Starterkit Quicksteps

The Starterkit STKa6x consisting of the TQMa6x module and MBa6x mainboard is intended as evaluation platform for the TQMa6x. To bring up the board a comprehensive set of accessories is supplied with the kit. The STKa6x is delivered preconfigured to boot the latest released Linux BSP revision at the time of delivery, so only the Host Computer has to be set up properly to bring the STKa6x up. This page guides through the first steps with the STKa6x Starterkit.

Setup Host Computer

Serial Driver

Linux

The FTDI driver is maintained in the Linux mainline kernel, the configuration options below must be activated in the Linux kernel configuration to operate the USB-to-Serial converter

  • CONFIG_USB_SERIAL
  • CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_FTDI_SIO

Windows

The driver can be downloaded from the FTDI website:
https://ftdichip.com/drivers/vcp-drivers/

An installation guide can be found at the following link:
https://ftdichip.com/document/installation-guides/

Terminal Emulator

Linux

Minicom

Minicom is a command line based serial terminal for serial communication with hardware like our starterkits.

Install Minicom using APT(Debian/Ubuntu)
$ sudo apt install minicom

In order for the terminal to work properly with full rights you need to add your user to the dialout group: 

$ sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER


Connect Starterkit to Host

To determine the serial device name under linux you can use dmesg. Just run the command below and then plug in the starter kit to see the new detected interface names: 

$ dmesg -w

Once the interface name is clear you can abort dmesg with ctrl + c.
Now you can start minicom via the command line interface: 

$ minicom -D /dev/ttySx
Make sure to replace /dev/ttySx with the serial interface you found out before with dmesg.
Configure minicom

The serial configuration should be correct by default. However, hardware flow control must be disabled for some starter kits, otherwise the communication works only in one direction.

  1. Press CTRL + A, then press O to open the configuration menu
  2. Go to Serial port setup
  3. Press F to change Hardware Flow Control to No
  4. Hit Return key
  5. Select Save setup as dfl to save this configuration as default
  6. Press ESC to exit the menu

Now you should be able to communicate with the starter kit

Windows

TeraTerm

TeraTerm is an open source terminal emulator for windows. It can be downloaded here.

Configure TeraTerm
  1. Download and install TeraTerm
  2. Start TeraTerm and open the Serial Port Settings
  3. Select your serial port and configure it with the values defined in the chapter Serial Configuration
  4. After passing the values click on the button New Setting

Now TeraTerm should be ready for use with our starter kits.

Host PC Serial Port Configuration

The serial port which connects the STKa6x to the Host PC must be configured as follows:

Baud rate: 115200
Data bits: 8
Parity: none
Stop bits: 1
Handshake: XON/XOFF

Connecting the Starterkit to the Development Host

Please follow the quick start guide delivered with the kit, or open it from the following link: Quick start guide

Linux

BSP Login Credentials

As soon as logging in on the Linux shell for the first time, the question about the login credential comes up.
By default the user root is used to log into the Linux shell, no password is set for user root. 

tqmaxx-mbaxx login: root

Testing Interfaces on STKa6x

To get familiar with the interfaces of the STKa6x we recommend to work through the interface tutorials first.

Building the BSP

The Board Support Packages provided by TQ may not contain all software packages to evaluate the STKa6x, therefore TQ provides some guides how to build the BSP and customize it for your needs:

In addition to the BSP documentation, the Yocto SDK build and Eclipse IDE setup for the STKa6x is also documented.

Setup Starterkit for different boot sources

The STKa6x can be setup to boot from different sources. Please see the DIP switch settings below to change the boot source.

Boot Device Selection (S1, S2, S4 & S5)

To select the desired boot medium set the DIP switches S1, S2, S4 and S5 accordingly.

Switching boot sources is only possible if the BOOT_MODE fuses are not programmed.
If configured for “Boot from eFuses” but fuses are not programmed, the boot loader will not be able to determine the boot source.

To enable boot device selection BOOT_MODE has to be set to “Internal Boot”.
This can be done using DIP switch S5 on MBa6x:

Boot Modes

BOOT_MODE S5-1 S5-2
Boot from eFuses 0 0
Serial Downloader 0 1
Internal Boot 1 0
Because of the SD/MMC Manufacture Mode of i.MX6 Solo (TQMa6S) and DualLite (TQMa6U), please remove the SD Card from the Starterkit. Otherwise the Starterkit will boot from SD Card although “serial Downloader” mode is set on DIP S5.

For further information please see i.MX6 Solo and DualLite reference Manual chapter 8.11 SD/MMC Manufacture Mode

The following boot modes of the i.MX6 can be selected by the DIP switches S1, S2, S4 and S5 on the MBa6x.

SD-Card

S1

S2

S4 S4 has no effect

S5


eMMC

S1

S2

S4 S4 has no effect

S5


SPI NOR

S1

S2 S2 has no effect

S4

S5


Functional DIP Switches

DIP-Switch settings for CAN and RS485.

CAN configuration (S13)

DIP switch S13 is used to configure the CAN interfaces CAN1 and CAN2.

DIP OFF (default) ON
S13-1 CAN0 not terminated CAN0 interface terminated (120Ω)
S13-2 CAN1 not terminated CAN1 interface terminated (120Ω)

RS485 configuration (S14)

DIP switch S14 is used to configure the RS485 interface.

DIP OFF (default) ON
S14-1 RS485 RxD not terminated RS485 RxD terminated (120Ω)
S14-2 RS485 TxD not terminated RS485 TxD terminated (120Ω)