Verify firmware flashing ok

Software Dev
1

Hi,

To learn more about embedded development and electronics I’ve chosen my 40-year crisis to be brewpi developing/hacking.

So, what I have.

  • A breadboard
  • Some bits (SSRs, Resistors, 3xDS18B20)
  • A particle photon
  • A MacBook Pro

So what I’ve done:

  • Installed boost, dfutil, arm-none-gcc-eabi-49 via homebrew on mac.
  • Flashed a blink app to the particle photon
  • Compiled built and flashed release/0.5.0 to the particle photon
  • Relfashed with blink
  • Reflashed with brewpi firmware 0.50
  • Relfashed with blink

So it seem that I’m able to build firmware 0.5.0 without errors and flash it. And flash with the blink sample code.

My question is, how do I know that the brewpi firmware is successfully flashed?
When blink is flashed, the main led eventually goes green and I see the flash program starts running. With brewpi firmware 0.5.0 it’s “stuck” at white flashing led. Is that because I need to build more nubbins onto the breadboard before the brewpi firmware can progress somewhere in it’s boot? Or am I having a more fundamental problem in my procedure which I haven’t identified?
I’ve placed orders for the chips and bits that’s needed to build a rudimentary board. I’m just checking my toolchain atm and would like to rest easy that it’s working :slight_smile:

--------------- Mini bio:
I hope to eventually become a useful member to this community and able to contribute code. I’m mainly a java developer with 17 years of experience. And I’ve programmed in C and C++ earlier in my career and does so occasionally on hobby basis. I have a good grasp on Docker, but need to learn Python to become more usable to you. I could learn javascript and a HTML GUI framework… But I feel that my motivation for that is low :wink:

My day job is currently working in java, c# and integrating USB hardware via vendor APIs and make them available via WebSocket as JSON messages to our JEE backend with an Angular frontend client.

PS: Wanted to create this topic in Software Dev, but I don’t think I have access to do so

2

A bare photon cannot boot the BrewPi firmware, because it looks for the OneWire bus master chip at startup and cannot work without one. We don’t do bit-banged pin OneWire on the Photon because the bus master is more reliable. It also runs OneWire on 5V instead of 3.3V, helping with long distance reliability.

If you’re serious about contributing code, we should talk about getting you the real hardware instead of your breadboard setup. The board has a TAG-connect JTAG header for setup debugging too. And of course a touch screen and hardware for level conversion on all IO. The Photon runs on 3.3V, most SSRs are happier with 5V.

3

Thanks, then I’ll assume my tool chain is working.

About contributions, I’ve sent you a PM. I’m happy to contribute, let’s see where we can put me to the most use.

4

Ok, connecting the 1W bus master the brew pi booted.
https://imgur.com/9JCYybG

Now I’ll have to connect a sensor and get a docker instance up and running to see if it’s alive. This is fun and scary :stuck_out_tongue: