Custom board based on Pyboard

Discussion and questions about boards that can run MicroPython but don't have a dedicated forum.
Target audience: Everyone interested in running MicroPython on other hardware.
rickygee
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 6:27 am

Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by rickygee » Tue Mar 15, 2016 6:48 am

Saw article in Electronics magazine re micropython. At 67 wondered if it was worth the struggle, despite still being commercially active in developing micro projects using 8 bit AVR and BASCOM. So, did my own micropython board, copy of ver1.1, with added USB port (FT230X) on uart6, coin cell, thru hole USB connectors (I have ripped off SMD parts), slightly larger at 50x60mm. All my engineering apps are long time Windows, so VMwared Ubuntu, installed rshell, first experience using Linux, interesting. So now I am all go, just have to learn Python! Always wanted too, best way always seemed to be to have a project in mind. Thanks to the team who did all the work, great effort. I had to traverse a lot of posts and articles, scattered rather widely, to get things to where they are, has been a steep learning curve. I am encouraging a researcher locally to have a look at mP, he is a Python fan, and will give him one of my boards, once again, great work, cheers, Richard

Moderator note: original topic was titled "Getting there", but changed to reflect contents.

Damien
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Re: Getting there

Post by Damien » Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:19 am

rickygee wrote:So, did my own micropython board, copy of ver1.1, with added USB port (FT230X) on uart6, coin cell, thru hole USB connectors (I have ripped off SMD parts), slightly larger at 50x60mm.
Sounds like you had a lot of fun! Do you have pics of the board that you made? I'd be interested to see it!

rickygee
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 6:27 am

Re: Getting there

Post by rickygee » Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:19 am

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gow8rszydevmf ... w.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gdih02mysttrl ... w.jpg?dl=0
Moderator Note: I changed the img tags to url tags, since as img tags they were showing up as broken images.
Cheers,
Richard

Damien
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Posts: 647
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Re: Getting there

Post by Damien » Wed Mar 16, 2016 12:24 pm

Thanks Richard!

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Roberthh
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Location: Rhineland, Europe

Re: Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by Roberthh » Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:10 pm

Hello Richard,
that looks very professionally made.

rickygee
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 6:27 am

Re: Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by rickygee » Wed Mar 16, 2016 10:29 pm

I design and hand assemble boards like this regularly,
cheers,
Richard

HarryOz
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Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 6:02 am

Re: Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by HarryOz » Thu May 19, 2016 6:23 am

What is the process to do a custom board, I would like to spin up my own board aswell, however do not want to custom port the firmware. Is it possible to program a smaller sized STMicro?

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dhylands
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Re: Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by dhylands » Thu May 19, 2016 6:35 am

Well, you need to design the board.

And then you'll need all of the equipment to assemble the board once you get your PCB back.

And you'll need to create a board definition file (which is like the ones in stmhla/boards.

Here's a board based on the STM32F401 that my brother and I designed:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T8M9Qh5NHuQ/ ... 224238.jpg
http://blog.huv.com/2016/01/roz-power-board.html

HarryOz
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Re: Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by HarryOz » Thu May 19, 2016 12:40 pm

What did you use to program the micro? Can you shed some light on that?


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dhylands
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Re: Custom board based on Pyboard

Post by dhylands » Thu May 19, 2016 5:39 pm

The same way its done on the pyboard.

The STM32 series have builtin bootloaders. So if you expose a DFU capable USB connector (some of the chips have multiple USB ports and only support DFU on one).

There are also bootloaders for UART, I2C, CAN, and SPI as well. If none of those are available, you can expose the JTAG or SWD pins and use the SWD programmer that comes with any of the discovery or nucleo boards (or some other standalone programmer).

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