STM32Cube

Do you own one of these? I suspect that some of you may be like me and still have one in a closet or box collecting dust. Please, don’t throw them away. They are still useful boards and if you’re willing to take a few minutes to setup a few tools you’ll see for yourself. Don’t let the name fool you, these devices are not exclusive to the .Net framework. The board contains a powerful 32-bit ARM MCU (micro controller unit) with a 25Mhz clock crystal pushing the internal speed of some components to 120Mhz. The MCU is a variant of the STM32F205 which has a lot of capabilities. The number of peripherals this chip supports is quite impressive. The Netduino 2 board boasts 22 GPIO pins, 6 PWM Channels, 4 UART ports, I2C, SPI and more. ...

If you have one of these in your toolbox you might’ve thought they were obsolete. Their .Net Microframework and tools are still around but unfortunately those projects have gone dormant and the toolchain for these boards may not even work on modern operating systems. However, this black clad board with it’s blue pins is not dead. It boasts a powerful 32-bit ARM® microcontroller running at 25Mhz that can run custom firmware and even work with Arduino. ...

The Netduino series of boards have been around for several decades and saw a limited level of success for the first decade or so. However, as a development ecosystem they haven’t stood the test of time. The original development toolchain has gone into abandonment and been archived. But as a hardware platform, they are a still great boards, especially the Netduino 2 and later, with fully supported mainstream processors. You might not be able to use .Net or C#, but with toolsets from Arduino and STMicroelectronics you can still create amazing things with these easy-to-use Arduino compatible boards. Don’t throw them away! The notes below describe how I rediscovered their usefulness, albeit with a different set of tools. ...