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Nucleo L152RE implemented features?

Topic last updated 05 May 2014, by Erik -. 1 reply
Darius Wilkinson
04 May 2014

Hi all,

I finally decided to make the move from Arduino to something more grown up by purchasing some Nucleo L152RE boards. I chose these as the price was good, I got three for the cost of one of the original boards and they were mbed compatible,

I've since discovered that not all mbeds were created equally but it's not made clear on the 'platforms' device pages what features are and aren't available for a given device.

So could someone let me know if these features are available on the L152RE:

  • LocalFileSystem,
  • USBHostMSD,
  • USBMidi,
  • EEPROM (The chip has 16k of EEPROM but I can't find any info about how to access it).

Also, should the libraries on the site be usable as is by a given device/MCU or do they need to be modified on a platform by platform basis.

And finally, can this board be powered by a battery source, eg 2xAA 3v.

Many thanks for any light you can shed on any of this.

Cheers,

The Cageybee

Erik -
05 May 2014

Bad news:

LocalFileSystem is only on the two original mbeds, none of the newer ones have it. Instead you can use for example an SD card, but also it is fairly easy to get a file system on a flash IC.

USBHostMSD is only on the LPC1768, only one with USBHost support.

USBMidi is on quite some targets, but not the Nucleo ones (I don't know if that will be coming, and if it is even possible). The Freescale ones got roughly same price range and pinout as the Nucleo ones and do support this.

Most mbed platforms have no EEPROM, which is why there is no standard interface for that.

Most libraries on the site just use the general mbed functions: They work on every device without issues. Some specifically address the hardware of a device, they only work on supported devices.

Battery wise 2AA might be too little, but in general those boards aren't designed to work on a battery: The issue is that it is filled with other components and voltage regulators which are not optimized for low power. Especially if you want really low power, you need to bring the device to a low power sleep mode. I don't know the Nucleo ones, but most others get to a few micro-Amps current consumption with deepsleep. Which is nice, but not when there are other components using milli-Amps. So generally you will need to use a custom PCB if you really want low consumption. (Although I don't own a Nucleo one, maybe you can get quite far by breaking away the programmer part for example).