Sunday, January 25, 2015

atmega32M1 / atmega64M1 and the Arduino IDE


This series of blog entries will document the enhancements of the arduino IDE to support the ATmega32M1 and ATmega64m1 uC.   Make sure to follow this link to see all the changes and enhancements:
http://smartmppt.blogspot.com/search/label/xxM1-IDE



I selected the atmegaxxM1 uC for this solar MPPT controller for three reasons:
  1. An very nice PSC (Power Stage Controller) module that can do tightly locked driving for the H-bridges - much more advanced then the standard PWM modules in say the atmega328p
  2. Built in CAN controller
  3. High degree of robustness as it was designed primary for automotive applications.
  4. Being part of the atmega line of uC's, it is a close cousin to the atmega328p as used on the Arduino UNO
This last point is attractive as it could allow one to use the Arduino IDE to program the smartMPPT controller.  Only problem is - the atmega32/64M1 uC is not currently supported by Arduino.  Compounding this is that the serial port is a bit different - rather then a 'standard' UART it has a serial controller which can assist with UART functions, but also provide support for another type of bus used in automobile applications, the LIN bus.

All of this means  - one can not just plug things in and it will work.  Google turned up a few folks who looked into this, the one making perhaps the most progress was: http://spaces.atmel.com/gf/project/arduinoallegro/

Over the past few days I have been successful in porting the optiboot bootloader to the atmega32/64M1 uC, integrated the start of the environment from Stuart (specifically his work around Serial.print() functions.) and successfully have been able to use the Ardino IDE to flash in a bootloader, and then download sketches via the serial port!

Look under the resource tab above 'Arduino Libs', and select the  directory called 'atmegaxxM1 Arduino IDE'.  In there you will find an optiboot bootloader, modifications to the avrdude configuration file, as well as the Arduino IDE (boards.txt, etc..) and instructions on what to do with each.  I suspect there is a bit more work to do with the Arduino libs - beyond Serial.print(), and as I find and update those will post revised files to the resource tabs above.

I also have modes needed to support the atmega32M1, and once things are a bit more proofed out I will post a set of files needed to support that uC in the Arduino IDE.

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Additional Info Feb 2015:  I have tracked down a bit more details re: the atmega64M1 uC support by the tools selected by Arduino for their IDE.   Bottom line:  In the 'main' release of Arduino uses gcc version 4.3.2, which does not have in its known list of uCs the atmega64m1 - but does have the atmega32m1.   My current 'work around' was to configure the above files for the atmega64m1 and 'spoof' to the compiler think it was a atmega32m1.  This works OK, but prevents me from defining both the 32M1 and 64M1 at the same time.

In the beta version of Arduino (1.5.8, etc) is an updated the GCC compiler (version 4.8.1?)  which has been updated to include many more uCs, including the atmega64M1.  For now I will continue to work with the  the 1.0.x releases, but in the future (and depending on what the Arduino team ends up doing) will perhaps switch to the 1.5.x versions for more complete support.

More additional info March 2015:  I have completed a porting over to the 1.6.0 release of the Arduino IDE - and was able to enable BOTH the ATmega32M1 & ATmega64M1 uC at the same time.   See here:
http://smartmppt.blogspot.com/2015/03/atmega32m1-and-atmega64m1-support-with.html