GitHub Organization for the LASP Kalnajs Team.

All Repositories

We have decided it will be simpler just to use separate Git repository clones for each of the development environments. You can use either one.

1. If using the ArduinoIDE build environment:
   1. Create Sketchbook/ and Sketchbook/libraries/ directories. (You may already have this as ~/Documents/Arduino/ or some other Sketchbook directory).
   2. Clone the main applications (e.g. StratoCore_LPC.git) into Sketchbook/libraries/.
   3. For ArduinoIDE:
      1. Clone LASP support libraries (e.g. StrateolXML.git) into Sketchbook/libraries/.
      2. Unzip ZIP libraries (e.g. StratoCore_LPC/zips/*.zip) into Sketchbook/libraries/.
      3. From ArduinoIDE:
         1. In Settings, set Sketchbook location to Sketchbook/.
         2. Use library manager to install standard libraries (e.g. TinyGPSPlus).
      4. Open the .ino file (e.g. StratoCore_LPC.ino) in ArduinoIDE.
2. If using the PlatformIO build environment:
   1. Clone the main application (e.g. StratoCore_LPC.git) into whatever directory you are using for StratoCore PlatformIO development.
   2. Create a .cpp link in /src to the .ino file. (E.g. src/StratoCore_LPC.cpp -> ../StratoCore_LPC.ino)

More ArduinoIDE details and PlatformIO details are found below.

Main Board:

1. StratoCore_LPC
2. StratoCore
3. StrateoXML
4. StratoLinduino
5. RS41

Particle Counter:

1. PHA_V5_1

Main Board:

1. StratoCore_RATS
2. StratoCore
3. StrateoXML
4. ECUcomm

Reel Controller:

1. MCB_T4.1

End Control Unit (ECU):

1. ECU
2. ECUcomm

Main Board Teensy:

1. StratoPIB
2. StratoCore
3. StrateoXML

Reel Controller Teensy:

1. MCB_T4.1

We support two firmware development environments:

• ArduinoIDE: The tried-and-true hobbiest-oriented tool. It is the mainstay in the Arduino community, but is maddenly frustrating for projects with any level of complexity.
• PlatformIO: A more modern framework which combines VSCode and Scons to provide a more productive environment, including rigourous configuration definitions, Intellisense, Git integration, and more.

With a few workarounds, the kalnajslab-org repositories can be used in either environment. A workflow is documented here which describes how to do this.

1. We use a directory structure that will accomodate both techniques. Create a top level directory, which will be the Sketchbook location. (You may already have one, typically ~/Documents/Arduino/.) Add a libraries/ sub-directory:

Sketchbook/ 
          |
          --libraries/

1. Run the ArduinoIDE. Open the Settings, and set the Sketchbook path to your Sketchbook directory.
2. Libraries for ArduinoIDE will be located in the Sketchbook/libraries/; they are searched by that tool. These will be populated from any of:
   • The ArduinoIDE library manager.
   • git clone of one of our repositories.
   • Unzipping of a library zip file.
3. Clone the applications (e.g.StratoCore_RATS) into Sketchbook/libraries/.

There are a couple of PlatformIO items which cause the ArduinoIDE to go bonkers. So:

1. Remove the src/.cpp link that you may have made for working with PlatformIO.
2. Remove the .pio directory.

Now you should be able to run the ArduinoIDE, open the .ino file, and build/upload/monitor the application.

If you get an The sketch file 'TinyGPS++.cpp' cannot be used. error when opening the sketch, then you have not removed .pio/. If you get missing header files, then you have not removed the .cpp link.

Note that in some cases, ArduinoIDE works fine for main application located in Sketchbook/. But there is at least one case (MCB_T4.1), where this doesn't work because the Technosoft library references a header file in MCB_T4.1. So just stick main apps and libraries in Sketchbook/libraries/.

• Open VSCode
• Install the PlatformIO extension.
• Extra credit: Install the excellent Serial Monitor extension from Microsoft.

That should be it. An "alien" button will appear on the left toolbar, and "house" and "camera" buttons will appear on the bottom status bar.

• Alien button: Will bring up Project Task choices, where you can clean, build, upload, etc.
• House button: This opens PlatformIO automation. I haven't found it very useful.
• Camera button: This opens a dropdown selector at the top of the window, where you can choose the built target of choice. We generally don't have more than one target. But, for MCB_T4.1 (for example), there are targets for either a RACHUTS or RATS MCB build.

The main program for our application is the .ino file at the top level of the repository. setup() and loop() live here, and because PlatformIO doesn't expect a source file to be here, it will not compile it, leading to linker errors. So we create a symbolic link which makes it visible to the dependency scanner (e.g.):

cd src; ln -s ../StratoCore_RATS.ino StratoCore_RATS.cpp

If you get an undefined reference to 'setup' error during the build, then you have not added the .cpp link to the .ino file.

Library requirements are specified in platformio.ini, and they are fetched automagically.

PlatformIO creates the .pio/ tree to hold all of the build artifacts. All library references are downloaded from the PlatformIO repo or GitHub, into .pio/libdeps//.

As mentioned above, the .pio/ tree and src/main.cpp, give ArduinoIDE great indigestion, and they are removed if you want to use the same git repo clone with both environments.

The StratoCore application platformio.ini lists libraries which are downloaded from GitHub (or other places). During most development we will only be editing the application source code that has been cloned into src/. But sometimes we may want to make changes to a library. It's a bit convoluted to do this. The issue is how to commit your edits.

The process is to open the source code that has been cloned by PlatformIO into .pio/libdeps/<env_name>/<library_name>. The easiest way to find the code is to right-click on the function call in the app code, navigate to the definition, and edit/build/test.

Edits will appear in the VSCode Source Control pane, and you can commit them from here. BUT if you do a PlatformIO "Clean All", before commiting and pushing, you will loose all of your edits. This is because "Clean All" erases everything in .pio/. (A simple "Clean" is OK).

PlatformIO has the concept of environments, which are much like build targets. They are defined by [env:name] sections in platformio.ini. We use them to customize builds for specific purposes, e.g customizing the MCB firmware between RATS, RACHUTS and FLOATS, or building firmware that shares the log and Zephyr ports.

It is not very obvious, but there is an environment chooser button at the bottom of the VSCode window, which opens a chooser at the top of the VSCode window! If you have (say) 2 environments defined, it will offer you both of them, as well as Default. Selecting an environment causes it to appear in the Alien panel. Selecting Default causes all of them to appear in the Alien panel, as well as a top one where you can build all targets at once.

It turns out that upload_port parameter doesn't seem to work with the uploader that Teensy provides. This means that the following platformio.ini parameter does nothing:

  upload_port=/dev/cu.usbmodem165659901

See this issue.

But there is a very handy port selector, once again at the bottom of VSCode_, which (once again) opens a selector at the top of VSCode. It is initially set to Auto; just change it to the correct port and uploads/monitors will work, and you can leave multiple Teensies plugged in.

Just make sure that you have the correct one chosen, otherwise you may flash the MCB with the StratoCore_LPC code and vice versa!