There are custom firmwares available for Hoverboards sideboards.
The challenge is that there is a separate firmware for different chip brand/families using different drivers (SPL for GD32F130C8/C6 or STM32 Hal for STM32F103C8/C6 and GD32F103C8/C6).
This duplicates the effort for any enhancement.
This firmware is a tentative to unify the code, using the Arduino platform on Platformio thanks to projects like STM32duino and CommunityGD32Cores.
- Being able to run the same firmware on most of the sideboards, and potentially on Arduino boards/ESP8288/ESP32 with small changes
- Arduino code would make this firmware more inclusive for contributions, and would leverage a bigger community
- Many available librairies that can help extend the support of new IMUs,sensors,encoders,displays,....
- Possibility to later extend this firmware with SimpleFOC motor control for splitboards ( Can be GD32F130C8/C6, STM32F103C8/C6, GD32F103C8/C6, GD32F130K6, GD32E230K6 )
SEGGER RTT let's you debug without the need for an USART to USB bridge. It uses the STLINK and the programming pins. Only downside is that you need to make sure you stop the rtt connection before flashing.
This video shows how to use it for monitoring in Platformio.
I aim with this firmware to support more IMUs by only retrieving raw data and doing the angle calculation on the MCU, so no DMP features will be supported. This should be enough for balancing use cases.
I also would like to implement a test mode to identify the IMU like this project does as the writing on the chip is not always accurate.
I am only using Platformio, I cannot support other IDEs.
- Install Vscode
- Install Platformio from the website or from VSCODE's extensions
- Download the project or use git to clone this repository in VSCODE
- Select the environment that matches with your chip in platformio's bottom bar (For GD32F108C8 and STM32FEBK chips, STM32F103 should work)
- Unlock the chip
- Press the 'PlatformIO:Upload' button (bottom left in vscode) to build and upload the firmwware
This is a very early development so it requires more testing and documentation.
| STM32F103C8 | GD32F130C6 | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leds | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Sensors | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Segger RTT debug | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Usart command send | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Usart feedback receive | ✔️ | Stops after a few seconds (issue) | |
| 433mhz remote | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| MPU6050 raw data | ✔️ | ||
| MPU6050A raw data | Different WHOAMI | ||
| MPU6050C raw data | ✔️ | ||
| MPU6052C raw data | ❌ | ❌ | Requires I2C single byte |
| ICM-20X raw data | Try this | ||
| Pitch/Roll angle calculation | Use this? | ||
| SimpleFOC trapezoidal | Needs Pwm/timers to work | ||
| SimpleFOC Sinusoidal | Needs sensor smoothing | ||
| SimpleFOC FOC | Needs 2 shunt current sensing to work |