RTL8710 and Arduino IDE

dekip · January 18, 2021, 9:19pm

I have an RTL8710 dev kit and I want to use it with an Arduino IDE. On Ameba ARDUINO: Getting Started with RTL8710 – Realtek IoT/Wi-Fi MCU Solutions it says I need to add boards with the JSON package which I did. Also, I need to install the MBED driver with mbedWinSerial_16466.exe. It says that there is no MBED board.

Do I need to use Ameba motherboard? Is there any other way to use only RTL8710 with Arduino IDE? If so, please provide some getting started steps.

Thank you.

xidameng · January 19, 2021, 2:11am

Hi @dekip ,

Thanks for reaching out to us, to answer your questions,

I guess the RTL8710 dev kit you mentioned is actually the RTL-00 as depicted in the webpage you provided

Screenshot 2021-01-19 1005571418×414 88.6 KB
The complete RTL8710 dev kit comprises of a main board and the RTL-00 module on top of it, and only when plugged in can you install the MBED driver correctly
In order to upload image to RTL-00 on Arduino IDE, you need the DAP chip on the main board, without it, you will have to DIY/purchase additional tool which takes a lot of extra works and is not compatiable with Arduino IDE

Hope this clears some doubts~

dekip · January 19, 2021, 9:33am

The motherboard is not cheap at all. According to the spec of it, for communication with PC, it uses an LPC11U35FHI33/501. The chip is not cheap, too.
Is there any other way to upload a sketch from an Arduino IDE? As I can see, it needs an SWD programmer. Do it has to be the one with this chip above, or it can be some other. I do have one. CJMCU Jlink SWD. Not sure will it do the job.

I would like to start from some point.

xidameng · January 20, 2021, 1:26am

Hi @dekip

The chip on the motherboard is a DAP chip, it helps to download firmware and debug the RTL-00 module thus is compatiable with Arduino IDE.

Alternatively, you may download the firmware using JLINK as you mentioned, RTL-00 has JLINK/JTAG pins as shown in the picture below,

JLINK downloading command can be found here in the SDK,

github.com

ambiot/amb1_sdk/blob/63f4b90b991775cd5e3410cbc2c7c2cdb00cbc64/project/realtek_ameba1_va0_example/GCC-RELEASE/Makefile#L31


	@$(MAKE) -f application.mk mp
.PHONY: clean
clean:
	@$(MAKE) -f application.mk clean
	
.PHONY: flash debug ramdebug setup
setup:
	@$(MAKE) -f application.mk $(MAKECMDGOALS)
flash: toolchain
	@$(MAKE) -f application.mk flashburn
	
debug: toolchain
	@$(MAKE) -f application.mk debug	
ramdebug: toolchain
	@$(MAKE) -f application.mk ramdebug

However, please note that JLINK download is not compatible with Arduino IDE which relies solely on the DAP chip for downloading, but still you can use Arduino IDE to compile the firmware and then drag it to the correct path before using JLINK command to download it

dekip · January 20, 2021, 8:41am

This part is pretty new for me. If JLINK is an option, I then need some software? Is there some sort of tutorial on how to?

To make a BIN file in Arduino IDE is not a problem. To connect JLINK with RTL00 is ok. To upload a file on the board is. Just because I never use it.

Salmanfarisvp · January 20, 2021, 8:57am

@dekip to flash the .bin binary file with JTAG, you can use the Segger J-Flash or other any other open-source tools.

xidameng · January 20, 2021, 9:42am

Yes, you will need to donwload the Segger J-Link Software and Documentation Pack like @Salmanfarisvp has mentioned above, and possibly a linux setup like Cygwin with GNU make if your OS is windows, and also the Ameba 1 Realtek Standard SDK I mentioned above.

You need Cygwin to run bash scripts and GNU make to run Makefile.

There is a document in the abovementioned SDK that will guide your through the setup and can be found here too.

Salmanfarisvp · January 20, 2021, 9:48am

Nice, it has detailed instruction on how to set up the GCC tools chain, Thanks for sharing.