GitHub Organization for the LASP Kalnajs Team.

All Repositories

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. Setup the build environment:
   1. 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. For PlatformIO:
      1. Create a .cpp link in /src to the .ino file. (E.g. src/StratoCore_LPC.cpp -> ../StratoCore_LPC.ino)
4. To switch back to ArduinioIDE from PlatformIO:
   1. Remove src/main.cpp
   2. Remove .pio/

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 PlatfromIO extension.

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. PlatformIO doesn't expect a source file to be here, and so 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. Thus the libraries/ directory (for the ArduinoIDE workflow) is not relevant to PlatformIO.

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

As mentioned above, the .pio/ tree and src/main.cpp, give ArduinoIDE great indigestion, and they are removed as necessary.

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

  upload_port=/dev/cu.usbmodem165659901

You'll just have to live with unplugging all Teensies except the one that you want to program. See this issue.

The good news is that monitor_port does seem to work:

  monitor_port=/dev/cu.usbmodem165659901