This is an unboxing and porting review of the Freetronics EtherMega.

It is an Arduino Mega 2560 compatible product, with the added goodness of a Wiznet W5100 Ethernet module and a MicroSD card cage on board.

http://www.freetronics.com/products/ethermega-arduino-mega-2560-compatible-with-onboard-ethernet

Obviously, my first job is to port the freeRTOS code to run on the EtherMega ATmega2560 microcontroller. There are some things about the ATmega2560 that are different from other ATmega devices, making it necessary to modify the standard freeRTOS code for it to work correctly. But the main difference is that because of the size of its flash memory, it has a 3 byte program counter (rather than 2 byte in every other ATmega device).

There are only a few references to making the ATmega2560 work. This reference is the most compelling guide.

http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=70387

Stu_San has proposed a port, and I have used it as an accurate guide to getting things running. There are some changes. freeRTOS has changed significantly with regard to how the port.c file is built. Also, I’ve already implemented options for Timer selection. So the resultant code on the Sourceforge AVRfreeRTOS Project is slightly different to what Stu_San proposed.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/avrfreertos/

The avr-linker script needs to have a small addition to support Stu_San’s suggestions. For the purposes of simplicity (only change a little as possible, to get things working), I’ve only included the .task tag into the avr6.x file, that will replace the normal avr-binutils file in /usr/lib/ldscripts

UPDATE: as of avrlibc 1.8.0 there is a .lowtext section in avr6.x included at the bottom of flash, which is exactly what we need for this outcome. Hence, in the port for freeRTOS800 I’ve converted from .task to use .lowtext, which means there is no need to change or modify the avr6.x file. It will just work automagically.

At this stage the EtherMega is nicely flashing its LED at me, which means that the scheduler and IO addressing using my digitalAnalogue tools are working correctly. But, I’m sure there are many things still to improve over the coming days and weeks.

Update – 25 January 2012

Corrected an error calculating the serial port baud rate. The (all) AVR data sheet has an error in it, that only exhibits at certain CPU frequencies. Unfortunately, I’ve normally only used Arduino and Freetronics kit over-clocked to 22.1184MHz, which provides perfect baud rates with no error. This CPU frequency does not exercise the faulty data sheet calculation, to generate errors.

WormFood’s AVR Baud Rate Calculator

The standard Arduino CPU frequency of 16MHz causes the serial port to run too slow by 3.7% at 115200 baud (well outside the recommended range of 2%), and more importantly the data sheet calculation chooses the wrong set up value for the UBRR value driving the baud clock, causing the serial port to become unworkable. The calculation method has been improved in the AVR <util/setbaud.h> file, and that calculation method is now used in my serial library. New code uploaded.

Update – 8 March 2012

Completed the ChaN FatF library port to freeRTOS for driving the microSD card. Supports both SD and HCSD. Code in usual place.

Update – 5 April 2012

Completed the Ethernet library port to freeRTOS for driving the Wiznet W5100. Supports TCP, UDP and Raw IP modes. Code in usual place.

The standard Arduino Mega stk500v2 bootloader used by default in the Freetronics EtherMega does not work when loading more than 64kB into flash. I’ve found a modified version by msproul that works, or at least does now that I’ve changed it a little more, to be found here.