working... it's time to plan, design and build the application SW. From my initial HW tests I think the majority of the components are pretty

Volleyball course inauguration

Summer has arrived and vacation is near... a good time to inaugurate the freshly build volleyball course 😊

ESP32 development environment

Working with the esp32 looks at first challenging but with a little bit of research and experience I realized that is actually quite well documented and supported ecosystem. With very little money one can really get started with this very interesting platform. Hardware There

Microcontrollers

Debugging Arduino Due

Using FT4232HL chip as a JTAG + OpenOCD and GDB to debug the arduino due.

ESP32 WROVER Kit JTAG Fix

Error: JTAG scan chain interrogation failed: all ones

Microcontrollers

FreeRTOS on Arduino Due

Recently I got the chance to program the Arduino Due. This is powered by a 32 bit microcontroller from Atmel, the AT91SAM3X8E and runs at 84 MHz. The main goal

Living at the Lake

Mountains, water and nature.