Do I need a ST-Link or JLink or Both?

I have a Baite Maple Mini on way. Do I need a ST-Link or Jlink for some reason in the use of the Baite Maple MinI? Just if I will need, not the when, how, or why.

I am looking at some other STM32 boards for my personal project needs. Many of these boards have a header for JTag/SWD. It appears from what I have read that a STLink has some use via the header JTag/SWD. I do not know if a ST-Link will be all I would need when the need for using the JTag/SWD header of the STM32 board is needed or if there is a need to have a ST-Link and JLink for those situations that would so require one vs the other. I am not in need of how, when, why the ST-Link or JLink are used. I will figure that out on my own quite likely, or with specfic question(s) when/how to use for some rare off the wall situation. I am just trying to make sure I have what I need sooner than having to wait for some weeks stalled to obtain a ST-Link and/or JLink when it is actualaly needed.

Even if the Baite Maple does not have a need for a ST-Link or JLink I still wish to order sooner than later. I am giving some serious thought to ordering a STM32 board or two that may be better suited for my needs from hardware point of view. Then I will need to see how much time/effort it will take to do what I wish to. This will likely will be straight forward with the Baite Maple Mini, perhpas or not with other STM32 board or two I decide to try.

Regards,

John L. Males
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
07 November 2016 03:57

P.S. Bear with me if I am slow to reply. There are some reasons why I have this personal project and the reasons are of late more than a distraction. Hence why the project is that far more important now than when the research started early Spring of this year. jlm

To program a Baite Maple Mini, you can use either a USB-serial adapter, or ST-link, or Jlink.

(If you upload the stm32duino bootloader to the board using one of the previous methods, you can just use the onboard USB connector without external tool.)

danieleff wrote:To program a Baite Maple Mini, you can use either a USB-serial adapter, or ST-link, or Jlink.

(If you upload the stm32duino bootloader to the board using one of the previous methods, you can just use the onboard USB connector without external tool.)

I just remembered in my ongoing research that I should of asked in my initial question regarding the ST-Link and JLink. Is the software on host enviroment Windows only? I am seeing references so far in last few days in number of links I have looked at to software provided for ST-Link that is Windows centric. I was researching again and that reminded me I forgot to ask this question in my initial post. I do not know if same software or different software applies to using JLink. Let’s just say I am very Windows “decentric”!

The USB-Serial adapter of course is not OS specific.

Regards,

John L. Males
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
08 November 2016 06:38

The Baite Maple Mini should have a bootloader already so you need only a microUSB cable.
Blue and rwd pill doesn’t have bootloader.

In the repo there is a bootloader for Blue and Red Pill and a new bootloader for maple mini.

Having an Stlink and a serial adapter is a good alternative.

I have looked at to software provided for ST-Link that is Windows centric
If you means about original STLink software from STM.
But there are open source STLink from Texane, which run on Linux or even on MacOS.

@keypunch,
debian jessie 8.x upto date.
i have a couple of j-link clones, both have j-link/segger / http://www.segger.com/usb as a silk screen printing on the top.
one has a label underneath and is seen by /opt/SEGGER/JLink_V610f/ software, the blank plastic box is declared unsupported?? or out of date??
the labelled box has ‘fields’ with ‘O-Link-ARM’, a serial number, hardware as v8.0 yy-ww as 05-36
additionally other half of label has swd and jtag pinout details.

my pair it seems didn’t come from amazon or aliexpress(41 pages) or ebay(30 odd pages) really WEIRD as nowhere else is used, searched on ebay, all found don’t show the underside of the box.
a lot seem to have added the 20pin to umteen other socket types adapter pcb.
a prinkling showing V9 ARM, higher price as well.

so far i’ve only run the software to check the results compare to those shown on the forum, they do.

HTH
stephen

I got my st-link programmer from eBay for 2-4 bucks each. They are not genuine ones but works well with openocd in windows, Linux and Mac for basic debugging and trouble shooting (two wire interface) srst in the configure file needs to be set to none, as reset signal on those counterfeits do not have the same polarity as most boards.

leavesw wrote:I got my st-link programmer from eBay for 2-4 bucks each. They are not genuine ones but works well with openocd in windows, Linux and Mac for basic debugging and trouble shooting (two wire interface) srst in the configure file needs to be set to none, as reset signal on those counterfeits do not have the same polarity as most boards.

ST-link should suffice
You can program any stm microcontroller with it, and also have full debugging with it .
Recently i’ve been working with Visual studio as IDE (and also with the cube mx code generator rather than the arduino framework), and i’ve got uploading of my programs via the st link, and line per line debugging of the code working .

So not sure why you’d need anything else . Atm i’m sticking to baite st links, as the only small metallic stlink i have quickly died a hot death >_<. I don’t trust those little buggers anymore :p.

racemaniac wrote:…

Atm i’m sticking to baite st links, as the only small metallic stlink i have quickly died a hot death >_<. I don’t trust those little buggers anymore :p.

RogerClark wrote:racemaniac wrote:…

Atm i’m sticking to baite st links, as the only small metallic stlink i have quickly died a hot death >_<. I don’t trust those little buggers anymore :p.

Hello All,

Thank you for your replies to my post.

I have not been here to the site since those posts. One major reason is the reason for my couple personal STM32 projects. Another and had no idea would happen is various items I ordered last fall still have not arrived.

One of those items ordered last Fall was a STLink that is now going on 4 months and has not arrived. My Baite Maple Mini Clones ordered last Fall only arrived a few days ago3+ months after fact. I still do not have a number of basic items I need for the important personal project that are stables of what one uses and not the items unique to the project at hand one has. This taking 3-4+ months of items ordered is really slowing the important personal project down that does include project specif items for my important personal project.

I did receive from my orders of last fall the USB to TTL Serial adapter a few days ago as well. I assume I can use the USB to TTL Serial if and when I wish to change the Maple Bootloader to the STM32duino version. I have a couple of very unique STM32 boards.. These are the STM32F103C8T6 and one is a STM32F407VET6. These are development boards I need to use a STLink with and still not sure if I will be able to use the STM32Duino development approach as I like to or if I will have to use the other STM32 development choices. I know the Maple Mini is a good possibility for what I like to accomplish for the important personal project. Now that I have a couple Maple Mini Clones on hand I can perhaps get some basics framework code and try out some prototyping of boards I will perhaps need to make.

I suspect I could use a JLink with as well or instead of the STLink. I am not sure yet if I need to consider ordering a JLink instead of of or in addition to a STLink. I may need to order the STLink again and hope it will arrive before end of 2017 at rate delivery is going currently.

Again thanks for your posts and comments as they are very helpful in knowing what your experiences/thoughts have been and what those of you are using.

Please know at times due to the nature of the life interrupts I can be delayed in my replies. The last few months have been such a challenge as well as time I have had to spend with dealing with orders not arriving 3+ months after fact.

Regards,

John L. Males
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
03 March 2017 08:49

There is an “updater” sketch which will reflash the original bootloader with the stm32duino-bootloader (look in the stm32duino-bootloader repo in github)

Re: Jlink

I added support for this on a few boards a while ago (sorry I can’t remember precisely which boards as there are soooo many variants)

There is no additional benefit when using the Arduino IDE when using JLink, over using Stlink or BMP or serial or DFU. i.e you can just upload with it.

RogerClark wrote:There is an “updater” sketch which will reflash the original bootloader with the stm32duino-bootloader (look in the stm32duino-bootloader repo in github)

Re: Boards which just have power connections on USB.

I think I got caught out with this as well, but I have so many stm32 boards I loose track of which one is which

racemaniac wrote:ST-link should suffice
You can program any stm microcontroller with it, and also have full debugging with it .

Hello racemaniac and vargham,

Thanks for the:

vargham wrote:racemaniac wrote:ST-link should suffice
You can program any stm microcontroller with it, and also have full debugging with it .

The mental ones are normally OK, as are the bare board ones.

I recently ordered what looked like an official STM STLink

But it didnt work at all.

I’ve no idea what firmware is flashed into it, as I get a flashing LED but thats all. I looked in the device manager and it doesnt come up as a USB device and the STLink GUI program does not detect any STLinks

So I’ve requested a refund from the eBay vendor

I’m not sure how big the official STLink is, this think is much smaller than I’d expected but it did some in a very official STM box.

Roger,

I looked and resarched the type of STLink you pictured in your last reply. My memory on this is rusty as this research and consideration of an STLink like you posted was done about back in October/November last year. I seem to recall there were versions and then versions of these. I also seem to recall some were very limited in what STM devices they would work with. Much of this I found via the STM site actually and some via those that posted about these. Part of reason I did not try order this type of STLink I believe could be genuine was as you know the sources seems able to make or source items that look like genuine and are not genuine.

Maybe I should just try to order another metal STLink and hope at least arrived in 60 days, not 90, 120, or never.

Regards,

John L. Males
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
08 March 2017 09:08 EST

John

If you are buying from AliExpress, try to find a vendor with ePacket as a shipping option ( at reasonable additional cost) as they are higher priority than regular post and I think have a tracking code.

I have also found that for larger orders, sending via EMS is extremely fast, ( faster than FedEx or UPS) and is cheaper than using a courier service

The familar to you all Metal STLink I ordered mid November 2016 just arrived today. In last week I have received 8 orders from last November and first week of last December in past week. In sets of 3, 3, and 2. All from different dates shipped and all from different sellers.

I think the suggestion of delay related to mailing of drugs from China has some merit to the delays. I assume some process related to customs and police is clearing the containers packages once known not to be drugs within my orders at least!

First will be to try those unique STM32F103 boards I have had since last November and test. I needed a STLink for these unique boards per the STM32 Adruino environment for the board. It will be a week or more before I can try as I have other commitments. I alos have a learning curve now for the STLink now that I have one to try and use correctly.

I happened to order another STLink a few days ago thinking like a couple other orders like this one of 140+ days the STLink would not arrive as other orders of 140+ days have not arrived yet.

It is actually snowing right now in Toronto as I post this reply. In 1984 the amount of snow received was over 25cm that 03 or 04 March day and this time not likley to be more than a cm or two. An event not related to weather that day is why I know the date In about 1975 first week of April so much snow I and others had to sleep overnight in high school as the snow was almost 2m high in the major interesection the school was at and cars were completely covered with foot or two ontop such that the university was burried for 3 days in snow. These were still school open for day days unlike now the hint of a couple of cm snow has schools closing! Silly nowadays the hint of snow has places closing.

Regards,

John L. Males
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
30 March 2017 21:19 EDT
30 March 2017 21:27 EDT (Minor typo corrections)

For Baite Maple mini you need just USB cable. Later, an USB-Serial 3V TTL adapter is always useful. At the end, I’ve ordered a cheap STLink, but only to try, I really never needed it.

Maybe other boards may need it, but this particular one don’t.

you can always use it on other usart/uarts, i usually have pa9/pa10 hooked up;
but then i’m never am quite sure where Serial, Serial1 or Serial2 will pop up

2 thoughts
i bend the 5v pin of the 5v/3v3 trio out to the side, makes it awkward and deliberate if i use it
a white dupont lead is a reminder to connect to PA9
green or white or red tie wraps trimmed off on end of the wall wart psu output’s serve as 5v – 9v – 12v reminders
srp