Dev board found - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: debi
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2021, 06:22:36 pm
content: Hello guys,i just found a box thrown away by someone with a development board inside and CD's. The CD's files are in chinese and the board is named Dofly mini 80E, it has a STC microcontroller on it. From what i know it's quite old but i would like to know if it's totally useless. I m learning at home C language with arduino and Tinkercad but i don't have a board like this one.It s not recognized by Window and there is nothing on internet about it unless i speak chinese.if you know, thank you for your help and your timeGui

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2021, 07:19:22 pm
content: So when it says on the board doflye.net, you know where to look, but when you see it is dead - go out a hunting.google "dofly development board" and it yields this:https://guide.alibaba.com/t-shop/seven-insects-mini80e-51-microcontroller-development-board-entry-development-teaching-51-learning-board_68372206.html- not yours exactly, or is it? Does that led matrix come out of the socket? - *bingo*...keep going - it's like a puzzle - nice find, have fun - tell us what you find.

author: debi
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2021, 01:55:04 pm
content: Hi Drg,my bad i should have mentionned i obviously look at the website Dofly but as you said it's no longer exist. I foundhttp://mcudreams.blogspot.com/2012/12/programming-stc-89c52-microcontroller.html, it's exactly the same STC on my board, so i ll try his recommandation. Thanks for your time

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2021, 02:21:14 pm
content: You need a full datasheet for the MCU (which is apparently an 8051 variant), in English or any other language you are fluent in + a schematic for the board or at least a list of which MCU pin goes to which pin of which on-board peripheral or connector. You'll also need the software toolchain - hopefully the stuff on the CD isn't Chinese language only, but if it is you'll have to do some digging around the net . .The Internet Archive has *some* ofwww.doflye.net. Tryhttps://web.archive.org/web/20161130025457/http://www.doflye.net/forum-52-1.htmlfor what's left of the user support forum. You may be able to discover some of the pinout from the tutorials. Worst case, you may have to beep it out with a continuity tester.Its also worth going through the CD for anything that looks like a board schematic you can upload and throw at Google Translate!

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2021, 03:34:05 pm
content: Quote from: debi on July 16, 2021, 01:55:04 pmThat looks like a real nice tutorial. Step by step guide, but it is not for the board that you have and that could be problematic. Personally, I would do a lot of online searching and figure out exactly what I have and once I did, start looking for some software. Someone threw it out and it could be bricked, but, it cost you nothing and if you have the time, it could be rewarding.There are lots of sleuths on this board and many are better than me, but this is how I would start the investigation:The board has been identified in my first post. Based on those title keywords, search in alibaba for who sells it (several vendors there do it seems).Found this:https://www.taobao.com/list/item/wap/1901477634.htmNice, lots of info but all in Chinese...also lots of pictures but with Chinese text. Keep going.Translation of the site here:https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.taobao.com%2Flist%2Fitem%2Fwap%2F1901477634.htmadds more information - note you may have to do this step yourself, pasting the info in as some of these translation sites are a bit temperamental, but at least you know the basic link.What about those pictures with Chinese text? Try to translate them as well - yes, jpgs can be translated online (with various degrees of accuracy).Usinghttps://translate.yandex.com/ocr?This:Becomes this:Do that with all of them and pretty soon you start to get a good idea of what you have. Eventually you want to find a place that sells that board and has the associated software online and available to you (or some generic equivalents, but my guess is that some board-specific software is going to be needed). Users on the board who understand Chinese might also be able to help once you know what you want and where it might be at.I have no idea about your skill/experience level and no idea about your economic "level". It may very well be the case that shelling out the cash for a board that has the support and software readily may be the way to go. It all depends on what you want.Hope it helps

author: WattsThat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2021, 04:25:15 pm
content: Nice find!The STC micros are all 8051 core machines, the bigger 40 pin dips (like the 89C52RC) are usually first or second generation stuff that is quite useable for learning. The current generation STC parts add more peripherals and reduce the number of clocks per instruction. IIRC, the newest parts are down to 1 clock per instruction which can be a 6 to 12 times speed increase over the original Intel 8051. Couple that with a max 40 MHz clock rate and you’ve quite the screamer 8051.The CD’s usually contain cracked (unlocked) copies of the Kiel development environment for both C and assembly language programming. You can also use the open source SDCC C compiler as it targets the 8051. Another great free tool is the “MCU 8051 IDE” as it has a simulator that you can step through code at the C or asm level. Very useful for learning or debugging.http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/http://mcu8051ide.sourceforge.net/introThe CD’s should also contain example projects for every hardware feature on the board. From the Dallas single wire temp sensors to the NRF24 series radios, there is a lot of things you can do with that board. It is good, low cost way to learn the basics of microprocessors.One nice feature of the STC parts is they have a resident bootloader that cannot be erased. You download your code into the parts with a TTL level serial port (FT232,CH340 or similar) and you’re off and running.A number of years ago, I wanted to learn the 8051 in depth to get up to speed on the Cypress USB chips which are 8051 core devices. I discovered the cheap Chinese digital LED clocks used the STC 8051 parts, that effort ended up creating this code base:https://github.com/aFewBits/stc-led-clockThe are a number of websites dedicated to the STC parts. Most are in Chinese but you can find good datasheets in English with a little effort. I did link to the ones I had in the GitHub repro, they appear to still be valid although they do go through bandwidth throttled servers so they can take a while to download. Save a local copy to save the pain of waiting.I still have a copy of the environment I used for the clock development on my machine, it runs in a Win XP VM under Parallels on my Mac. So, if you decide to peel the onion and have some fun and a few tears of frustration, I’ll do what I can to help you along.

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2021, 11:24:56 pm
content: 8051 stuff is ancient, but it still refuses to die.I've seen the STC variants on a bunch of electronics kits from Ali, (Such as 8*8*8 LED cube)Those 8051 chips with 40 pins also have a standardized pinout, so you can put many other uC's in that ZIF socket. (But there may be differences, such as maybe programming interface).Maybe you can even drop in an ATMEGA32.Personally I do not care much for those complicated development boards.I much prefer to have a minimal breakout board that fits on a breadboard, and then extend with the circuits I'm interested in myself.Do you have any idea what you want to do with a microcontroller?Diving into the ancient 8051 stuff just because you found a development board for it is not such a great idea. I would not start with such a board, and only touch microcontroller families I'm actually interested in.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2021, 12:02:53 am
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on July 16, 2021, 11:24:56 pmYes just do this. You have the schematic already:http://m.ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/14866564.htmlSo get rid of that STC and connect some jumpers from the arduino to use any of those peripherals.

author: Canis Dirus Leidy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2021, 01:07:40 am
content: Quote from: WattsThat on July 16, 2021, 04:25:15 pmWell,a modern 8051may have 600MHz clock (and this is not counting interesting peripherals, like a 1T 40-bit MAC or a JPEG decoder). Unfortunately, hobbyist can get these chips only as a part of "intellectual" LCD.