DragonBoard 410c + Android + Seeed Sensor Board

Products Support DragonBoard410c
#1

Does anyone have clear instructions on how to program the Seeed Sensor Board for DragonBoard 410c while using Android? I understand with Linux on DragonBoard you can install the Arduino IDE on the device and use the Sensor board locally. However, I have my reasons on why I want to use Android on the board and have spent the last couple days trying many things but failed to get a basic anything working in the combination of DragonBoard + Android OS + Sensor Board. I would really appreciate anyone get me over the hurdle.

My development system:

  1. Mac computer with OS X El Capitan
  2. Dragonboard 410c running Android that was shipped from the Arrow
  3. Seeed Sensor Board (Grove Starter Kit) stacked on top of Dragonboard

Thanks much in advance!

#2

It really depends on which features of the Seeed Sensor board you need to work!

Getting the level-shifted GPIO working is fairly easy. In fact it was discussing during one of the recent open hours Q&A sessions. Watch the video and see what you think.

It should also be possible to gain access to the level shifted I2C (I2C0 and I2C1) peripherals using a similar permissions trick. However you will probably also have to compile i2ctools either using termux (on the device) or NDK (on the host PC).

Getting the microcontroller working is technically possible. Its wired up using a serial port but you need a lot of software to make it work. You would end up having to cross-compile the AVR toolset and write an altenative IDE…

#3

Actually this came up on the openhours call this week and an additional idea came up…

If you use an external ISP programmer (which can bought very cheaply on eBay) then you can program the firmware on the microcontroller from your PC and then all the Android code needs to do is open the serial port and send commands to the firmware. This gives you a complete development environment where you code on the PC and push code to both Android (using Android Studio) and to the AVR (using the Arduino IDE) and there is no need to mess about trying to get the AVR toolset to run on Android itself.

#4

Which open house session was this?

#5

this one

#6

if u get a playlist above, look for the 17th video, or just use link below:

#7

Thanks Daniel. As long as there is an easy way for me to program the microcontroller without unassembling the sensor board from the dragonboard, that should be acceptable. Can you please share a link to the “external ISP programmer” you shared and also some how-to instructions?

If possible, could you post a quick video of how to do this and that would save a lot of time for everyone.

Thanks much!

#8

I use the Adafruit USBtinyISP simple because I’ve got one. The cheaper programmers are found on eBay (search for “USB ISP AVR”) and should work just as well.

They are a bit less well documented though.