9 years, 9 months ago.

Prototype to Hardware with Nucleo?

I've been looking around for a day or so, and I'm seeing a lot of examples for moving from a prototype to hardware with a NXP LPC1768. I've been using a STM Nucleo F103, and it doesn't seem like the procedure is the same. I can't find any documentation or examples on how to flash MBED code onto a custom board based on a Nucleo design.

The only thing I've been able to find is a brief mention of a 'cut off part' with a programmer in an answer to this question. http://mbed.org/questions/2765/Standalone-MCU-with-mbed/

How does this actually work? I can see some pin headers on this 'cut off part', but I'm not sure what I would need to put on my own PCB with an STM32 F103 to program my own standalone chip with this programmer from an existing nucleo.

Also, is there a reference design for any of the nucleo boards? Eagle/Altium files maybe? All I can find is gerber files on ST's website.

Thanks.

Once you make your own custom board, you can use the “ST-LINK” part of the Nucleo board to do your programming/debugging. This can be done by removing the two jumpers on CN2 (this disconnects the ST-LINK debugger connection to the target MCU on the Nucleo board) and then wiring up the relevant pins from CN4 to your custom board. You can see the specific connections in the section 5.2.4 of the user manual. http://www.st.com/st-web-ui/static/active/en/resource/technical/document/user_manual/DM00105823.pdf

posted by Mike Tomovich 18 Jun 2014

Altium files are supposedly in the schematic pack on their site. http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/LN1847/PF259875

posted by Mike Tomovich 18 Jun 2014

2 Answers

9 years, 5 months ago.

Hello Mike, I encounter the same problem as you. I'm looking for to use ST-LINK/V2-1 (on the nucleo board) to program a target controller so I remove the jumper on CN2 and wiring up the 3 SWD connector (NRST, SWDIO, SWDCLK) to my target controller which is powered by external DC. But did you drag and drop the binary inside the nucleo board just as before or an other way to download binary program ? If I remove jumper of CN2 connector I can not drop the binary inside the board (not enough space). What did you to program your MCU target with the nucleo ? Thanks

I'd recommend breaking the ST link portion of the Nucleo off to start. I thought I was programming my custom PCB a few times and somehow ended up just programming the Nucleo.

You need to wire the power and ground up to the SWD connector too. Unless the ST link senses 3.3V off your board it won't do anything. (That's what that pin is on the ST link header, it's not supplying 3.3V to your board, it's looking for it.) So it's a 5 pin programming header, not a 3 pin.

Yes, after getting things working, I was just doing a drag and drop to program my board. I had a lot of issues since I used an STM32 part with fewer pins than was on the Nucleo that I wasn't anticipating. There's a good record of those issues here: http://developer.mbed.org/forum/electronics/topic/5184/

posted by Mike Tomovich 29 Oct 2014

Thanks Mike for sharinG!

posted by Martin Kojtal 29 Oct 2014

Thanks a lot Mike

posted by sebastien videau 30 Oct 2014
9 years, 5 months ago.

btw, instead of dragdropping, you could use st-link utility for batch flashing and, whynot, set option bytes to some protection level. http://www.st.com/web/en/catalog/tools/PF258168