Pushing Arduino Further

Every programmer desires to surround themself with a familiar programming environment which allows smooth and efficient code development, without having to constantly struggle with the foibles of the tool chain.

About 15 months ago, when I first got started with the STM32 series of ARM microcontrollers, I found the CooCox CoIDE - a free/open IDE based on Eclipse and GCC. Within about a week, I had mastered the complexities of the STM32 peripherals sufficiently enough to allow me to blink a LED and print characters to a terminal. It was hard work, dealing with an unfamiliar environment, but once over the initial hurdles, my rate of progress increased significantly.

During that time, I thought that it would be a whole lot easier if these newer microcontrollers could be programmed within the familiar Arduino environment - and shortly I found the Leaf Labs Maple board, with their version of Arduino which ran on an STM32F103. Unfortunately they had abandoned developing this product further for Windows, which was a disappointment, for us mortals that have yet to discover the joys of Linux.

Last summer, I had a student intern join our company, and I quickly had him up to speed developing a product on the ATmega328 and coding using the Arduino IDE.  By September, he had sufficient experience of Arduino, that we progressed onto mbed so that he might develop a product based on the STM32F103.

The beauty of mbed is that it allows rapid progress, and when used with the very low cost STM Nucleo boards, within a few days we had a working prototype of a current and temperature monitoring system for a dc motor drive.

However, neither CooCox or mbed really have a Cinderella fit into the "Arduino Slipper", so it was to my delight that I learned about Bob Cousins and Roger Clark's work on Arduino_STM32.

Roger's Wiki describes the Arduino_STM32 project thus:

Arduino STM32 adds the ability to develop for STM32F103 based boards, including the Maple and Maple mini using the Arduino 1.6 IDE

There is also experimental support for STM32F3 and STM32F4, however code for both of these devices is in early stages of development / porting, and only the STM32F1 is close to full support for the Arduino 1.0 API (and mostly compliant with the Arduino 1.6.x API).

With Arduino_STM32, you now have the familiar Arduino development environment, but for a faster, more capable 32bit processor, which is available in a wide range of standard packages, with a choice of peripherals and on-chip resources to suit the application and budget.

I realise that Arduino have long since moved into 32bit ARM territory with their Due board - but do I really want to base my designs around a processor that costs £8.33 in 1 off.  Admittedly - as with all Arduino products, there are plenty of Chinese rip-offs of the Due board - starting at £8.00.

I really think that Arduino have backed the wrong horse with their Atmel ARM M3 offering, and will be losing out to STM32 based development boards such as STM's own Discovery Boards, and their Nucleo series of boards that work within the mbed environment.

It is however encouraging to see that talented code developers are pushing the envelope of Arduino, and making it available to a wider range of microcontrollers.

If you want a no-thrills, very low cost, breadboard friendly dev board for your next project - consider the likes of these STM32F103 based boards from China - yours for a couple of pounds.