64 replies to this topic

[Tesla]

 

> Adafruit still has a breakout board with the missing MMA8451 chip in stock ($7.95).

> https://www.adafruit.com/product/2019

> You could desolder the chip and solder it onto the KL25z board. 

 

That would be a great trick if you could pull it off, but it seems really difficult to me.

 

But I'll have to order one of the Adafruit MMA8451 boards and get it working with Pinscape Pico.  It'd be nice to have that as an option as long as they're still available.

 

 

I just wanted to mention that (ONLY IF) the new version of the KL25Z "is still in-production" AND the Pinscape code mostly ran on it (even with slightly-different USB ports and no accelerometer) seems like we (meaning you :-) could just adopt a common Standalone-Accelerometer from AdaFruit or SparkFun ... like is used on DIY gimbals or my PixHawk drones. Just an idea I've been wanting to mention.

 

And yeah, according to the other thread ... looks like you might need to find one anyway for the Raspberry-Pi Pinscape-Pico project. 

 

A lame example but AtGames had their nudge-accelerometer on a small separate PCB (screwed to the inside-front cabinet of the ALP) and seemed to run from the I2C (or their similar proprietary bus) 

Edited by Tesla, 19 September 2025 - 07:00 PM.

[fhjui]

>I just wanted to mention that (ONLY IF) the new version of the KL25Z "is still in-production" AND the Pinscape code mostly ran on it (even with slightly-different USB ports and no accelerometer) seems like we (meaning you :-) could just adopt a common Standalone-Accelerometer from AdaFruit or SparkFun ...

 

good suggestion, the KL25Z has 2 I2C-ports 

• I2C0_SCL → PTB2 (Pin 58 am MCU, auf Header J2-10)

• I2C0_SDA → PTB3 (Pin 59 am MCU, auf Header J2-12)

But I don't have the skill to change the code for using external I2C-boards.

I think that the future belongs to the pinscape pico, with the KL25 you never know how long and if it will still be produced by nxp

[mjr]

I just wanted to mention that (ONLY IF) the new version of the KL25Z "is still in-production" AND the Pinscape code mostly ran on it (even with slightly-different USB ports and no accelerometer) seems like we (meaning you :-) could just adopt a common Standalone-Accelerometer from AdaFruit or SparkFun ...

 

It would definitely be technically feasible.  There appear to be two tasks to get there: someone would need to determine why the USB connection isn’t working and fix that, and then once it’s connecting again, they’d just need to add the code needed to interface to whichever external accerlerometer(s) they chose to support.  There’s not even anything mysterious or technically challenging about that; the software already connects to a number of other types of external chips, and in fact, the on-board accelerometer is itself just the same as any other external chip from the software’s perspective. Being soldered to the circuit board doesn’t make it special in any way at the software level.  The only reason none of this has happened is that it would take away time that I’d rather spend on Pinscape Pico at this point.  I don’t think anyone would get much benefit out of time spent on supporting the new accelerometer-less KL25Z since I can’t see any good reason to choose that over the Pico when planning a new pin cab project.  Pinscape Pico does all of the same things and a lot more, and the Pico is much cheaper and more readily available, so I have a hard time seeing the use case for the neo-KL25Z.

Edited by mjr, 19 September 2025 - 09:08 PM.

[Tesla]

 

I just wanted to mention that (ONLY IF) the new version of the KL25Z "is still in-production" AND the Pinscape code mostly ran on it (even with slightly-different USB ports and no accelerometer) seems like we (meaning you :-) could just adopt a common Standalone-Accelerometer from AdaFruit or SparkFun ...

 

It would definitely be technically feasible.  There appear to be two tasks to get there:

 

1. someone would need to determine why the USB connection isn’t working and fix that,

 

2. and then once it’s connecting again, they’d just need to add the code needed to interface to whichever external accelerometer(s) they chose to support.  

 

3. There’s not even anything mysterious or technically challenging about that; the software already connects to a number of other types of external chips, and in fact, the on-board accelerometer is itself just the same as any other external chip from the software’s perspective. Being soldered to the circuit board doesn’t make it special in any way at the software level.

 

4. The only reason none of this has happened is that it would take away time that I’d rather spend on Pinscape Pico at this point.  

 

5. I don’t think anyone would get much benefit out of time spent on supporting the new accelerometer-less KL25Z since I can’t see any good reason to choose that over the Pico when planning a new pin cab project.  Pinscape Pico does all of the same things and a lot more, and the Pico is much cheaper and more readily available, so I have a hard time seeing the use case for the neo-KL25Z.

 

 

1. Sorry, I read some of that in above thread, but I didn't really understand it was an actual USB problem (or they didn't eventually get it working). That changes things considerably. 

 

2 & 3 . Cool, that's what I thought.

 

4. No problem. I just heard about Pinscape-Pico (actually, I read the whole GitHub project-page) . So, looks like you were ready for an core-architectural change and just made it happen. Wow. 

 

5. Seeing as though you have made so much progress on Pinscape-Pico, you of course are correct. It's not like we need any of that to keep all the old ones going.

Edited by Tesla, 20 September 2025 - 07:27 PM.

[mjr]

> but I didn't really understand it was an actual USB problem (or they didn't eventually get it working).

 

I should clarify that I don't know that either.  The reports are that the USB connection just doesn't work with the new boards (that's basically what the title of this thread is getting at - "Not detected at Step 5" is talking about USB detection).  But this is a symptom, not a diagnosis.  I don't know that it's actually anything related to USB.  It seems a little unlikely that it is, because the USB adapter on the KL25Z is embedded in silicon in the SOC - it's not a separate chip like the accelerometer that they could have sneakily swapped out for a new one when they produced the new boards.  But it's been a long time since the initial production run, so maybe they've also done a minor rev to the SOC that changed the USB adapter programming model in some subtle way that exposes an incompatibility in the Pinscape code.  So this is something that needs investigation and fixing before anyone can use the new board, with or without an accelerometer.

Edited by mjr, 20 September 2025 - 09:22 PM.