USB Slave on PIC

[Kisen]

Hi,
Has anyone used the USB Slave component on a PIC?
What can be done with it?

I am working on a device that needs to display as a thumb drive to get data from it. Currently my hardware uses STM32 which means this component isnt supported.
If i redesign using a PIC and and purchase the licenses from flowcode for PIC will the USB Slave give me the functions i need?

[kersing]

For an USB drive you need usb mass storage. It might be possible to implement that using usb slave, but I don’t think that will be trivial.
Check this message concerning the subject.

[Kisen]

Hi Kersing

I am aware that mass storage is required. I have briefly spoken with Ben and Leigh through the forum about this.

The message you posted to is from 2018,so about 2.5 years ago. In this time it seems that little has been done in this area in FC, despite the benefits of such a feature being quite beneficial.

I have what appears to be a full MSD driver for the STM32, unfortunately i cannot implement it as this seems to clash with other FC systems when trying to add it in supplementary code. So it seems that every avenue i turn on this i hit a brick wall.

The use of additional ICs to make this happen is not possible due to space constraint and also simply that the MCU is perfectly capable of doing this itself given the correct firmware.

I made this post to see if changing my hardware to a PIC could get me past the problem, it seems it is not.

Flowcode was presented to me as a rapid prototyping tool to allow software development to be done quickly with little knowledge of programming.
The problem i am finding with FC right now is that it if you arent using the paid for components, you cant really do much with it.

[kersing]

The problem i am finding with FC right now is that it if you arent using the paid for components, you cant really do much with it.

There is a lot you can do with Flowcode. However it is unrealistic to expect to be able to implement every use case with it. There are just too many different microcontrollers and peripherals that users can choose. Add all possible external devices people might want use and you have an infinite solution space to support. That would take a large team to provide all code and some of it might never get used.
Compare it to PCB design software that does not have all components you might possibly want to use either, there are just too many.

[QMESAR]

he problem i am finding with FC right now is that it if you arent using the paid for components, you cant really do much with it.

Hi
First even if you use the paid components as you mention ,there is no MASS Storage device -USB component to use directly.
Then after many years working in the Embedded Design world(Hardware and Firmware Development) I have learned that you cannot relay on only one Tool chain ,all tool chains does not support every thing with libraries and ready made code ,and this is certainly the case with FC it does and have a lot of functionality but there are areas where it lacks support.

My advise would be
Use the STM Tool chain and implement the MS devise in normal C or get a free lancer to that part for you .This can also be implemented in PIC, dsPIC PIC32 easily from MPLABX and the internal code generator ,you just call the functions in your main File

Just my 2 cents from a reality point of view

[Kisen]

he problem i am finding with FC right now is that it if you arent using the paid for components, you cant really do much with it.

Hi
First even if you use the paid components as you mention ,there is no MASS Storage device -USB component to use directly.
Then after many years working in the Embedded Design world(Hardware and Firmware Development) I have learned that you cannot relay on only one Tool chain ,all tool chains does not support every thing with libraries and ready made code ,and this is certainly the case with FC it does and have a lot of functionality but there are areas where it lacks support.

My advise would be
Use the STM Tool chain and implement the MS devise in normal C or get a free lancer to that part for you .This can also be implemented in PIC, dsPIC PIC32 easily from MPLABX and the internal code generator ,you just call the functions in your main File

Just my 2 cents from a reality point of view

I am aware that there is no MSD component.
Using another toolchain completely defeats the object of using FC.
This tool is supposed to speed development up. It does this for me by not having to learn coding in its entirety. The support from this software is lacking seriously, IMO.
All support is via this forum.

Prior to purchasing I contacted Matrix to ask to extend my trial as I had not had much use of it as i got caught up in other things elsewhere. The answer from the sales advisor was to say that rather than a trial extension, i could always just buy it like everyone else.
So, I did. Even though i thought that the sales guy was shocking.

I called again recently to attempt to speak with a developer to explain my situation and try and move this forward. Again I spoke with the same sales person who literally mid sentence just said, send me an email. I expressed annoyance that i had taken the time to call so perhaps a conversation was better than an email.

Another reason for using FC is that I can understand how it works better than written code. My project has a proprietary formula running in the code, passing this on to a developer to develop the firmware would involve me exposing this formula. Doing it myself in FC means I dont have to. I have however posted in the freelance developer area offering payment to anyone who can implement this. So far noone has offered their services.

So my frustration here is both with the softwares basic ability to accept C code from elsewhere, aswell as the fact that I dont think much of the sales team.

[Kisen]

The problem i am finding with FC right now is that it if you arent using the paid for components, you cant really do much with it.

There is a lot you can do with Flowcode. However it is unrealistic to expect to be able to implement every use case with it. There are just too many different microcontrollers and peripherals that users can choose. Add all possible external devices people might want use and you have an infinite solution space to support. That would take a large team to provide all code and some of it might never get used.
Compare it to PCB design software that does not have all components you might possibly want to use either, there are just too many.

I get your point. It's interesting that you should bring up PCB design software. I am a CID certified PCB design engineer. If the software doesnt have a component I just create one as required.
Which is pretty much what I want to do in FC.

[kersing]

I get your point. It's interesting that you should bring up PCB design software. I am a CID certified PCB design engineer. If the software doesnt have a component I just create one as required.
Which is pretty much what I want to do in FC.

That is pretty much what I’ve done for a couple of customers. Depending on what is required I often have to use C or even assembly code to implement some low level details.