Happy Monday folks! On Friday we announced the winners of the ST Nucleo boards! Congrats to all of the winners =). This week we have another great prototyping board brought to you by NXP: the LPC1768! You should understand why I find this board so exciting: I have had a box of the mbed Application boards on my desk for about a month now that I haven't been able to try due to a lack of LPC1768's. When you get to the review you'll see why it was so sad to stare at these boards without being able to use them. When I was finally bequeathed the LPC1768 I got to try them out together and they were so much fun as a package deal that this week's board giveaway is ONE LPC1768 with an application board!
How do you get your hands on this combo?* Comment below (here in the Connected Community) with how you would use this board for a chance to win! The winners will be announced by noon on Friday, March 20, 2015.
Image courtesy of Adafruit.com
Hardware
From a design aspect I have needed to take the physical size of the board into account, what voltage supply/ battery pack to purchase, the number of break out pins available for sensors, price and available documentation. These aspects have therefore been noted in case they are important to anyone else’s design.
- Physical dimensions (width x length)
- Combined: 7cmx11cm
- CPU specs: Performance, Memory, Power
- Input voltage: 5V, 4.5-9V
- Operating voltage: 5V
- Flash memory: 512 KB Flash
- RAM: 64 KB of SRAM
- Clock speed: 96-100MHz
- I/O specs:
- LPC1768 (standalone)
- 40 pin DIP
- 1 x Ethernet
- 1 x USB OTG
- 2 x SPI
- 2 x I2C
- 3 x UART
- 1 x CAN
- 26 x GPIO
- 6 x PWM
- 6 x ADC
- LPC1768 (standalone)
- mbed Application board
- 128x32 Graphics LCD
- 5 way joystick
- 2 x Potentiometers
- 3.5mm Audio jack (Analog Out)
- 3.5mm Audio jack (Analog In)
- 1.3mm DC Jack input
- Speaker, PWM Connected
- 3 Axis +/1 1.5g Accelerometer
- 2 x Servo motor headers
- RGB LED (PWM connected)
- USB-mini-B Connector
- USB-A Connector
- Temperature sensor
- Socket for for Xbee (Zigbee) or RN-XV (Wifi)
- RJ45 Ethernet connector
Courtesy of developer.mbed.org
- Documentation quality
- http://www.nxp.com/documents/data_sheet/LPC1768_66_65_64.pdf
- Data Sheet
- http://www.nxp.com/documents/user_manual/UM10360.pdf
- User Manual
- mbed LPC1768 | mbed
- mbed platform breakdown
- http://developer.mbed.org/components/mbed-Application-Board/
- mbed Application Board breakdown
- http://www.rowleydownload.co.uk/arm/packages/index.htm?http://www.rowleydownload.co.uk/arm/packages/mbed_NXP_LPC1768.htm
- support for Keil
- http://www.nxp.com/documents/data_sheet/LPC1768_66_65_64.pdf
- Price:
- What additional hardware do you need to purchase?
- RN-XV WiFly https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10822
- Xbee Zigbee https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10416
Software
The benchmarking for software was determined by the available IDEs, native languages, time to get started and the like.
- Tutorials (YouTube, main page, etc)
- Time to get Hello World program working
- Like always this depends on the IDE but both of these pieces are fully supported on mbed with example code to make bringing up each of the peripherals easy and flipping-the-table-over free, leaving time for cooler things. If you need help with Getting Started with mbed, follow the link!
- Languages
- C
- C++
- Programming Environments
- mbed
- IAR™
- Keil® MDK Version 5
- LPCXpresso
- GCC-based IDEs including Eclipse
Projects & Community
Whenever you take on a new project it is always nice to see what other people have done. Therefore the last section is dedicated to the resources already available.
- What communities does it have already?
- mbed Application Board Hands-On Demos | mbed
- mbed demos
- mbed application board - Cookbook | mbed
- mbed Cookbook
- Stack Overflow
- Stack Overflow Help
- mbed Application Board Hands-On Demos | mbed
- What cool projects are out there already
- Snake game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrKhOu3JGOM
- Boombox - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZgEF68woeM
- RS Components IoT application - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb1Oo3MX5-0
- Tone generator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZhE8I5jeZs
Opinion time:
What I appreciate about the LPC1768 and application board
First off I have used NXP's technology before and I love their documentation. The resources for this board are extensive and very useful when you are getting started, writing a driver, or when you are stuck in general. The application board adds a wide variety of peripherals that are great for prototyping different inputs all in a very compact space. On top of all this there is plenty of example code out there to get started with the board immediately. I could see this board as a teaching tool for those getting their feet wet with embedded programming and as a fast way to develop a proof of concept.
*Please be aware that if there is an export restriction you may not be eligible to receive the board. Please PM if you have any questions or concerns.
Warning on biases: I am a senior Computer Engineering student with a background in embedded systems. I have worked with a variety of ARM-based boards for projects over the years. I acknowledge that I have my own set of preferences based off of what has worked well in the past but I have tried to be as impartial as possible since not everyone has the same project goals.I am an intern at ARM but these opinions are my own. The donations aren't going to change my opinions- I don't get to personally keep them after the review. Instead they will be here at the ARM office in case any of our awesome Community members has a question that requires more than a dive into the schematics =). Finally, if you have had a different experience I welcome your feedback!
