Download Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com, then navigate to the extensions tab and download the PlatformIO extension.t Once downloaded, navigate to the .platformio folder within the terminal window of your choice. On ubuntu, this should be located in your home directory, while on windows it is found in C:\Users\my_user>. In here, create a platforms folder if it does not already exist. Then, type the following
cd platforms
git clone https://github.com/platformio/platform-ststm32If you don't have git installed, you can find instructions on how to download it here: https://github.com/git-guides/install-git. Then, after installing git, try the above commands once more.
After evverything is downloaded, clone this repository to your computer. Then, in PlatformIO home, click Open Project and navigate to the WioPlayground folder within this directory and click 'Open "WioPlayground"'. In this project, we have a small main.cpp script which both writes to Serial and makes the built in LED flash, a small platformio.ini file specifying the board, platform, framework and crucially an instruction to run the python script extra_script.py after compilation. This script, made by Maximilian Gerhardt at the PlatformIO forums makes sure a .hex file, named firmware.hex is created during compilation. This file, which you will find in the .pio/build/nucleo_wl55jc/ directory is the file that can be uploaded to the LoRa-E5-mini board.
To upload the board, we used the STM32 Cube Programmer, which can be downloaded here https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubeprog.html, and a ST Link V2 from Adafruit. The procedure for uploading is as follows: Open your STM32 programmer and set the following options shown in the image below
If the image does not show, or you are using a text-to-speech program, the options we use are: Port: SWD Frequency (kHz): 4000 Mode: Normal Access port: 0 Reset Mode: Software Reset Speed: Reliable And whatever option of shared that makes your board show up in the Serial Number tab. For me this was "Enabled". Debug in low power mode: Yes
Now, connect the following four pins of the LoRa-E5-Mini to the ST-LINK V2:
GND to GND
DIO to SWDIO
CLK to SWCLK
RST to RST
Then plug both into the computer. If the following steps don't work, try rebooting the computer with both the ST-LINK and Wio-E5 still connected to the PC. On the Wio-E5-Mini press and hold the RST button, then click Connect in the STM32CubeProgrammer before releasing the RST button. Now, go into the Option bytes tab and verify that Read Out Protection is set to AA, as shown in the image below.
After the write protection is disabled, navigate to the Erasing and Programming tab. Here, check both the "Verify programming" and "Run after programming" buttons, then in File Path navigate to your compiled hex-file in the platformio-project. Select the .hex-file in the menu and verify that it shows up in the File Path-line afterwards, as shown in the following image.
Then, click Start programming and if everything works as intended the built in LED should start flashing.
To use the platformIO interface to code your Wio-E5 mini, first download the Arduino Core ST STM32 from the platform manager. Then, create a new project using the SeeedStudio LoRa-E5 mini option, or by setting the following options in an already existing platformio.ini file:
[env:lora_e5_mini]
platform = ststm32
board = lora_e5_mini
Then connect your board to your PC using both an USB-C cable and your ST-LINK (We use this ST Link V2 from Adafruit) to the GND, DIO, CLK and RST pins. Then add the following lines to your platformIO.ini file:
debug_tool = stlink
upload_protocol = stlink
And tat is it. Further details on debugging with ST-Link can be found here