Value Line Discovery Board

Phisatho Fri Oct 28, 2016 2:22 pm

Where can I get the support files for STM32VLDISCOVERY board?
http://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/s … overy.html
This board has a STM32F100 chip running at 24MHz with a built-in ST-Link (The ST-Link itself is a STM32F103).

I could not find any pointers from the net.

Replies

RogerClark Fri Oct 28, 2016 7:58 pm

What do you mean by “Support files”

Do you mean use the Arduino IDE with this board, if so then we do not have any existing code that would work with this board.

It uses a processor which is similar to the F103 but I suspect it has less timers etc, and it also runs at a much lower clock speed.

You would either need to make your own “variant” files using the libmaple repo, or use the STM32CubeMx to generate your own “variant” for the official STM Aruino core

Phisatho Sat Oct 29, 2016 5:47 am

Both routes are beyond my capabilities.
Looks like I will have to put the back in its place in the box.
In any case, the board’s form factor makes it unsuitable for any project. My plan was to use it for testing code.

I was a bit elated when I saw this document:
http://air.imag.fr/mediawiki/images/7/7 … GU-GUO.pdf
which shows a discovery board listed in Arduino. Now I realise that it is F0 Discovery.

Pito Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:16 am

FYI- my VL disco boards ran overclocked at 48MHz stable (one even 56MHz). At that speed they over-perform the F103 at 72MHz (as the VL have 0 flash waitstates, F103 has got 3 ws)

stevestrong Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:56 am

Pito wrote: the VL have 0 flash waitstates, F103 has got 3 ws

RogerClark Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:02 am

Phisatho wrote:Both routes are beyond my capabilities.
Looks like I will have to put the back in its place in the box.
In any case, the board’s form factor makes it unsuitable for any project. My plan was to use it for testing code.

I was a bit elated when I saw this document:
http://air.imag.fr/mediawiki/images/7/7 … GU-GUO.pdf
which shows a discovery board listed in Arduino. Now I realise that it is F0 Discovery.

zmemw16 Sat Oct 29, 2016 11:48 am

the vldiscovery f100 is breadboard friendly’ish, you may well need long side-long side joined breadboards and to span double supply rails, also spi(pa4-pa7) has to dangle off the end(its pins are orientated across the board :x ).
bar that, seems fine
stephen

RogerClark Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:12 pm

I dont think it would be that hard to create a new variant what may work

MCUs in the F1 series are fairly similar and I managed to run code on a STLink dongle which is a STM32F101

BTW.
I read that PDF and all I could find was a link to a hacked version of the old leaflabs repo.
It had a discovery board files added, but there may have been other changes throughout the repo

Making a new variant, based on an existing board, is really not that hard.

@Phisatho if you are still interested in trying to use your Valueline board, It wouldnt take me long to duplicate the a folder and add a boards.txt entry, but someone else will probably need to help you with the PLL config stuff, as I just don’t have time at the moment

Phisatho Sun Oct 30, 2016 5:32 am

Hi Roger,
I am giving a try.
What I am trying is –
1) Replicate one of the folders under ‘Variant’ folder and name it something like ‘VLDiscovery’.
2) Edit ‘board.h’ in the newly created folder to match the board – including the PLL multiplier.
3) Edit ‘Boards.txt’ and add an entry for the new board.
(I am at workplace at the moment and not near the PC where Arduino is installed. Some of the file / folder names could be wrong)

What else will I need to do?

Shibu Thomas

RogerClark Sun Oct 30, 2016 7:47 am

Phisatho wrote:Hi Roger,
I am giving a try.
What I am trying is –
1) Replicate one of the folders under ‘Variant’ folder and name it something like ‘VLDiscovery’.
2) Edit ‘board.h’ in the newly created folder to match the board – including the PLL multiplier.
3) Edit ‘Boards.txt’ and add an entry for the new board.
(I am at workplace at the moment and not near the PC where Arduino is installed. Some of the file / folder names could be wrong)

What else will I need to do?

Shibu Thomas

Pito Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:08 pm

stevestrong wrote:Pito wrote: the VL have 0 flash waitstates, F103 has got 3 ws

Rick Kimball Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:13 pm

Phisatho wrote:I could not find any pointers from the net.

Phisatho Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:29 pm

Hi Rick,
You are right, my statement was about programming this board with Arduino.

Shibu Thomas

stevestrong Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:51 pm

Pito wrote:
F100: 0 wait states hard wired at 24MHz, you cannot change it via config file
F103: 0 wait state from 0 to 24 MHz, 1 wait state from 24 to 48 MHz and 2 wait states above.. you may change it in the config file..

Pito Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:02 pm

@Pito, could you please indicate where and what to change for F103?
Here you are:

/**

* @file libmaple/flash.c

* @brief Flash management functions

*/
#include <libmaple/libmaple_types.h>

#include <libmaple/flash.h>
/**

* @brief Set flash wait states

*

* Note that not all wait states are available on every MCU. See the

* Flash programming manual for your MCU for restrictions on the

* allowed value of wait_states for a given system clock (SYSCLK)

* frequency.

*

* @param wait_states number of wait states (one of

*                    FLASH_WAIT_STATE_0, FLASH_WAIT_STATE_1,

*                    ..., FLASH_WAIT_STATE_7).

*/

void flash_set_latency(uint32 wait_states) {

uint32 val = FLASH_BASE->ACR;
val &= ~FLASH_ACR_LATENCY;

val |= wait_states;
FLASH_BASE->ACR = val;

}

stevestrong Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:35 pm

Thanks, i’ll try it.

Phisatho Fri Nov 04, 2016 7:26 pm

No luck so far with VLDiscovery. Initially I was able to compile, but could not get LED to blink.
But then I updated STM32duino. Now I am not able to compile.
Error message:
“C:\arduino-1.6.12\hardware\Arduino_STM32\STM32F1\cores\maple/boards.h:39:25: fatal error: board/board.h: No such file or directory”
I am stumped.

RogerClark Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Which files did you change and add?

Looks like your new variant is still accessing the Maple folder, so there is a mistake possibly in your changes to board.txt

Phisatho Sat Nov 05, 2016 5:02 pm

I deleted the boards.txt section I created and started from scratch. Copied genericSTM32F103R section and modified as below:

###################### STM32VLDISCOVERY ########################################
STM32VLDISCOVERY.name=STM32VLDISCOVERY

STM32VLDISCOVERY.vid.0=0x1EAF

STM32VLDISCOVERY.pid.0=0x0004

STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.variant=STM32VLDISCOVERY

STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.vect=VECT_TAB_ADDR=0x8000000

STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.core=maple

STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.f_cpu=24000000L

STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.board=STM32_VLDISCOVERY

STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.use_1200bps_touch=false

STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.file_type=bin

STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.auto_reset=true

STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.tool=stlink_upload
## STM32_VLDISCOVERY -------------------------

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.device_variant.STM32VLDISCOVERY=STM32F100RB (20k RAM. 128k Flash)

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.device_variant.STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.cpu_flags=-DMCU_STM32F103CB

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.device_variant.STM32VLDISCOVERY.build.ldscript=ld/jtag.ld

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.device_variant.STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.maximum_size=131072

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.device_variant.STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.ram.maximum_size=20480

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.device_variant.STM32VLDISCOVERY.upload.flash.maximum_size=131072
#---------------------------- UPLOAD METHODS ---------------------------
STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.upload_method.STLinkMethod=STLink

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.upload_method.STLinkMethod.upload.protocol=STLink

STM32VLDISCOVERYmenu.upload_method.STLinkMethod.upload.tool=stlink_upload

STM32VLDISCOVERY.menu.upload_method.STLinkMethod.build.upload_flags=-DCONFIG_MAPLE_MINI_NO_DISABLE_DEBUG=1

RogerClark Sat Nov 05, 2016 7:27 pm

F cpu is not the only place that value is setup.

its not possible to configure clock speed purely in the boards.txt , because the phase locked loop multiplier value depends on crystal osc freq and also even if you use an external crystal oscillator

its all setup in the various variant folder files.

Phisatho Sat Nov 05, 2016 7:47 pm

Do you find any errors in the boards.txt section?