EEVblog #266 - Mailbag - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: madworm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 08:46:14 pm
content: Hi Dave,I hope you will enjoy building the board(s).And as it seems my handwriting hasn't improved since primary school at all, let me briefly 'translate' then essence of what was written down on the sheets (A4 of course) ;-)[...]thanks for promoting / testing KiCad[...]And (another and...) unfortunately I don't have a ZIF socket for TQFP-32 chips, these are prohibitively expensive.If you should ever want/need to reprogram that device, I suggest flashing a different bootloader than what is currently on there. The internal RC oscillator really isn't good enough for 115200 (sigh). Code and installation information orbiting around the 'Arduino' security-blanket can be foundhere.

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 09:35:29 pm
content: Not cheap, but at $50 not terribly expensive either;http://www.ebay.com/itm/IC51-0324-1498-QFP32-TQFP32-FQFP32-PQFP32-Yamaichi-IC-Program-Adaptor-Socket-/260974787864?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc34f3d18

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 11:00:39 pm
content: Quote from: Short Circuit on April 06, 2012, 09:35:29 pmWell for $50 i can another UT61E

author: madworm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 02:22:47 am
content: 50$ - that's a lot more tolerable than what I've seen elsewhere.But since I don't have to deal with hundreds of these chips, it's currently not worth getting it. For Dave's specimen I used an otherwise useless circuit board, some adhesive tape and my thumb. Not all too pleasant to align, but it works. I've been thinking about making a silicone mold for this package + a matching PCB for quite some time. Never got around doing it though. Something like that would be good enough for a couple of chips once in a while.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 02:37:57 am
content: Quote from: madworm on April 07, 2012, 02:22:47 amYep , a local store was selling $200 ... OH THE HORROR .

author: chrome
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 10:09:06 am
content: Quote from: Dave.S on April 06, 2012, 11:00:39 pmYou're talking as if that's even a good meter...

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 01:20:46 pm
content: Quote from: chrome on April 07, 2012, 10:09:06 amWell for $50 , not that good but hey , 22000 counts and fast autoranging . (not the D , the D sucks) And ! TrueRMS !

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 01:20:58 pm
content: Quote from: madworm on April 07, 2012, 02:22:47 amhttp://www.dealextreme.com/p/ic-socket-plcc20-plcc24-plcc28-plcc32-plcc40-with-plcc-extractor-tool-117717

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 01:21:06 pm
content: Quote from: Dave.S on April 06, 2012, 11:00:39 pmTrue.Or 7 coronas at the pub.Equally useless if you're after a device socket for a qfp...

author: SILK
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 03:15:19 pm
content: About the Tiny Gecko STK...It seems like it's just the Tiny Gecko STK that doesn't have a gecko on the board. My EFM32 Gecko STK has a capacitive touch button that is shaped like a gecko. Pretty neat.The EFM32G microcontrollers are great. It takes some effort getting used to it (I've only used AVR before). Especially because you have to activate the clocks for everything you are going to use manually (to have full control over the power usage). For some peripherals you even have to specify which pins you want to use, since some peripherals can be assigned to several pin configurations. It took me about 8 hours of swearing before i figured out that I had to specify which pins I wanted to use for the LEUART. Missed one registry when I read the reference manual. But now that I know that, it's a breeze to use.If you don't want to spend a lot of money on the IAR Embedded Workbench, I recommend setting up the eclipse toolchain (see application notes in simplicity studio).The documentation for the microcontrollers is absolutely fantastic!

author: BobC
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 03:17:06 am
content: The truly great thing about the Gecko family isn't the low-power ARM M0 core: Everyone is making chips with that core these days.What's great is how the on-board peripherals are tightly integrated into the power reduction and management schemes. You can do a tremendous amount of processing using only the peripherals without any CPU involvement, waking the CPU only for things like DMA buffer exhaustion. The configurable switching matrix interconnecting the peripherals permits several peripherals to operate in parallel, all without CPU attention. Truly amazing.Using various members of the EFM32 family, you can have nanowatt embedded systems that are continuously active, and can wake the CPU when needed to provide tremendous computing power.I'm a particular fan of the tiny gecko, and have the same evaluation board at home. I can't wait to use that processor in future projects at work.The Segger J-Link is a fully functional Segger debugger that can be used as a separate tool using the debug connector, without using the on-board EFM32. There is a Segger coprocessor on the board, hidden under the LCD.The coin battery holder is no joke: The board can operate for prolonged periods doing substantial I/O powered only by the coin battery, so long as you carefully manage the CPU wake time and clock rates.If you don't want to pay the full price for the board, the various Energy Micro distributors often host half-day seminars where they either give the board away for free, or for less than half-price. I highly recommend attending the seminar (which is how I got my board): Learning to program multiple interconnected peripherals to work while the CPU is off, and to wake the CPU when needed takes some careful planning,and the demos are invaluable.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 12:09:24 pm
content: Sounds fantastic .I've heard of people trying to get the STM32F4 to go into quite a low powerClearly that's a high performance M4 chip that in normal operation you can feel it warming up slightly ... while at idle it draws 5V@110mA

author: SILK
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 12:50:20 pm
content: The EFM32G comes with a program called energyAware Profiler that you can use to monitor the current consumption in real time. You see what functions in your software that use the most current etc. In that way you can optimise your software for low current consumption.In my latest project, I saw that the microcontroller used about 5 mA when in idle. I could see that the Low Energy UART was the sinner, so I tried to deactivate the TX-pin when not in use. BOOM! 72 uA idle current.

author: 6502nop
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 02:27:16 pm
content: To answer the most pressing question from the vid...The quote is from "Evil Dead (3?): Army of Darkness".If they run out of room on the PCB, they can just shorten it to "Boomstick".nop

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 09, 2012, 08:11:26 pm
content: Quote from: 6502nop on April 09, 2012, 02:27:16 pmEngineer Smart. Engineer S-Mart.