PureThermal 1 Reference Firmware

The PureThermal 1 is an embedded development platform for the FLIR Lepton thermal imager, created by GroupGets Labs. It is based around the STM32F4, a powerful ARM Cortex-M MCU by ST Microelectronics, and its various IO capabilities and open source firmware to make it easy integrate a FLIR Lepton into any environment.

Purpose of This Project

It is intended that you use this firmware as a starting point for you own applications. For many applications where you wish to process thermal image data on a host PC, you can probably use pre-built binaries of this firmware and use as-is. For others, forking this project and making your own modifications to this firmware is encouraged.

Building the Firmware

This is a Makefile-based project, and we use the GCC ARM Embedded toolchain from https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/+download, however, other toolchains that work for the STM32 (such as Mentor's Sourcery toolchain) should also work.

Compiler Installation

The following are compiler installation instructions for various platforms, required for building the firmware.

Ubuntu 10.04/12.04/14.04/14.10 32/64-bit

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:terry.guo/gcc-arm-embedded
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi

OS X

Launchpad has toolchain binaries for OS X. To keep things simple, we'll install then into /usr/local/gcc-arm-none-eabi-*

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local
curl -L https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/4.9/4.9-2015-q3-update/+download/gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_9-2015q3-20150921-mac.tar.bz2 -o ~/Downloads/gcc-arm-embedded.tar.bz2
sudo tar xjf ~/Downloads/gcc-arm-embedded.tar.bz2 -C /usr/local && rm ~/Downloads/gcc-arm-embedded.tar.bz2

Then you need to add this location to your path. Add to your .bashrc, or every time you open a new shell and wish to build execute:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_9-2015q3/bin

Clone and Build

git clone https://github.com/groupgets/purethermal1-firmware
cd purethermal1-firmware

If you wish, you can modify Src/project_config.h to customize your build. Then you can simply build:

make

or

make USART_DEBUG=1

alternatively, you can enable semihosting support to printf over JTAG/SWD:

make GDB_SEMIHOSTING=1

See the "Debugging" section below for more information.

If you have OpenOCD installed (available in most package management systems), you can then flash the compiled firmware (see next section for required hardware):

make flash

Installing Release Firmware

Required Hardware

• STLInk/V2
• ARM MCU JTAG Adapter for PureThermal 1
• PureThermal 1 - FLIR Lepton Smart I/O Module
• Micro USB Cable

Hardware Instructions

1. Attach ribbon cable from STLINK/V2 into ARM Adapter.
2. Plug in ribbon cable from ARM Adapter into PureThermal1's ZIF socket.
3. Insert mini-usb cable into STLINK/V2 and computer.
4. Insert micro-usb cable into PureThermal 1 and computer.
5. Power on PureThermal 1 if not already on with ON/OFF button press.

Mac OS

• Video Guide

1. In terminal download and install the STLink software using homebrew:

    brew install stlink
   

2. Navigate to the folder which contains the PureThermal 1 firmware (pt1-vx.xx.x.bin or pt1-vx.xx.x+Y16), or build with the instructions above.

3. Use the following command to erase the firmware on the PureThermal 1:

    st-flash erase
   

4. To write the firmware use one of the following commands (replace the X's with the version of firmware you have downloaded):

    st-flash --reset write pt1-vX.XX.X.bin 0x08000000
   

   Y16 Firmware:

    st-flash --reset write pt1-vX.XX.X+Y16.bin 0x08000000
   

   Output of a Makefile build:

    st-flash --reset write main.bin 0x08000000
   

Linux

• See the texane/stlink github page for detailed instructions for various Linux distributions.

Windows

• Video Guide

1. Download the STM32 ST-LINK Utility (STSW-LINK004)
2. Install STM32 ST-Link Utility and then open the software.
3. Select "Target" then "Connect" to connect the software to the PureThermal 1.
4. Next select "File" then "Open file...", now navigate to the folder which contains the PureThermal 1 firmware and select & open the firmware you want to flash (pt1-vX.XX.X.bin or pt1-vX.XX.X+Y16).
5. Finally click "Target" then "Program & Verify...", make sure that the "Reset after programming" box is selected then press the "Start" button.

Installing firmware via DFU-Mode (for PT2 boards and really old PT1 boards)

Make sure you use at least 1.1.0 becuase earlier versions didn't support the PT1 and PT2 board from the same binary.

If you're not compiling from source you can download the firmware from https://github.com/groupgets/purethermal1-firmware/releases and substitute the .bin file in the tgz for main.bin in the commands below.

Entering bootloader (DFU) mode

1. Locate the buttons to press on your PureThermal board.

   

2. Press and hold the BOOT button

3. Without releasing BOOT, press and release RST

4. Release BOOT

5. When you successfully enter DFU mode, the indicator LED will stop blinking and dim to half brightness

Linux / MacOS

Install dfu-util:

sudo apt-get install dfu-util

or

brew install dfu-util

or your system's package manager.

Then run:

dfu-util -a 0 -D main.bin -s 0x08000000

or use:

scripts/flash.sh

Windows

DfuSe USB drivers. http://www.st.com/web/en/catalog/tools/FM147/CL1794/SC961/SS1533/PF257916#

win32 DFU tools https://files.groupgets.com/purethermal/win32_dfu.zip

To install DFU drivers, may need to use the device manager to select the st drivers

extract win32_dfu.zip to the current folder.

win32_dfu\bin2dfu --i main.bin --a 0x08000000 --o main.dfu
win32_dfu\DfuSeCommand -c -d --fn main.dfu

or use:

scripts/make_and_flash.bat

Debugging

This section covers printf over JTAG/SWD though GDB semihosting. You can also set breakpoints using GDB+OpenOCD, or with using the provided Eclipse projects. Additionally, you can enable printf support over UART.

Makefile projects

For Makefile projects, you can enable semihosting support to enable printf over JTAG/SWD. This works with STLink/V2, Segger JLink, and should work with others as well.

You must build the code with semihosting support enabled (GDB_SEMIHOSTING=1). Note that if you get build errors, you might have to make clean and retry. Simply run the following:

GDB_SEMIHOSTING=1 make debug

The debugger should remain attached, and you should see printf output on the console, like so:

...
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x08010b8c msp: 0x20020000
semihosting is enabled
auto erase enabled
Info : device id = 0x10006431
Info : flash size = 512kbytes
wrote 131072 bytes from file main.bin in 4.133242s (30.968 KiB/s)
adapter speed: 2000 kHz
Info : JTAG tap: stm32f4x.cpu tap/device found: 0x4ba00477 (mfg: 0x23b (ARM Ltd.), part: 0xba00, ver: 0x4)
Info : JTAG tap: stm32f4x.bs tap/device found: 0x06431041 (mfg: 0x020 (STMicroelectronics), part: 0x6431, ver: 0x0)
Hello, Lepton!
reading_tmp007_regs...
Initialized...

Eclipse projects

Semihosting also works in Eclipse/OpenSTM32 projects. To enable this, locate the target debug configuration for the project and add the following line to Initialization Commands in the Startup tab:

monitor arm semihosting enable

You should see print statements appear in the debugger console view.

For More Information

Refer to PureThermal 1 development wiki.

Licensing and Support

This firmware is licensed under The MIT License (MIT), see LICENSE file for details.

Inquiries for support should be directed at this project's maintainers, GroupGets, LLC (GroupGets), and not FLIR Systems, Inc. (FLIR). Additional FLIR-provided source code is being released by GroupGets to this project under the express written consent of FLIR, and covered by the project's license, with the expectation that no warranties or support of any kind will be provided by FLIR.