Support for generic STM32F103C8T6 boards (Blue Pill)
Jarek Zgoda.
3
replies
bluepill,
mbed,
stm32,
STM32F1,
stm32f103c8
Why the effort at all?
It's true these generic boards are cheap (less than $2 incl. shipping on Chinese trading portals), but aren't branded boards cheap enough? One can get original NUCLEO board for $15 and this is great price. But these are pure development boards. Had you ever need for something quick and cheap, you usually get something like Arduino Nano or Mini, assemble wiring, write short program and be done in one afternoon within reasonable budget. The cost of NUCLEO board would double or even triple the price of your project and there is the place for cheap generic board. That's why I want these boards to be supported by mbed framework. There is cheap hardware, there is enabler framework, let's make this tick together. I believe this can be really slick Arduino competition. Not to say the boards are better, but ARM Cortex is industry standard, it is widely supported in industrial applications, and mbed framework does not isolate developer from C/C++ that much - basically you write in plain standard language. These cheap boards would be great for education and as an entry into the industry.
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Support for generic STM32F103C8T6 boards (Blue Pill)
My effort to get generic STM32F103C8 boards into mbed framework
bluepill, mbed, stm32, STM32F1, stm32f103c8
Page owner: Jarek Zgoda
Created 15 Jun 2016.
Last updated 15 Jun 2016
Hello Jarek,
I fully agree with you that this board has the potential to successfully compete with the Arduino platform and make mbed even more popular among beginners, students and hobbyists. Not just because of its low cost but also because its ARM Cortex-M3 @72MHz MCU clearly outperforms similar Arduino boards. Not surprisingly, this has been already recognized also by Arduino community and there is already an Arduino support for the STM32F103C8T6 boards. Of course mbed is a much better choice for unlashing the full potential of these boards. The affordable STM32F103C8T6 boards are certainly the best choice for experimenting with any kind of networking (I2C, CAN, Ethernet, Serial, wireless ...) when more nodes are to be connected to each other. Moreover, the board is also equipped with an on-board USB (full-speed) connector making it ideal for small USB enabled projects. So, yes it would be great to have a full mbed on-line support. In the mean time I've put together some info and an example demonstrating how to use the STM32F103C8T6 boards with the mbed on-line compiler even todays.