Spark Logic

Olimexino-STM32

Slammer Tue May 31, 2016 12:33 am

This is about a maple compatible board, the Olimexino-STM32 (from Olimex). While there are references for this board on the forum, there is no dedicated topic. As an owner of the board I will write some words about it.
First, the board is not new, it is available for at least 6 years, mine is purchased in 2011 and it is revision B.

The board is an improved version of original maple. All pins are in the same location as in maple board.
The board comes with the official bootloader which can be replaced with bootloader V2. It is fully compatible with arduino-STM32 as maple board.
In comparison with Leaflabs Maple the improvements are:
– Switching power regulator for improved efficiency and wide input voltage (9-30V). It is based on well known (but a bit old) MC33063 regulator.
– On board Li-Po battery charger with automatic power supply selection. MCP73812 charger is used, adjusted at 70mA charging current.
– Separate 3V3 regulators (MCP1700) for digital and analog power planes.
– On board CAN interface and micro-SD slot.
– Custom UEXT connector for external peripherals (Olimex has many UEXT boards, like RS485, Ethernet, etc)
– RTC support ready (XTAL is here and Vbat to Battery connector)
– 2 User Leds

I didn’t like:
– SWD connector with 10 pins, spaced at 0.05”. A special adapter cable required for connecting ST-LINK.
– The power supply capacitors and inductor are very tall, any shield on top of the board cannot be placed correctly. I think that they corrected this problem in later revisions.

I like this board mainly bacause of the flexible power supply input. It can be powered directly from a 24V industrial supply. From the value of Rsc of MC33063 the cutoff current of regulator is about 1200mA, but the inductor is a bit small for this current, anyway the regulator can supply more than 500-600mA easily in 5V plane. For 3V3, two MCP1700 are used rated at 250mA.
It costs about 20$-25$ and it is rather expensive in comparison with chinese STM32 boards

Replies

RogerClark Tue May 31, 2016 1:21 am

@slammer

Thanks for the information

ITeadStudio do something similar, https://www.itead.cc/iteadmaple.html but I suspect they are trying to get rid of old stock and they are now selling for around $5

The iTeadMaple doesnt look quite as touch as the Olimex board, but it is currently cheaper

Slammer Tue May 31, 2016 12:01 pm

I bought it for a small application in industrial environment (as addon in a PLC system) but never used. I messed up with maplelib and arduino and I gave up…
Finally I used an Olimexino-328 (olimex version of UNO) for the application ( a rather simple sketch) with almost the same power supply input. The system is still running 24/7 for 6 years…
Now, with Arduino-STM32, the board is resurrected…

martinayotte Tue May 31, 2016 1:47 pm

Olimex is a pretty innovative bulgarian company !
I’ve used there A20-Micro boards since few years.
They have several new designs in development, some that I wish becoming soon in production are the new A64 board as well as FPGA board.

Slammer Tue May 31, 2016 9:07 pm

It is noticeable that Olimexino-STM is cheaper than Olimexino-328…. it is not the first time.. Blue-Pill is cheaper than Arduino Nano…

ag123 Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:33 pm

the home site for this board apparently is
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/S … e-hardware

i like this board particularly for its onboard micro sd-card slot, though sd-card is not a standard ‘duino’ feature.
Lots of non-duino programming would probably be needed.

and with the on board battery charger this board can run off a li-po battery
what comes to mind is that this is possibly a good datalogger board
and there is this notion that inserting a micro sd card may literally expand storage to gigabytes rather than several hundred k :lol:

like martinayotte mentioned, they have other boards such as H405, H407 and E407 (has an ethernet plug)
the H4 series uses STM32 F4 mcu which are apparently quite a bit faster, has more ram & other on chip features

Manny Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:11 pm

ag123 wrote:the home site for this board apparently is
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/S … e-hardware

i like this board particularly for its onboard micro sd-card slot, though sd-card is not a standard ‘duino’ feature.
Lots of non-duino programming would probably be needed.

and with the on board battery charger this board can run off a li-po battery
what comes to mind is that this is possibly a good datalogger board
and there is this notion that inserting a micro sd card may literally expand storage to gigabytes rather than several hundred k :lol:

like martinayotte mentioned, they have other boards such as H405, H407 and E407 (has an ethernet plug)
the H4 series uses STM32 F4 mcu which are apparently quite a bit faster, has more ram & other on chip features

Ollie Sat Oct 15, 2016 5:00 pm

I was lucky and did purchase the Olimex GD32F103RBT6 Maple board from Amazon for $9.00 including delivery and taxes.

Here is the link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AP … UTF8&psc=1

Now I feel unlucky, because the board is not anymore available. The other reason to be slightly sad is that I failed in downloading from Arduino and was able to brick the board for USB access – lost the maple boot loader. Loading through serial or ST-link didn’t work for me. The only way at the moment to use the board is to use EmBitz 1.00 with ST-link. Works without any issues.

The challenge was the tiny 10 pin connector with 0.05 pitch used for ST-link SWD. The required flat cables and connectors are not widely available. I had to sacrifice one of the flat cables used in my LPC-Link 2 development boards. I was too lazy to review the LPC-Link 2 documentation to see if it was a perfect match with the Olimex SWD connector. It could have been possible that without cutting any cables, I could connect the LPC-Link 2 to PC with USB for ST-link and then connect the LPC-Link 2 to Olimex Maple.

I will update the STM32F103_Med64.csv table in F103 github with the pin numbers used in the Olimex boards, including the Arduino pins, UEXT pins, and Extension pins. I will add this board in the F103 github Wiki at https://github.com/OliviliK/STM32F103/wiki

RogerClark Sat Oct 15, 2016 8:01 pm

if you have access to PA9 and PA10 ( UART 1) and Boot0 you can upload via a USB to serial adaptor.

I would have thought that one of the STM32 bootloaders would work, but it depends on what frequency the external osciallator crystal they use.
If the use 8MHz the normal STM32 bootloader should work

Slammer Sun Oct 16, 2016 7:17 pm

PA9/PA10 are available and it is possible to use normal STM32 bootloader through UART, I have used this many times (at least in STM32 version)
Unfortunately SWD pins are not available on any other point except SWD connector, but olimex is selling the adapter https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/JTAG/ARM-JTAG-20-10

RogerClark Mon Oct 17, 2016 1:59 am

Ollie

Does it use an 8Mhz external clock or a 12Mhz one ? (I presume its 8Mhz like most STM32F103 boards – but some GD32 use 12Mhz)

RogerClark Mon Oct 17, 2016 5:22 am

OK

It looks like they just replaced the STM32 with the GD32 and didn’t make any other changes to the hardware

Ollie Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:37 pm

Olimex P103 is another low cost ($9.00) GD32F103RB development board. The same board can be used for STM32F103RB and STM32F405RE.

See the second entry in the following Wiki page

https://github.com/OliviliK/STM32F103/wiki/F103RB

If your prototyping includes a lot of soldering, this could be a good alternative for you.

I am still wondering, how Olimex can sell these GD32 boards in US for 1/3 of the price that customers are paying in Europe :o

Nikita Fri Jul 28, 2017 8:11 am

Hello all. I try to make project for CAN-bus with libopencm3, and I noticed examples in it for Olimexion-STM32; I have got hand-made special cable for connecting ST-Link to board, but how I can see there is no power on board with it, so ST-Link Utility states that there is no board connected. When I try to connect board via USB and try again ST-Link still cant connect to board. Previously I compiled code with gnu-make and upload it with ST-Link utility to blue pill board. So can anyone help me understand how to upload compiled hex-firmware to this board!

zmemw16 Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:42 am

[Ollie – Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:37 pm] –
I am still wondering, how Olimex can sell these GD32 boards in US for 1/3 of the price that customers are paying in Europe :o

the usa seems to buffer its internal markets c.f. petrol
then there are trade agreements and balances.
Tom Clancy “Executive Orders” istr has some interesting passages, descriptions and resultant implications.
maybe also in “Debt of Honour” – vague recollection. “Red Storm Rising” is a different mechanism.

stephen

katesfb Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:46 am

Hi,
What is the correct board option to use with the olimexino-STM32. In Arduino under the boards manager with subsection STM32 boards (stm32duino.com) there are a few options that seem relevant to the olimexino. I have been using Maple (rev3), is this correct as not all examples seem to work.

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers.

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