SPI flash and arduino

Hi to all and happy new year! With small delay :-)

Project: I will use winbond 64M spi flash memory as external memory for arduino uno. Now, the idea is to use this memory for data logging and also for running sketch etc. Basically i want to free arduino on board memory as much as possible because now am using cca 90% of it. On the other side i want to expand the program with additional features.

Program status: Program is reading gsm data and sends this data each 5 minutes to web server. I want to port all this to external memory.

External memory:

- i was planning on using smaller memory chip but the price was very cheap so i used bigger one.

Questions:

- will this be possible to do ?

- if the R/W cycles of this spi memory is around 100K, does this means that it will "break" after 1 year ( based on reading / writing of gsm data ) ?

GM

Reply to
gm
Loading thread data ...

Den mandag den 4. januar 2016 kl. 22.11.23 UTC+1 skrev gm:

an AVR mcu can only run code from internal flash so external memory doesn't add any more memory for program, though if you have lots of strings etc. you could move those external and free some memory

only way around it is to implement some kind of interpreter running some interpreted language stored in external memory

trow away the Arduino and get something with a cortex ARM, faster, more memory and just as cheap

the limit is only on writes, it means each location can only be erased and programmed 100k times before it might fail.

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

---------------- I would agree with you regarding arduino but the problem is that i have to use gsm module (from tinysine ) and i have to cut down the production costs. I have though about some other solutions but didnt find any. Best solution would be like you wrote, some stronger chip. Is there maybe some ready to use board with some cortex chip ?

The prize of UNO board that i have was 7$ + memory = 8.5$ Is it possible to get some stronger board for 10 - 13$ ? I dont need pcb header connectors etc..

Reply to
gm

formatting link

100MHz cortex M4, 512K flash, 128K RAM, UNO compatible pinout, $10.12

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Hey Lasse, do you know if someone makes a arduino shield with Optocouplers ( Input and output) ? I see Velleman has a relay shield, But it's hard to believe no one has a shield with a bunch of Optos on it.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Den tirsdag den 5. januar 2016 kl. 00.36.10 UTC+1 skrev Martin Riddle:

never really used any arduino stuff and I haven't stumbled onto any opto input/output shields

how many in/outs what what configuration? it can't take more than a few cups coffee and a $15 pcb run to make some

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Look an Ebay or Aliexpress. There are a bunch of shields with Optocouplers that drive relays. Don't know of any that have Optocouplers on both input and output.

formatting link

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

The Isolate setting used is pretty tight on those boards. Plus the solder splash in the one picture does not instill confidence.

Plus I was looking for at lead 4 inputs and 4 outputs. Like Lasse pointed out, it's not that expensive to have a few blanks made. But I was hoping I could find something.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Please consider looking into the Beaglebone Black or similarly sized ARM board.

--
Les Cargill
Reply to
Les Cargill

There is no problem getting the AVR to write to the SPI flash, or using it to hold data. But you can't put program code in the SPI. You can put data there (strings, tables, etc.), but not instructions. So if the AVR's internal flash is enough for the program, then this should work fine. If not, you need a bigger AVR or a new platform (such as a Cortex M board).

(In theory, you can run an emulator or virtual machine on the AVR and have the program in external memory. If you are a Forth fan, that might be a reasonable idea. And someone made an ARM emulator for the AVR and used it to boot Linux from external memory - it worked, but took several days to boot.)

Reply to
David Brown

Thank you guys for replies !

Nucleo F411 board looks really great and the prize is very reasonable. HW is far better then on arduino boards.

Nucleo board:

formatting link

Digikey:

formatting link

Forum:

formatting link

Techical part:

formatting link

//------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now the tricky part:

- can i really use arduino IDE and the code that was written for UNO ?

- if not, what other IDE can be used ( am on linux ubuntu )

GM

Reply to
gm

you might have to get some of the bigger ATmax chips and build a bare board arduino - or buy a module. You can get up to 8 time more Flash and/or 8 times ram 2 time eeprom

Reply to
David Eather

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.