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Firmware

To operate the robot arm, you need both high-level software running on your PC and low-level firmware running on the REF board and motor control boards.

Prerequisites

The microcontroller on the REF board is STM32F405RGT6, and the counterpart on the Motor control board is STM32F103CBT6. To upload code, you need to use an STlink and connect it to the dedicated CLK, SWDIO, and GND pins.

drawing

You also need to solder these three pinouts to a SH 1.0 3P connector like this:

drawing

Required Software

You'll need one of the following software options:

  • Clion with STM32 build environment
    • Detailed setup tutorial can be found here
  • STM32CubeProgrammer

Here are a few things you need to know if you choose Clion

  • The compiler need to be: arm-none-eabi-gcc-9-2019-q4-major-win32
  • Recommended STM32CubeMX version is 6.5.0; choosing a higher version may lead to errors.

Codes for the boards

REF

Motor-42 and Motor-20 control board

Uploading

Clion

In Clion, you can directly press the "hammer" to compile and then press "run" to upload the firmware through STlink to the REF board.

drawing

STM32CubeProgrammer

In STM32CubeProgrammer, follow these steps:

  • Connect to the chip.

drawing

  • Open the hex file and upload it to the REF board.

drawing

And you should be ready to go!