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[on:]

http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp?WT.ac=p2_bn_sep11_stm32f4discovery

just in case anyone is interested i have no idea what to do with it but i got mine in the mail today, free

[Reply #1 on:]

Cool - I just ordered one too.

[Reply #2 on:]

must have beat me by seconds

order is in... just looked over the datasheet... I'd not looked closely at these before.  Quite the little board there! 

I wasn't impressed by the TI MSP430 Launchpad at all.. between the device and the whole nightmare of the IDE install/fail/install/patch/forget it and walk away nonsense.

I know the chip isn't all that new a product line, but it certainly looks like an awfully capable little unit.. anyone play with these before?

[Reply #3 on:]

drat, only available to North America :-(

[Reply #4 on:]

FWIW, the board is supported by the ChibiOS RTOS project http://www.chibios.org/dokuwiki/doku.php.  This is a quite capable little device - The STM32F407VGT6 has an on-die ethernet MAC and PHY as well as a plethora of other features (see http://www.st.com/internet/com/TECHNICAL_RESOURCES/TECHNICAL_LITERATURE/USER_MANUAL/DM00039084.pdf).  Lots of possibilities here...

I share your disappointment with the TI Launchpad devices.  After fighting with the lousy toolchain and limitations of the MCU, was left feeling that the whole exercise was just a huge waste of time.

[Reply #5 on:]

Just ordered! Thanks for the tip!

I do have to disagree with all of this anti-MSP430 sentiment though. You get a $4.30 development board, a virtually unlimited source of chips thanks to TI samples, and a speedy and lightweight  MSPGCC toolchain. They may not be as powerful as the Atmega328 or as easy to use as the arduino, but they are incredible cheap-as-dirt chips that sip power and are great for all sorts of tiny embedded projects.

[Reply #6 on:]

OK, requested one. Thanks OP!

[Reply #7 on:]

Whoa.. I waited MONTHS after PAYING for the Launchpads.. and it took multiple nasty emails to finally get them... only to discover what a disappointment the device is.

However, my Freebie STM32 arrived yesterday while I was out!

I only registered and requested the thing on the 11th, it literally took four days to arrive.  Free.

I've got to finish up the Halloween builds, then I'm quite intrigued by all the onboard resources this thing has.. What's the toolchain like on these?

Lots of memory, I/o and onboard resources.. certainly not a DIP-28, which in some respects makes it a bit harder to deal with. 

Need to sniff around.. I wonder if anyone has ported Arduino to STM32F4?

[Reply #8 on:]

Check the topics on "multithreading" - fat16lib has done some nice work with this board already.

[Reply #9 on:]

I wonder if anyone has ported Arduino to STM32F4

The LeafLaps "Maple" is a STM32F103RB, and they've done a lot of work on adapting Arduino to M3 in general.
For better or worse, they found the "obvious" approach of putting the Arduino core on top of the standardized vendor-supplied core libraries (CMSIS/etc) to be disappointing, but it might work out OK for a seriously over-provisioned chip like this one.

Normal price for this board is only about $20 from distributers, BTW.
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?x=24&y=21&lang=en&site=us&KeyWords=STM32F4DISCOVERY

[Reply #10 on:]

Spec sheet is impressive. This thing can do some serious processing.

[Reply #11 on:]

"can do some serious processing. "

Now, if I could just do some serious coding to match, the world could be mine! Bwa -ha -ha -ha -ha.

Oops - did I say that out loud? Must be late ...

[Reply #12 on:]

@Robert @Xroads: I had to order it for hard currency, a pity.
BTW I've got an idea - as you are quite efficient in doing pcbs - I would suggest to create a shield for the kit as it cannot be used with breadboards. So, as usual we may come with ideas what to put on it, then.
Pito.
PS: I do expect a free shield pcb for advising you on this opportunity..

[Reply #13 on:]

Hehe.. I personally find it more than a little amusing that Crossroads and I are both from the same town.. perfect examples of the Right (his) and Wrong (mine) ways to engineer projects..  have I mentioned I'm using hot-melt glue to attach and insulate power LED's on a chunk of aluminum from a CD drive frame, cut with a hacksaw for my current project?  This is actually a bet between me and a friend at the moment.. whether the LED's are going to heat up enough to melt the glue and cause a short.  Care to place bets?  The original plan was to use a two-part epoxy, and the second "head" will use it.. but the first one I just slapped together using hi-temp hotmelt and then injected heatsink compound between the metal pad on the LED's and the aluminum plate.. twelve one-watt LED's in a roughly 3-inch circle.  So far, the LED's and plate are cool to the touch.. but we'll see as I ramp up the power.

What's funny is that a million years ago, and I mean like 1980ish, I did a lot of my projects with printed circuit boards made in the basement with an etch-resist pen and acid from Radio Shack...  More Sharpie than Gerber....  that being said, yeah.. this isn't something that's very breadboard friendly.. doesn't even work if you try to straddle the center of two breadboards, the column spacing is too tight.  I'm probably going to end up doing my patented "Jam a HDD cable on it" method I suppose.. at least the pin headers extend both above and below the board..

The price point on this thing at $20 is pretty amazing.. especially since it even includes some sensors onboard like accelerometers and audio A/D and D/A hardware.  I've already seen a Nikon trigger based upon an older version.. with USB OTG Host mode, it ought to make a great host for the Canon platform too.  I've even seen some stuff regarding a Linux implementation on it?  Oh, the possibilities that opens up...

[Reply #14 on:]

@pito,
Yeah, I could do that! Board is ~65mm x 90mm, perfect size for a nominal 80x100mm shield.
Let me see if I can find an eagle file for it to get the pin placement dead on.
I'm thinking an inverse shield in this case, have the STM32 plug onto the top of the shield instead of the other way around (since that is where the longer pins are).

@focalist,
I never got into home etching, just wirewrapping stuff.  Home design tools just weren't up to what I wanted to do with complex digital designs and the physically large memory chips, and A/D and D/A converters of the time (and all parallel interfaces too - made for fast transactions, but lots of wires).