MultiWii

Well, I haven't seen it mentioned here yet so here it is... MatchboxArm... looks pro-mini style.

Lifted from the kickstarter page:

Small and powerfull development board for ARM Cortex-M3
Tiny Revolution
MatchboxARM fits a powerful 32-bit ARM chip, that runs at 72MHz and has 64Kb flash memory. It comes with pre-burned bootloader so you can start programming right away without needing any other tools. Everything in a tiny format to instantly improve your electronic projects. You develop software for it with open, cross-platform and easy-to-use tools. Everything about MatchboxARM is optimized to help you make things better.

What is MatchboxARM?
Is a tiny revolution in rapid electronics prototyping. It combines a powerful ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller on a tiny circuit board, allowing hobbyists and professionals alike to turn project ideas into reality faster and better than other microcontroller platforms.

Technical specifications
Board features:

72 MHz 32-bit ARM CPU with 64 Kbytes of flash memory, 20 Kbytes of SRAM
Clock, reset and supply management 2.0 to 3.6 V application supply and I/OsPOR, PDR, and programmable voltage detector (PVD)4-to-16 MHz crystal oscillatorInternal 8 MHz factory-trimmed RCInternal 40 kHz RCPLL for CPU clock32 kHz oscillator for RTC with calibration
Low powerSleep, Stop and Standby modes VBAT supply for RTC and backup registers
2 x 12-bit, 1 μs A/D converters (up to 16 channels)
7- DMA channel. Peripherals supported: timers, ADC, SPIs, I2Cs and USARTs
37 I/Os, all mappable on 16 external interrupt vectors and almost all 5 V-tolerant
Debug modeSerial wire debug (SWD) & JTAG interfaces
Three 16-bit timers, each with up to 4 IC/OC/PWM or pulse counter and quadrature (incremental) encoder input
16-bit, motor control PWM timer with deadtime generation and emergency stop
2 watchdog timers (Independent and Window)
SysTick timer 24-bit downcounter
2 x I2C interfaces (SMBus/PMBus)Up to
3 USARTs (ISO 7816 interface, LIN, IrDA capability, modem control)Up to
2 SPIs (18 Mbit/s)
CAN interface (2.0B Active)
USB 2.0 full-speed interface
CRC calculation unit, 96-bit unique ID

Libraries and Software

Because MatchboxARM uses a popular ARM chip, lots of existing code and libraries can be brought to the platform with ease. Also our team developed lots of examples to start with!

In the examples provided we cover all the peripherals of the microcontroller, as:

GPIO input/output
EXTI (external interrupts)
SysTick timer
PWM using timers
ADC read
internal flash memory read/write
communication over USART, SPI, I2C
USB mass storage and virtual COM port
watchdog
CRC calculation

Worth jumping on board?

It seems to be a STM32F1 based board, so nothing really different than something like this:
http://abusemark.com/store/index.php?ma ... ucts_id=40
Moreover the abusemark board is cheaper...

Still, bootloader functionality and IDE seems a bit easier to use.. whether it's worth 3 x Timecop's Abusemark STM32 Development board, might be a bit hopeful.

I would love to find such a tiny board with a STM32F4 on it... Until there's a naze32 board with such MCU

felixrising wrote:Still, bootloader functionality and IDE seems a bit easier to use.. whether it's worth 3 x Timecop's Abusemark STM32 Development board, might be a bit hopeful.

the showstopper is the flash size.
no need to discuss anything more.

F103C8 still has 128k of flash "unofficially" but that + ~8-12k stolen by (what I presume will be maple-ish bootloader) = zzz

Hello.

I want to tell you some more things the MatchboxARM.
The micro used is STM32F103C8T6, it has 72MHz, 64Kb Flash, 20Kb RAM, also on the same board can be used
the STM32F103CBT6 128Kb Flash!
The price of this micro is lower than any ATMEL or Freescale micros with the same speed/flash ammount.
The board works at 3.3V and has a 5V to 3.3V LDO.
Most of the pins are 5V enabled.
The bootloader helps updating the software in an easy maner.
We are oppened to help you porting the software to our board.
We just waiting to be near to our goal on the kickstarter project, and we will make a web page for the board.
We will publish free the Eagle files for the board, and the bootloader source. It's a must now to still keep these closed until
kickstarter project ends.

The board from abusemark page it's not easy to get, they are in Japan or someting. We are in England, in europe.

Best regards!

Bogdan from MatchboxARM team.

englishmen,
>The board from abusemark page it's not easy to get, they are in Japan or someting. We are in England, in europe.
you are living in an isolated Environment.
maybe the uk postal System has a Problem.

i am in the Center of europe and have no Problem getting boards.

the only Problem is the missing time getting better Software ...

Listen "brm" men, the Naze32 is 64 bucks. The MatchboxARM is only 22 bucks, and if you know the aliexpress site (coz you know better to buy things from China) you can get the MPU6050 for 4 bucks. So 22+4=26. The Naze32 can only be used for flying devices, not as a tool to learn programming. So you don't have any arguments. MatchboxARM it's way better.

Also we give software examples for most of the pheriperals. That one from abusemark came with ZERO examples. Also to programm abusemark board you need flash loader demonstrator tool from ST. The MatchboxARM doesn't need any software/ hardware. So, again the MatchboxARM it's way better.
If you need more info let me know.

Also before posting lies on the forum check the afrodevices and crius both with the same STM32F103C8T6 just like the MatchboxARM. Both have enough memory on 64k to have the multiwii port for arm working great.
Please stop telling lies.

You are really sounding like a dick right now, you come is as an outsider and try to belittle a product that has been proven on the market for a while. Not only are you trying to sell the product, you are doing it at the expense of the developer and creator.

Timecop sells the Acro Naze32 for less than $26, and the equivalent of your board for $11.

Lets hear the response now.

Hello "nedelcu bogdan".

I've been meaning to stay out of this discussion as my opinion would be obviously biased, but when you started getting a bit too defensive, I thought it would be a good time to step in.

So let's take a look at what you are offering with your (made in China I presume) but still expensive hardware.

> The micro used is STM32F103C8T6, it has 72MHz, 64Kb Flash, 20Kb RAM, also on the same board can be used
the STM32F103CBT6 128Kb Flash!

Yes, we know. 5 year old MCU with great set of peripherals that I still use in many (including commercial) projects/products.
By now, everyone who wanted to program for one of these either got a STM32-Discovery ($9.90) or similar cheap evalboard from ST and has used it.

> The price of this micro is lower than any ATMEL or Freescale micros with the same speed/flash ammount.
Everyone who hasn't been living under a Tarduino rock for the last decade has been aware of that, too.

> Most of the pins are 5V enabled.
Actually, about 3/4. Not most. And sending 5V to those that are not will instantly fry the MCU. Don't ask me how I know.

> The bootloader helps updating the software in an easy maner.
Bootloader on 64k device? How big is it? It has to be in multiple of flash pages, so let's say you wrote half the USB stack in assembly and its 4kbytes.

> We will publish free the Eagle files for the board, and the bootloader source. It's a must now to still keep these closed until
kickstarter project ends.

What does your bootloader do? DFU? ST publishes DFU bootloader sample source code. When I wanted to use it, it took about 5 minutes to get it running on a STM32F1 evalboard. Is it maple-like serial which listens to a certain pattern of bytes + modem control line that will require using your USB implementation in order to reboot it from userspace? Or maybe its something like mbed that shows up as USB-MSC masstorage and lets you "drag and drop" the firmware? In that case I kind of doubt you've got it fit int 4K of flash. Which brings me to the next point,

The main reason why I won't touch AVR or similar trash MCU is because of lack of on-chip debugging. Uploading code and debugging with printf is so fucking 2 decades ago. But you will say, AVR has JTAG and you can sorta debug over PDI and and and and AVR Dragon has some debugging capabilities or something like that, but then you'll notice how AVR Dragon takes 30 seconds to flash 256k device and you'll be like: NO THANKS. If it takes that long to program I don't wanna find out how shitslow the debugging is. Not to mention that JTAG pins aren't dedicated on AVR, so if you wanna debug a small-pin count package, better not use those for GPIO. And it requires full JTAG, so you're wasting like 5 or 6 pins for this shit. No thanks, again.

So, where does your board fit in this picture? It's a breakout for 48pin STM32F103CB. The same shit I have in my shop for $10, not for $63. Instead of wasting time w/developing some proprietary bootloader, I just use ROM-based STM32 USART bootloader that comes free w/any STM32 and threw in a USB>serial chip on the board for that purpose. Firmware for printf debugging can be loaded using ST's FlashLoader or stm32flash if you're a Lunix dweeb, etc. So, no flash is stolen for bootloader. But wait, there's more. On the bottom, there's actually SWD debug connector, which lets me hookup STLink or Jlink or BlackMagicProbe or any other SWD-compatible debugger and ACTUALLY DEBUG/STEP THROUGH THE CODE ON THE HARDWARE. I guess when your project does something more than blink a couple leds, you might find this feature kind of useful.

When I first saw your stuff on dickstarter, I pasted it on irc in the channels I hang out in and laughed.
"What a bunch of idiots, why the fuck are they selling a STM32F103C8 breakout for 22GBP." That was more or less exactly what I said. You're bringing absolutely no innovation to ARM development. Hardware is piss-easy to make. Breakoutboards even more so. Any idiot with a freetard copy of Eagle (that's because this is what all opensores dudes seem to use, completely ignoring the fact that its filthy commercial software) can make a breakout board for $MCUX in half a day, even if he has never done anything electronic in his entire life.

Then I saw you talk shit about teensy3 in dickstarter comments (which deserves a whole LOT of shittalking, but I'll save that for another rant). You know, unlike YOUR shit, teensy3 actually HAS a on-board debugger. Which your shitty board lacks. So given a choice between wanting to do serious development (that would most likely require onchip debugging) and your board and teensy, guess which one I would pick?

So here's my suggestion: Take your dickstarter and shove it somewhere. I hope you will fail (which you probably will), and meanwhile I'll be selling my hand-assembled $10 stm32 breakout boards that cost me more in assembly time (you know, which isn't worthless) than I have them in the shop for.

> The board from abusemark page it's not easy to get, they are in Japan or someting. We are in England, in europe.
Airmail (which costs like $4) from Japan to "England, Europe" arrives in 4 days.

> Also we give software examples for most of the pheriperals. That one from abusemark came with ZERO examples. Also to programm abusemark board you need flash loader demonstrator tool from ST. The MatchboxARM doesn't need any software/ hardware. So, again the MatchboxARM it's way better.

I'm not targeting my hardware at idiots. If you are incapable of reading datasheets, and want to use tarduino-like environment to code shit in, just stay with tarduino. Running same shit code on "72MHz" hardware isn't gonna change anything. So why bother. See my previous comments re: bootloader.

> Also before posting lies on the forum check the afrodevices and crius both with the same STM32F103C8T6 just like the MatchboxARM. Both have enough memory on 64k to have the multiwii port for arm working great.
Please stop telling lies.

C8T6 has 64K by FLASH_SIZE register but hardware actually has 128K usable. Also, please link me to "STM32-based Crius" because all I've seen them push out is tarduino garbage.

nedelcu bogdan wrote:Listen "brm" men, the Naze32 is 64 bucks. The MatchboxARM is only 22 bucks, and if you know the aliexpress site (coz you know better to buy things from China) you can get the MPU6050 for 4 bucks. So 22+4=26. The Naze32 can only be used for flying devices, not as a tool to learn programming. So you don't have any arguments. MatchboxARM it's way better.

I price my hardware exactly how I want to price it, because I am involved in every step of its production, instead of sending shit off to China and declaring victory. When you can price small-volume production at near cost, let me know, and I'll be sure to use you for next batch I'm making.
Also, it's not "$63 bucks". https://www.google.com/search?q=5500+JPY+to+USD
Or you can try "GBP" or your favorite currency.

> Best regards!
> Bogdan from MatchboxARM team.
It's nice that google will index this post quickly, and people searching for your shit will see how much of an asshole you are

Have fun failing.

Wow, you just got owned bruski.

"Told em how it is"

Timecop you worth less than many.
You are that kind that consider to be above all others. Shame on you.
How dare to name newcomers to ARM, idiots.
I don' t need wasting my time here, coz people will read this and see who you realy are. Maybe a good programmer, but very uneducated person.
Pass by and buy one of our boards, maybe you learn something about thrle greatness of the USB bootloader for the newcomers to ARM programming.

^^^^^ How can you trust a guy who doesn't know how to write basic english to make a good board hahaha

From an unemotional standpoint TC's argumentation is conclusive.

It is best to not read too much into statements from fanatic fanboys like user brm. I do look forward to see a broad range of higher specced boards to go beyond the current atmel scope. For me the aspect of open hardware possibly with multiple manufacturers as with arduino is a real plus. So please succeed and proceed.

Well, I see the clan is still united.

copterrichie wrote:Well, I see the clan is still united.

Yes, the channel is a single monolithic hive mind.
Dude, there are 70 people from all over the fucking place on any given day.
No time to plot stupid conspiracies. Too much interesting shit to talk about.
And not at a snail's pace like in this forum (which is unreachable a 1/4 of the time).

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Bumping this.

What do we have, in February 2014 (6 months after the project was "funded")

1) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/18 ... m/comments
Bunch of raged users who still haven't received their overpriced board. Excuse? "Do you know how long it takes to pack 225 envelopes". I do. I send that many in a week. It doesn't. Assuming you actually have something to SEND.

2) Since august, I sold probably ~20 of my $10 boards which are practically equivalent of this matchboxarm shit minus retarded stuff. Here -> http://abusemark.com/store/index.php?ma ... ucts_id=40

3) STM32 bootloader from https://github.com/MBARM/MatchboxARM/tr ... tloader_MD is probably just copypaste from mbed. Didn't bother confirming.

Just an FYI, found this one up on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141185870481?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

STM32F103 DIP40 - These is an easy-to-use module for embedded development, built on the basis of modern ARM Cortex-M3 Microcontroller STM32F103C8T6. The microcontroller has high performance and can operate at up to 72Mhz. The controller has a 64 KB of internal Flash memory and can be powered directly from the USB. STM32F103C8 also has a very rich periphery: USB, SPI, I2C, DMA, USART, ADC, etc.

Here's a matchboxarm killer - http://www.st.com/web/en/catalog/tools/ ... 532/LN1847
Retails for ~$11, has a choice of F103 or F401 processors (has 2 others, but they're not relevant), and also features upgrade-by-usb mbed-style BUT also has a proper ST_Link debugger onboard.

oh.. did i mention it's actually in stock and available for shipping from mouser and farnell (and maybe others??)