I need to use an STM32F4 MCU with Laird BL651 Bluetooth 5.0 module.
As I realized this module is not the regular simple AT Command module, but rather a Cortex-M microcontroller (Nordic nRF52810) with BT Stack. I have a 1.5 year experience with STM32 and the Cube firmware package, but have no experience either Bluetooth 5.0 nor Nordic products. So my question is basically, how to start the developement. I have found Nordic SDK but I am clueless, what information I will need hierinafter and where can I found sample codes.
Looking forward for the replies.
Thanks
Samu
As with most embedded development, your first step is to get any simple (prewritten) example to work, and then after that start either tailoring that example to your use case or creating a new one from scratch. For the BL651 you'll need to read up a bit on the Nordic SDK as well as Bluetooth Low Energy in general. Below are some useful references that will help you get started:-
Bluetooth Low Energy References
Bluetooth Low Energy: A Primer
Getting Started with Bluetooth Low Energy
Introduction to BLE
Nordic Development References
nRF5 Getting Started
nRF5 Series: Developing with SEGGER Embedded Studio
Introduction to Nordic SDK v16.0.0
I hope this helps.
I am looking forward to build a zigbee home automation system for which i require a zigbee module and its SDK. Atmel is one of the few vendors that provides SDK for download.
Could you please tell if Atmel kit AT256RFR2-EK that acts as a wireless node in Zigbee networks worth its huge price?
This site is intended for programming-related questions, and not for making recommendations on toolkits or libraries. I'm really not sure where you'd go for reviews of the various ZigBee radio manufacturers.
If you want to do ZigBee HA, buy commercial products and integrate them. The dev kits are targeting companies planning to build large volumes of product, and the up front cost of the dev kit is a drop in the bucket compared to hardware and software engineering costs.
If you're a hobbyist looking to tinker, just get some XBee modules and build a proprietary network.
I am a newbiee in building robots, And through searching internet i find out that we need Raspbery pi (a computer), Romeo board (The hardware), Arduino (Development environment), ROS (Robot operating system).
But i just don't understand how are these all used, What are their individual usage. Why each of these are used for?
Can anyone explain it to me?
What should I do, From where should i start?
Thanks in advance.
This might be better suited to the Robotics forum... however, I'd recommend starting with Arduino. Very beginner-friendly, very easy to find sample code and cheap projects to start with. Also, there are many books for Arduino development that explain all the hardware compatible with it.
Also, these things aren't required for all projects. I'm not entirely sure of your sources, but cool things can be done with Arduino alone, as well as along with these other tools.
I am planning to buy CC2530ZDK-ZNP-MINI Kit for my project on sensor networks as it has most of the sensors that I need but I found out from the TI website that they are not supporting these kits anymore. Does anybody know why TI stopped supporting them??
Thanks in advance
Now they have the CC2530 booster pack for the MSP430 or Stellaris Launchpad. So you will want to use these, because CC2530ZNP mini kit is discouraged for new developments.
http://www.anaren.com/air/cc2530-boosterpack-kit
I want to be able to build my own small electronic device that just has a few buttons, and stores each keypress inside a memory.
I am a pretty experienced programmer but I have no idea where to start regarding hardware, or what to search for on google.
Please give me any info that can help me out.
Arduino boards are inexpensive and the platform is wildly popular. I buy stuff like that from sparkfun.com in the developer area down the left side of the page. At sparkfun you will also find many other similar eval boards from various vendors. I like the lillypad over the arduino pro mini only because it has the programming pins already soldered. You will want the ftdi usb serial board thing for power and programming. I am a fan of the armmite pro, which is arm based. the mbed2 is real easy when you plug it in it shows up like a thumb drive, you copy your .bin file to it and press the button and it loads the program and runs it. The blue leds give me migraines but that was solved by replacing with green leds. I have a number of the header style olimex boards, good stuff, have never used the ones with displays and buttons though. Going to other sites the ez430 msp430 is a good starting platform but no buttons which you are interested in using, the stellaris cortex-m3 based family is good I would skip the 811 board and go for maybe the 1978 or something in that range, the 811 is too easy to brick.
Most of the ones mentioned above (not the olimex boards) have sandboxes for you to play in safely (turn key development environments), but at the same time you are not locked into those environments, you can do your own thing if you like, use different toolchains, flash programmers, etc. I personally would avoid the lpcxpresso for that reason, painfully tied to both windows and their sandbox.
the sam7-h256 for example, an olimex board, is powered by the usb, and a program called sam-ba is used to load your programs into the chip. That particular board does not have buttons but boards in that family are also programmed the same way. basically one usb cable for power and programming. And like the AVR (arduino and avr butterfly are based on the avr micro) the at91sam7s is an atmel part. Atmel seems to have that edge over competitors for better documentation and support. At least my belief is that contributes to the popularity of the avr (the avrfreaks website existed before the avr butterfly and the arduino), and it certainly makes me like their arm based products.
short answer, start with http://www.sparkfun.com along the left side click on Development Tools, and there are many solutions. You want to find something like the arduino, armmite pro, mbed, that either standalone or with a ftdi based usb thing you both power the board, and have an interface for programming. There should be links on the page to websites with development tools, compilers, etc, and tools for actually doing the loading of the program on the board. I recommend trying the arm, avr, and msp430 micros, as well as different vendors (many different arm based solutions with their own pros and cons for example).
The arduino platform is a cheap and easy option.
search for arduino and netduino
What language do you program in?
Arduino uses a C like language.
Netduino uses C#.
You can get a NXT kit (yes, LEGO) and use RobotC.
I can only advice how I started:
Get a bread board and some ATMel microcontrollers (ATMega16 is perfect for beginners).
You can either buy an STK500 or you use the In-System-Programming feature, and ask someone that can build you a programmer (I recommend USBasp). When you use Linux, use AVRdude and the gccavr toolchain. Under windows, you can use the WinAVR studio.
And buy some components, like resistors, capacitors, probably a quartz crystal to make simple circuits.
That's how I started anyway.
Arduino is based on Atmel AVR, so the same Arduino or STK500 board can be programmed with AVR Studio + WinAVR combination, which is nice if you already have experience in GCC. For all additional info and tutorials take a look at http://www.avrfreaks.net