kohlrak
Member
well, since you're on it i'll put it on hold here. Since we seem to be the only two here with one of these boards, we might want to consider working together on figuring it out (although i'm a bit new to ARM and looking at hardware schematics and the like).
Although, from looking around in the files, the asm files they reference are the same ones used to make bootloaders. I'm seeing some precompiled stuff, but i don't know how to use it, but I do know that there should be .bins somewhere.
kb113400
Member
add banana no.3 I was a fool and saw all the specs+a shiny tft touch display and bought it. After dealing with the "wonderful" people at linksprite/soliddigi/cutedigi, for a week or so, I finally bought an rs232 to usb cable and flashed on a bootloader Let me know what the latest is on the touchscreen please. I would very much like to get that running on maple.
kohlrak
Member
There's some projects that come with their own bootloaders and stuff that you can use, too. since i'm not afraid of assembly, i'll be taking advantage of this. It wouldn't be too hard, though, to take the assembly and learn from it. Right now, their technician is looking into why the vga example isn't compiling (the touchscreen example is compiling, though). I'm surprised they're actually working with me on this (very slowly hoping i go away though).
kb113400
Member
Yeah, assembly might be a bit beyond my scope, I'm kind of a noob when it comes to coding. I worked with a trs-80 and the H.e.r.o. 1 kit when I was in high school, but that was mostly hex code, and I had teachers helping me. I've re-purposed the odd disposable piece of tech (built a mame cabinet and wired up a couple of buttons to an old usb controller breadboard). As of right now my main goal for this project is to have a interactive monitoring panel for a few analog sensors. I have 3 capacitive liquid level sensors, one voltmeter, one ammeter, and a temperature probe. I,need to write a menu and a few simple graphic readouts, as well as a way to use the micro sd to log data.
I'm replacing the sensor board in my motorhome, and I wanted it to be smarter than the average box on wheels. The average rv monitoring panel is a simple led readout and it costs $200. I can do better. I figure I need a voltage divider to bring the input down to acceptable levels (most of the existing sensors run at 5v, the voltmeter has a 20v range, the ammeter is a shunt over the positive line).
Most of my experience tends to be from the analog side of life, so the smart circuitry is somewhat challenging for me right now. I'm slowly getting a grasp on the language, but I'm no codemonkey.
Yeah, I kind of got the brushoff until I started mentioning returning or exchanging the board, then they got helpful. I'll admit I'm probably over my head here, but I want to learn embedded tech, and I'm willing to sacrifice $70 to do that.
A bit disorganized, me. I'm working on it.
kohlrak
Member
Well, if you're using C/C++ (i think you can within their IDE), you'll want to make sure you have a grasp on pointers. I'll see what i can do when i get there, but for the most part i might just recommend you use C++ to begin with and ditch their IDE (no offence, leaflabs), as i've had nothing but trouble with it. Maybe you'll give me that excuse to write a short textbook on the basics of C++ necessary to do 90% of the coding you'll ever do.
poslathian
LeafLabs
kohlrak : no worries ( http://leaflabs.com/docs/unix-toolchain.html )
kohlrak
Member
Update: doing some weird changes in the projects default configuration, i have managed to get the touchscreen and such working with their example code. My next step is to either find a way to get their lcd code (touchscreen is really too much for me as a beginner in embedded archs to chew at one time) or to break down the touchscreen code into something managable for converting to a binary outside of uVision4.
kb113400
Member
Yeah, I've just realized how over my head most of this is. I know nothing of programming, other than editing values in prewritten code. I am such a noob. how did you load their example code onto the spruce?
I set up eclipse after much trial and error (the latest version of gnuarm gcc did not want to load on Helios, had to go with the previous release)just got it working today, but the debug says the example code is full of errors.
I'm relying on solid's tutorials, but they are woefully lacking in detail.
in the spruce ide i can write simple sketches to adjust the blink of the onboard led. I got it to read the sw1 button, and a few big arcade microswitch buttons attached to gpio. I now need to learn how to interface i2c sensors, and a mosfet driver shield. went kinda crazy and bought a bunch of stuff from sparkfun. http://www.sparkfun.com/wish_lists/38724 is the list of my sensors and the driver.
kohlrak
Member
I'm afraid you're on your own for some of that, but learn how to do pointers in C/C++ (simple really, but you'll want practice [make regular programs]) before you try to actually use it. In reality all the hardware is controlled by memory mapped registers, so understanding pointers allows you do what you want once you know the memory locations.
kohlrak
Member
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/pointers/
Read that for now, and perhaps we could find a way to contact each other outside of this slow forum so i could hand you some of the information on things like the LCD a step at a time (most of the stuff you want, though, there is a pdf manual for).
kohlrak
Member
http://kohlrak.sytes.net has some of my contact information if you'd like.
kb113400
Member
St has an application note related to the ili9320: http://www.st.com/internet/com/TECHNICAL_RESOURCES/TECHNICAL_LITERATURE/APPLICATION_NOTE/CD00201397.pdf
on page 15 is a specific reference to a tft display, 320x240, driven by an ili9320. page 15 or in the index :Interfacing the Ampire AM-240320L8TNQW00H TFT LCD with the FSMC.
It makes for interesting reading. I've just leafed through it, but it appears to hold relevant info.
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