ARM Cortex microcontrollers are incredibly powerful 32-bit computers - many not larger than the size of a fingernail, and able to sleep with just a few µA of current draw. There’s a whole bunch of cheap little boards on eBay so you don’t even have to get your soldering iron to have a lot of fun with ‘em:
But there’s a catch: you also need a way to connect to them, and you need the proper toolchain to write code for them and upload it into the chips. This week’s article series is about overcoming all these pesky hurdles:
- Let’s start with the Blue Pill - Wed
- USB serial is a good way to go - Thu
- We need a toolchain and library - Fri
- LED blinks and serial echoes - Sat
- Hooking up an RFM69 radio - Sun
- Fancy serial with a SerPlus - Mon
Next week, I’ll re-use these boards and do something different with ‘em - stay tuned!