To start I will say I am a complete noob when it comes to arduino, I have always been into electronics and have a fair base knowledge to start. I started learning python a little while ago and really want to put some things into use.
So basically what I’m looking at doing, I work for a company that manufactures machines that run on custom stm32 based boards, when we program them we use a laptop and an st-link v2 and tbh it a pain in the a. So I want to build a dedicated programmer for it and I’m not sure if arduino is the way to go or there is a better option? Any advice is appreciated tia……lee
I have read through a few articles that say about making an stm32 programmer with blue pill and so on but not looked into it that much, but if it’s honestly that much of a pain then guess I will have to consider a different route, thanks for the reply
Digikey did this for many of our customers. Very satisfactory results. They even save your program forever, so many years on you can get a chip programmed with that program. They even copied a program from a 20 year old chip onto new chips, when the company could not find the original program. Great to work with!
Hmm not sure I get what you mean, we are supplied built boards and we assemble machines with the same board in each but they need programming depending on their function, we cannot have specific boards for specific machines
Ok thank you I will do a decent bit of research before going forward, like I said before I am just unsure as to the suitability of the arduino and thought asking was the quickest solution and maybe a little time saving but see that there is “ differing opinions” of getting someone else to do it which defeats the object of what I’m trying to accomplish. Would you happen to know if the blue pill is something that I can use?.. that is for the reply lee
I think You are on the right track, someway building a more convenient programmer.
14 years in developing code for heavy forklift trucks, maintaining some 10 different standard versions were used and plenty of custom specific versions. Circuits ready from manufacturer on stock would be a waste as all code was maintained, improved constantly.
Something I would like to clarify for @hoshm is that Arduino is not only about AVR. It is true that the first Arduino boards used AVR chips and the AVR-based boards like the Uno, Mega, Leonardo, etc. are still the most popular in the Arduino community, but a large and ever growing number of different microcontrollers and architectures can be used with the Arduino language, tools, libraries, sketches, documentation, etc.
They are using it to program AVR chips, so the specifics are not directly applicable. But perhaps this idea of having a dedicated headless cheap single board computer (Raspberry Pi in this case) dedicated for each product line will work for you. You may end up still needing to have a programmer device such as an ST-Link V2 or Blue Pill DIY programmer attached between the Raspberry Pi and the target device, but I don't see that as being an issue.
Ok; I'd normally expect an stlink to be pretty convenient. What specifically makes your current process so much of a pain? Perhaps what you really need is new laptop-side software?