[ESK32-360 Review] Experience of using ESK32-360

littleshrimp

[ESK32-360 Review] Experience of using ESK32-360 [Copy link]

 

The ESK32-360 development board is a development board for the HT32F1654 microcontroller launched by Holtek Semiconductor. Holtek Semiconductor is a semiconductor company under Holtek Semiconductor of Taiwan, mainly engaged in microcontrollers and peripheral components, with its headquarters located in Dongguan, Guangdong.

This board is in the EEWORLD forum review section https://bbs.eeworld.com.cn/elecplay/content/135

You can apply for it for free in the forum. You can see that the forum has a total of 5 boards available for trial, and 11 people have applied. The chance of getting the board seems to be around 45%. However, I think that if you write the review plan seriously, make the content as rich as possible, and post more often in the forum, the chance of getting the board seems to be over 99%, hahahaha.

The HT32F165 is a 32-bit high performance, low power MCU based on the ARM CortexTM-M3 processor core. It has a main frequency of 72MHz, 256KB of FLASH and 32KB of RAM, and integrates peripheral interfaces such as ADC, I2C, USART, UART, SPI, I2S, PDMA, GPTM, MCTM, SCI, EBI, CRC-16/32, USB2.0 FS, etc.

From the silk screen on the development board, we can see that the production date of this board is November 25, 2014, which is almost 6 years ago. In order to protect the LCD screen from being damaged during transportation, a piece of foam is placed above and below the screen, and a rubber band is also put on the top. When I received the board, the rubber band had aged and broken, but this did not affect the normal use of the development board. Although this board has been stored for nearly 6 years, it may be because it has been sealed in an anti-static bag. I felt a bit of a strong smell after unpacking it. Because of the long-term rhinitis, the moment I took out the board, I felt that my nose was even more stuffy. Then I put this board on the balcony for many days. Once it rained and the box was soaked.

This board integrates LCD, audio output interface, USB interface, DB9 serial port, SD card and DC5V power supply, etc. Unfortunately, there is no integrated emulator on this board, but 20-pin and 10-pin JTAG interfaces are reserved. In order to debug this board, I had to buy a JLINK V9 emulator. I used to have a JLINK V8, but I don’t know where it went because it was often locked. Now almost all development boards come with emulators, so I have never bought one. Sometimes I use the onboard emulator leads of other development boards to debug the boards I draw. Because the JLINK emulator I bought can directly provide power, it is quite convenient to light up and debug by just plugging the cable directly into the development board. I have no problems in this regard.

Here is a photo of the board:

Front of the development board

Back of the development board

Packaging Box

The review activity page provides information about this development board, including the firmware library, but I am used to going to the official website to see if there is an updated version. The model number that can be found on the development board is HT32F165 Development Board. I searched for HT32F165 on the official website but couldn’t find this development board. Later, I entered the model number ESK32-360 on the activity page and found it. This model number is on the packaging box. I think it would be better if the model number of this board was printed on the development board, because the packaging box is easy to lose. If you want to play with this board again a few years later and forget the model number, it will be difficult to find information.

After decompressing the downloaded firmware library, you can see the directory below. Open the example directory and you can see many examples. When you find the corresponding example, you will find that there is no corresponding IDE project file. This is because the example of this firmware library is generated by the "_CreateProject.bat" batch file. Double-clicking "_CreateProject.bat" will pop up a mission prompt window, and then there will be many folders corresponding to the IDE under the corresponding folder.

Firmware library directory

The entire process under the Example directory

Corresponding files in the routine directory

After running the "_CreateProject.bat" batch process, multiple folders corresponding to the IDE are generated

Taking IAR V8 as an example, when you open the EWARMv8 folder, you will find that there are many project files, such as Project_1654.eww and Project_1656.eww, etc. This is because this firmware library can be compatible with multiple MCU models at the same time. For example, the MCU model on the ESK32-360 development board is HT32F1654. We only need to open the Project_1654.eww project, and other projects can be deleted if they are not needed.

IAR project created by "_CreateProject.bat"

Taking the LCD process as an example, open the example\EBI\LCD\EWARMv8\Project_1654.eww project and you can see that the code design is very concise and easy to understand. You only need to make simple modifications to the code to make the LCD output the desired content.

Modify the LCD display code

LCD output content after modification

To sum up, the firmware library of this development board is well designed. You can understand and use the routines in it in a very short time without watching the tutorial. There are no problems with compiling and downloading directories. It is also very convenient to modify the code. Some first-line manufacturers have to spend a lot of time researching routine compilation and downloading. The ESK32-360 library can be completed smoothly. I think this is the most important thing in a development board. No matter how good the hardware design is, it is useless if the software is not up to par. In addition, this development board also has some areas that need improvement, such as adding an onboard debugger to facilitate debugging, canceling the DB9 serial port and using a virtual serial port, using multi-layer boards and other methods to reduce the size of the development board, using environmentally friendly materials to reduce unpleasant odors, etc. Because this development board was designed in the early stage, these problems may have been solved in the new board.

xinliby

This board is big enough