<https://travis-ci.com/MCUdude/MiniCore https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=412070.0>
Boboduino Uno R3 is a microcontroller board that is compatible with the
popular Arduino Uno R3 board. It is a versatile and feature-packed board that
allow makers and developers to easily create and program various electronic
projects. The board has multiple power input options, including a Type-C USB connector, a 5V JST port, or a 3.7V lithium battery connector, and features
a 5V/3.3V power source switch, giving users more flexibility in their design.
By adapting the Atmega 328PB chip, the board also comes with extra IIC,
serial, and SPI ports, allowing users to connect more devices and sensors.
Boboduino has a unique and playful robot layout, making it a great gift idea for
makers and tech enthusiasts.
** Ignore the advance part if you just want to simply install the core for microcontroller learning** * System requirement * How to install - Boards Manager Installation (Arduino IDE) - Manual Installation (Arduino IDE) - PlatformIO IDE * Bootloader fuse settings(advanced) * Clock * BOD option * EEPROM * Compiler LTO * [Variant] * Bootloader * Advance functions * Printf support * Pin macros * Flash writing supports * Programmers
This installation method requires Arduino IDE version v1.8.13+ or greater. * Open the Arduino IDE. * Open the File > Preferences menu item. * Enter the following URL in Additional Boards Manager URLs:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/boboduino/Boboduino_MiniCore/master/third-party%20board/package_boboduino_com_index.json
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Open the Tools > Board > Boards Manager... menu item.
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Wait for the platform indexes to finish downloading.
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Scroll down until you see the Boboduino entry and click on it.
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Click Install.
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After installation is complete close the Boards Manager window.
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Note: If you plan to use the *PB series, you need the latest version of the Arduino toolchain. This toolchain is available through IDE 1.8.6 or newer. Here's how you install/enable the toolchain:
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Open the Tools > Board > Boards Manager... menu item.
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Wait for the platform indexes to finish downloading.
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The top is named Arduino AVR boards. Click on this item.
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Make sure the latest version is installed and selected
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Close the Boards Manager window.
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Download the core file of BOBODUINO_MiniCore_2.2.2.zip.
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Exctract the ZIP file, and move the extracted folder to the location:
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Windows:
"~/Documents/Arduino/hardware". Create the "hardware" folder if it doesn't exist. -
Mac:
"/Users/cheney/Library/Arduino15/packages"
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Open Arduino IDE, and a new category in the boards menu called
"Boboduino AVR boards"will show up.
you can upload your code in two ways:
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Connect a USB to serial adapter to the microcontroller
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Select the correct
serial port deviceunder the Tools>Port menu, and click the Upload button. -
If you're getting some kind of timeout error, it may be because:
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RX and TX pins are swapped,
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The auto reset circuity isn't working properly (Check if the Auto-reset JP3 solder jumper at the back of the board has been solder and connected).
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You can burning sketches to the Arduino board with an external programmer.
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This method bypass the bootloader, which can saving program space on the chip.
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Use the option Sketch > Upload Using Programmer, this will erase the bootloader and upload your code using the programmer tool.
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Further reading: Burning sketches to the Arduino board with an external programmer.
Your code should now be running on your microcontroller! If you experience any issues related to bootloader burning or serial uploading, please use this forum post or create an issue on Github.
The Boboduino MiniCore bootloader has DEFAULTLY been written to your board. However, if you want to re-write the booloader, here's a quick guide you can follow.
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Connect your Boboduino Uno R3 microcontroller board with the Arduino as ISP uploader or other ICSP uploading board.
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Open the Tools > Board menu item, and select
"Boboduino AVR boards"and""Boboduino Uno R3".
You can adjust the fuse setting from the drop-down menu of [Tool] in yor
Arduino IDE. * [Clock]: The clock frequency which the McU is running at. 16
MHz is standard on Boboduino and most of official Arduino boards.
[Clock] * [BOD]: Brown out detection
voltage, the voltage that microcontroller will shut down at.
(BOD). * [EEPROM]: Wheather to remove the data store in the
EEPROM or not. Choose EEPROM not retained when you want to cleanup the
EEPROM after upload the bootloader. [[EEPROM]] * [Compiler LTO]: Wheather to
use the link time opertimization(LTO). LTO optimizes the code at link time,
making the code (often) significantly smaller without making it "slower".
[[LTO]] * [Variants]: Which microcontroller chip you're using. Boboduino Uno
R3 adapt the ATmega 328PB chip.[[Variants]] * **[Bootloader]**: Which
UART(UART0 or UART1) port you want to use to uplaod the code. [[Bootloader]]
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Select the programmer: The programmer is the device that you can use to write the bootloader to your board. Select which programmer you're using under the
[Programmers]menu.(For example if you use the Arduino as ISP then just select it!) -
Burn Bootloader: Hit
[Burn Bootloader]. If an LED is connected to pin PB5 (Arduino pin 13), it should flash twice every second. The modified fuse setting will be written to the burnt bootloader. ---
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Arudino Uno R3 adapt the ATmega 328P chip, where Boboduino Uno R3 mount the slightly advance ATmega328PB chip as the default processer, which is fully compatible with the official Arduino Uno R3 but with some more useful functions.
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The official MiniCore support lots of ATmega chips. However, we slimmed the function of this part beacuse Boboduino can only use the ATmega 328 series chip.
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Hence, You can only see the option of ATmega 328PB chip in the menu of
[Variants].
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Chip replacement: For advance user, this 328PB chip can also be replaced with other 328 series chip with 32-TQFP package. To replace the chip, you will need a hot plate or hot gun, soldering paste, and good skill. :-)
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Bootloader core modificaion: After you replace the chip, you can remove the comment of
328.menu.variantin the board.txt file of Boboduino MiniCore and restart the Arduino IDE. The option of other 328 chip will now be seen in the pull-down menu of Tool>variant.
This board adpot the 16 MHz external crystal oscillator. Which is the same as the Arduino Uno R3. The original MiniCore botloader supports a variety of different clock frequencies. However, we intended to restricted it to support only 16 MHz external crystal oscillator to avoid confusion of the options for the beginner.
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You can replace(or remove) the external crystal oscillator with other frequency with the hot plate or hot gun.
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The option of selection other frequency can be turn on by remove the comment of 328.menu.clock in the file of board.txt.
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After you remove the commant and restart the Arduino IDE, you can see the option of other frequency at the pull-down menu of Tool>Clock.
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Select the target frequncy after you have replaced(or removed) the external clock.
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You'll have to hit "Burn bootloader" in order to set the correct fuses and upload the new bootloader.
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Make sure you connect an ISP programmer, and select the correct one in the "Programmers" menu. For time critical operations an external crystal/oscillator is recommended.
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You might experience upload issues when using the internal oscillator. It's factory calibrated but may be a little "off" depending on the calibration, ambient temperature and operating voltage. If uploading failes while using the 8 MHz internal oscillator you have these options:
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Edit the baudrate line in the boards.txt file, and choose either 115200, 57600, 38400 or 19200 baud.
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Upload the code using a programmer (USBasp, USBtinyISP etc.)
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Use the 4, 2 or 1 MHz option instead
| Frequency | Oscillator type | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 16 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Default clock on most AVR based Arduino boards and MiniCore |
| 20 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | |
| 18.4320 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Great clock for UART communication with no error |
| 14.7456 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Great clock for UART communication with no error |
| 12 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Useful when working with USB 1.1 |
| 11.0592 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Great clock for UART communication with no error |
| 8 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Common clock when working with 3.3V |
| 7.3728 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Great clock for UART communication with no error |
| 4 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | |
| 3.6864 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Great clock for UART communication with no error |
| 2 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | |
| 1.8432 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | Great clock for UART communication with no error |
| 1 MHz | External crystal/oscillator | |
| 8 MHz | Internal oscillator | Might cause UART upload issues. See comment above this table |
| 4 MHz | Internal oscillator | Derived from the 8 MHz internal oscillator |
| 2 MHz | Internal oscillator | Derived from the 8 MHz internal oscillator |
| 1 MHz | Internal oscillator | Derived from the 8 MHz internal oscillator |
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Boboduino Uno board support upload the code with
UART0with the default setting(Which is the same as the offical Arduino Uno R3). ### Erase the bootloader[advnced] -
If your application doesn't need or require a bootloader for uploading code you can also choose to disable this by selecting No bootloader. This frees 512 bytes of flash memory.
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Unlike official Arduino AVR boards, the bootloader isn't automatically removed when you upload using a programmer. You'll have to select No bootloader hit "upload" or the "burn bootloader" for this to happen.
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328PB chip has two UART port,
UART0,UART1. -
UART0is the default port for this board(Which is the same as the official Arduino Uno R3). -
To turn on the UART1 code uploading function, you can remove the comment of
328.menu.bootloader.uart1in the board.txt file. -
You can find the option to select UART1 in the drop-down menu of Tool>Bootloader after you restart the Arduino IDE.
Note that you have need to connect a programmer and hit Burn bootloader if you
want to change any of the Upload port settings.
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**Brown out detection**, or BOD for short lets the microcontroller sense the input voltage and shut down if the voltage goes below the brown out setting. -
Like the official Arduino Uno R3, the default setting of brown out detection voltage has to be set to
**2.7v**. -
To change the BOD settings you'll have to connect an ISP programmer and hit "Burn bootloader". Below is a table that shows the available BOD options:
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4.3V
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2.7V(default)
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1.8V
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Disabled
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If you want the EEPROM to be erased every time you burn the bootloader or upload using a programmer, you can turn off this option.
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You'll have to connect an ISP programmer and hit "Burn bootloader" to enable or disable EEPROM retain. Note that when uploading using a bootloader, the EEPROM will always be retained.
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After Arduino IDE 1.6.11 where released, There have been support for link time optimization or LTO for short.
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The LTO optimizes the code at link time, making the code (often) significantly smaller without making it "slower".
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In Arduino IDE 1.6.11 and newer LTO is enabled by default.
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I've chosen to disable this by default to make sure the core keep its backwards compatibility.
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Enabling LTO in IDE 1.6.10 or older will return an error.
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I encourage you to try the new LTO option and see how much smaller your code gets! Note that you don't need to hit "Burn Bootloader" in order to enable LTO. Simply enable it in the "Tools" menu, and your code is ready for compilation.
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If you want to read more about LTO and GCC flags in general, head over to the GNU GCC website!
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Unlike the official Arduino cores, MiniCore has printf support out of the box.
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If you're not familiar with printf you should probably read this first. It's added to the Print class and will work with all libraries that inherit Print.
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Printf is a standard C function that lets you format text much easier than using Arduino's built-in print and println. Note that this implementation of printf will NOT print floats or doubles.
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This is a limitation of the avr-libc printf implementation on AVR microcontrollers, and nothing I can easily fix.
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If you're using a serial port, simply use
Serial.printf("Milliseconds since start: %ld\n", millis());. You can also us 7732 e theF()macro if you need to store the string in flash. Other libraries that inherit the Print class (and thus supports printf) are the LiquidCrystal LCD library and the U8G2 graphical LCD library.
Besides using the Arduino pre-defined digital pin numbers to refer to the pins,
tou can also use some predefined macros that maps "Arduino pins" to the port
and port number:
// Use PIN_PB5 macro to refer to pin PB5 (Arduino pin 13)
digitalWrite(PIN_PB5, HIGH);
// Results in the exact same compiled code
digitalWrite(13, HIGH);-
Boboduino MiniCore uses Optiboot Flash, a bootloader that supports flash writing within the running application, thanks to the work of @majekw.
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This means that content from e.g. a sensor can be stored in the flash memory directly without the need of external memory.
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Flash memory is much faster than EEPROM, and can handle at least 10,000 write cycles before wear becomes an issue. *For more information on how it works and how you can use this in you own application, check out the Serial_read_write for a simple proof-of-concept demo, and Flash_put_get
- Flash_iterate for useful examples on how you can store strings, structs and variables to flash and retrieve then afterwards. The Read_write_without_buffer example demonstrate how you can read and write to the flash memory on a lower level without using a RAM buffer.
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The official MiniCore adds its own copies of all the standard programmers to the "Programmer" menu. Just select one of the programmer in the "Programmers" menu, and you're ready to "Burn Bootloader" or "Upload Using Programmer".
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To upload the bootloader, after youelect your microcontroller in the
[boards]menu, then select the clock frequency. You'll have to hit "Burn bootloader" in order to set the correct fuses and upload the correct bootloader. -
Make sure you connect an ISP programmer, and select the correct one in the "Programmers" menu. For time critical operations an external oscillator is recommended.
- As I konw, most of user use Arduino IDE and Platform IO for most of their job. However, if you're into "generic" AVR programming, I'm happy to tell you that all relevant keywords are being highlighted by the IDE through a separate keywords file. Make sure to test the example files (File > Examples > AVR C code examples). Try writing a register name, DDRB for instance, and see for yourself!