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The STM32 Range of boards from ST Microelectronics, are a fully featured set of development platforms, from a simple Arduino Nano style board (BluePill) to the fully featured development kits (Nucleo/Discovery).
These chips are also embedded into other products such as the Azure MX IoT Board.
ST Manufacture a wide variety of other microchips and ICs, supporting a huge range of tasks and industrial specifications.
The first step to get started is to install Visual Studio, Visual Micro, and the Arduino IDE.
There are 3 major cores available for the STM32 platform, and the STM32Duino Core is often the best place to start.
To install the board package for the STM32, the additional JSON URL below will need to be added to the list on the IDE locations screen in Visual Micro:-
https://github.com/stm32duino/BoardManagerFiles/raw/master/STM32/package_stm_index.json
More Information can be found at https://github.com/stm32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32.
This core needs manual installation, with detailed instructions for windows on the Wiki here
More Information can be found at https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/Arduino_STM32.
This core needs manual installation, with detailed instructions for windows on in the Developers section in the Wiki.
More Information can be found at https://github.com/danieleff/STM32GENERIC.
Once added you can then use the Board Manager in Visual Micro to install the board package.
From here it is the same as any other Arduino project, with a variety of Examples and Libraries available for this platform specifically.
If you have a Bluepill, or other board without an STLink programmer built in, you can't always upload software via the USB Connection before installing a bootloader.
There are detailed instructions on all of the different bootloader options on the STM32Duino Wiki, with download links.
If you already have the correct BIN/HEX file for your board, you can also use the STM32 Flash Downloader tool to upload the bootloader image via Serial.
Once you have written your first sketch, you will need to build and upload it to the Board. Due to the variety of hardware and boards, this can be achieved in a number of ways:
If your board has an on-board USB, simply connect this to your PC, and it should appear in the Ports List in Visual Micro:-
Simply select the port, and press Build & Upload to upload the new software to your board.
If your board does not have a USB connector, an external USB to Serial adapter can be used, and wired to your board as shown below:
Warning
Once connected you will see your Serial to USB adapter in the Ports List in Visual Micro, again select this port and press Build & Upload to upload the new software to your board.
Programmers can be used in place of the other options, and also allow the hardware debugging features to function, as well as allowing faster uploads.
Here we show the STLink Programmer, which is available for these boards, and harnesses an STM32 chip to perform all upload and debugging functions.
The Nucleo and Discovery range of boards come with an STLink Programmer built onto the board. Simply ensure the jumpers are set on the board to be the non-STLINK option, e.g. NUCLEO on the Nucleo board below:-
Once set simply connect the USB to the PC and select the right board for upload. Also ensure the Upload Method is set on the Board Options Menu.
The Visual Micro Serial Debugger can be used to debug your code easily, without an external programmer, via the Serial Interface setup for the upload above.
Our Serial Debugger adds @Plot Charting features, data tracking, and allows breakpoints to be hit conditionally, saving you time stepping through your code to the right scenario.
If you need to debug core code, or change breakpoints on the fly, the Hardware Debugging solutions may be the best approach. Here we will show the STLink as used in the Programmer section as our Debugger.
If you are reading this page thinking "I dont like wiring", then the best place to start is the NUCLEO board, or DISCOVERY kits, which has the STLink Programmer/Debugger built in for you, along with various features depending on board selection to allow specific device development.
This is fully compatible with Visual Micro, and just select the relevant Board, along with the STLink programmer/debugger for out of the box, no wires added debugging and programming!
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