J-Link EDU Mini $18

I see that Segger is now offering a $18 debug probe for students and people doing non-commercial development. It has probably been out for a while. I just noticed it and didn’t see it mentioned so here you go:

https://www.segger.com/products/debug-p … -edu-mini/

It seems to let you use the free command line stuff and get unlimited updates to the firmware / host software. You get no support. You can post on their forums and might get someone to help you if you have issues. The OZone GUI debugger available in “evaluation mode”. I don’t know what that really means.

For some people who feel that commercial devices are “better” than opensource here is your chance to get a commercial product at a low cost.

What this announcement suggests to me is that ST providing ST-Link devices on-board with their evaluation boards is probably kicking Segger’s ass in the student/hobbyist low end market. Not to mention the excellent opensource Black Magic Probe hardware and software.

Very interesting.

Though I am not sure how useful it would be.

I have some Nordic Semiconductor Development Kit boards, which have basically the same functionality of JLink on them, and you can’t use the full version of JFlash etc with them.
You have to use the cut down “Edu” versions of those tools.

But the command line tools work OK.

i think I looked at there debugger, but didn’t like it for some reason, but I can’t remember why.

Segger also have a IDE called Segger Embedded studio, which I was initially led to believe ( by a Nordic sales rep), could be used for commercial development for free, up to the point of final release.
( it’s just another customised version of Eclipse) (apparently its not Eclipse)

However when I looked at the license in detail, you can only use it for Evaluation purposes, even for non commercial use.
So I uninstalled it, as it wasn’t any better than the standard version of Eclipse.

I guess the price of this device undercuts the Bitsy and the Bumpy BMP boards, so may be a response to that
But you can get a clone of JLInk OBD for less then $10, and clones of the full JLink ARM for about $15.
And I imagine the companies in China making he Jlink ARM clones will just reduce their price, as they are currently making a large markup and could afford to drop their prices

The only market that this really effects is probably, schools and universities, who need to have a totally legitimate product.

To be fair, the J-Link EDU does offer some things not available on other debuggers.

It support SWO and Unlimited Flash Breakpoints.

Rick

I don’t know if you have seen this (which uses a STM32F103C8T)

https://github.com/GCY/JLINK-ARM-OB

This seems to be the hardware design and firmware from the previous generation of the same sort of device

Basically, you can make the same thing using a Blue Pill, by connecting PA4 and PA7 via 100 ohms, then PA5 is the SWCLK and I either PA4 or PA7 is SWDIO (I can’t remember which is which,I think is probably PA4) as thats labelled TMS_I on the schematic in that github repo

Think to unlimited breakpoints doesnt work

Have you tried that on a bluepill?

Yes

It does work

But only with a slightly older version of JFlash etc

Was it you that worked out that version 6.14b was the last version that worked with the STM32 JLink OBD

BTW.

The “Bumpy” is

https://www.tindie.com/products/Electro … -debugger/

and its $12, which significantly undercuts the official “Bitsy”

https://1bitsquared.com/collections/emb … cts/1bitsy

Segger offers ST-Link conversion to J-Link since spring ’16..
Works with ST-Link clones (dongles) too (a tiny sw mod is needed afaik).
Has been tested by someone here and it works..
https://www.segger.com/products/debug-p … -on-board/

@pito

Have you tried it ?

I tested this on 2 different types of “dongle” and it would not install on either

I then tried to convert Nucleo board, and that did get converted.

In fact , I think I left one of my Nucleo boards in its converted state, just so that I had this form of debugger as a reference platform.

When you try to use the upgraded Nucleo board with JFlash, it brings up an annoying message saying you can only use this for evaluation and only on Nucleo and Discovery boards etc

I think if you reflashed a dongle with the Nucleo firmware you could then upgrade to JLink, but I’m not sure its worth the hassle
Also. JFlash etc, detect that you are using an upgraded device and have a “nag” screen full of license conditions that gets displayed.

From the “nag” screen, it appears that the upgraded board will only work with STM32 processors as the target – though I have not verified if that is true, or just text on the “nag” screen

Segger Embedded Studio is not Eclipse based and it is written in Qt. It has a much cleaner interface, but I haven’t used it, because I don’t have a Jlink or a spare STLink that I could “switch” to Jlink mode.

[randybb – Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:23 am] –
Segger Embedded Studio is not Eclipse based and it is written in Qt. It has a much cleaner interface, but I haven’t used it, because I don’t have a Jlink or a spare STLink that I could “switch” to Jlink mode.

Thanks..

It looks a lot like Eclipse, so I thought it was a heavily customised version of Eclipse.
Personally I didn’t find it that easy to use, so I uninstalled it.

Its also rather expensive at around $1000.

[RogerClark – Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:18 am] –
@pito
Have you tried it ?
I tested this on 2 different types of “dongle” and it would not install on either

@Roger: As I wrote above you need a small fw mod, but no idea how to do it..
http://www.stm32duino.com/viewtopic.php … 448#p18757

UPDATE: tried here (for my educational purpose only) and it upgraded fine, recognized as

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