Found another STM32 Arduino Core

I found on GitHub another STM32 Arduino core. It is only for STM32F103, focused on a specific board.
The GitHub repository is here
https://github.com/MakerLabMe/STM32_Arduino_Cores
it started about a year ago.
The web page, in chinese, is here
http://www.makerlab.me/guides/2/articles
This core has only two libraries: SPI and Wire.

The boards have the same form factor of Arduino UNO and Mega, the pins are the same so they can use the same shields. Anyway most of Arduino shields works at 5V and i believe that are incompatible.
These board have two USB. One is the native USB, the other has an USB-Serial chip and is used to load the sketch.
It seems that they started a USB bootloader but it doesn’t work.

Se this “closed” issue from December 2014 by roger there:
https://github.com/MakerLabMe/STM32_Ard … s/issues/5
We know this branch, but found out, that it’s far in the past and there are no improvements we could use.

I agree, posted here just for knowing that.

There is a page on the wiki on GitHub which lists the other cores etc

There is one other active project, but it only supports the F3 board.
Its a good project with clean code, not based in libmaple

but AFIK very few active users.

To be fair, i think this library is pimarily there to get this modified version Marlin 3D-Printer Firmware running on STM32F103XX, not to give full Arduino IDE compatibility. Even though i says on the Marlin_STM32 page that the firmware is not working, i asked the guy (Andy Sze) and he told me, that it is indeed working (showed me this video), so i think there is no need for him to continue development. He isn’t very talkative, didn’t answer my second email, so i’m not sure where his project is headed.

However, i need the Marlin firmware for a 3D-Printer that works with a STM32F4. Do you think your library for F4 (if ever finished) would work with the Marlin_STM32 firmware?

I’m not sure about Marlin does it have any special requirements.

Isn’t the f103 fast enough for Marlin, I think Rick is looking at porting Marlin to F103
After all its around 5 times faster than the mega2560

But if course if you need FPU then the f3 or 4 is understandable

AlexanderL wrote:However, i need the Marlin firmware for a 3D-Printer that works with a STM32F4. Do you think your library for F4 (if ever finished) would work with the Marlin_STM32 firmware?

At a basic level.the Maple mini has all the features you listed, but it depends on how many IOs etc you need and if you need a lot of ram

At the.moment no one seems to manufacture the more powerful Maple RET6
But there are F103RCT and F103VET boards generics

RogerClark wrote:At a basic level.the Maple mini has all the features you listed, but it depends on how many IOs etc you need and if you need a lot of ram

At the.moment no one seems to manufacture the more powerful Maple RET6
But there are F103RCT and F103VET boards generics

Hi Bob

Thats interesting, I’m sure @sky on this forum told me he’d built his own Maple RET 6, but I’m not sure which design files he was using,

He definately submitted a variant folder / files to me, which I added to the repo, but I can’t test as the closest hardware I have is an iTeadMaple (which seems to a derivation of the Maple Rev 3 (F103RB) – and I also have a generic STM32F103RC (closer in terms of the uProcessor)

I keep meaning to get around to adding the Maple USB DISC hardware to my generic boards, I bought some P Channel FET’s which is what iTead Studio use in place of the 2 x NPN transitors on the Maple mini and maple Rev 3 (I’ve not looked at the RET 6), but I never seem to have time, as I’m constantly firefighting at the moment ;-(

I will PM @sky and ask him what hardware he built.

Ok, I see what Leaflabs did, the RET6 is simply the r5 board with an F103RE CPU on it. The errata mostly relate to extra functionality which is not well mapped to pins. So if you just want bigger memory it’s fine, if you want extra SPI, UART or SDIO you’re out of luck.

I’ve put together the kicad schematics, and will put them onto github, but there is no PCB layout. That is still in Eagle only.

I think it’s worth respinning the board, if you don’t mind having an extra variant We could approach someone like itead or seeedstudio to see if they are wiling to take it up.

I can’t see a significant difference between r3 to r5 apart from changes to a connector. (There was no r4!). The itead and Olimex Maple clones I have both follow the r5 connector layout.

Thanks Bob

@strawberrymaker is also rolling his own board. Details are in a thread called Community Board. (Well something like Community board)

I’ve not had time to keep up to date with the thread or what uP variant they intend to use.