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Raspberry Pi Debug Probe: a plug-and-play debug kit

70 points by schappim 4y ago

bschwindHN 4y ago
What has been the deal with RPi's decision to continue using micro-usb connectors? Is it just a huge price difference at the scale they're working at? Not a big deal, but if everyone's going to complain about Apple not using USB-C, it's only fair to throw a bit of shade here at others creating micro USB products in 2023. That aside, this looks like a useful board! I have an RP2040-based keyboard I made, and in the latest iteration I ended up using a TRS connector to expose the SWD wires. I wanted to also create a dedicated RP2040 debug board with a corresponding TRS connector, very similar to what's made here. Maybe I'll just buy one of these instead...
- schappim 4y ago
  Micro-USB connectors are cheaper than USB-C connectors, and low cost is kind of Raspberry Pi's shtick. This is particularly important for their lower-end products, such as the Zero and Pico.
- 15155 4y ago
  The cost of cables and receptacles is quite a bit lower for Micro USB Type-B connectors and these microcontroller products have tens-of-cents (or maybe even less) in price sensitivity. The RPI4 has far less sensitivity and USB OTG, so it uses USB Type-C.
- Nullabillity 4y ago
  Micro-USB is a widespread standard, Lightning is not.
  - trollied 4y ago
    The parent comment did not mention Lightning. USB-C, the form factor, is widespread & is becoming more common by the day.
- crote 4y ago
  I completely agree with this. You can get a USB-C connector for $0.02, sticking to Micro-B in 2023 is starting to become a dealbreaker for me.
- packetlost 4y ago
  Official response from Pi Foundation is they don't think it's worth the additional BOM cost.
  - bschwindHN 4y ago
    That's fair enough, do you have a link to their response? I'm curious what the actual cost increase is. I'd be more than happy to pay an extra 50 cents or whatever for USB C :)
    - packetlost 4y ago
      https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-debug-probe-a-plug-and-play-debug-kit-for-12/#comment-1590786 https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-debug-probe-a-... They didn't give a cost difference.
      - bschwindHN 4y ago
        Someone in the comments had a good point - they provide a USB cable with the debug probe. I wonder if it would be cheaper to use a USB-C connector, and _not_ provide a cable. It's not like the RP2040 is pushing any sort of high data transfer rates. Oh well, I'm sure the people at the RPi foundation already had this discussion quite a few times.
- epakai 4y ago
  It sucks, but I kind of like how it has opened some space for rp2040 boards with differentiating features. Most are 2-3x cost, but still competitive with say, a teensy or high-end arduino.
actionfromafar 4y ago
Can you use it to program ESP8266?
- bschwindHN 4y ago
  Maybe not out of the box, but it has UART pins so in theory you should be able to.
- polonbike 4y ago
  It has UART, so I guess you can
unwind 4y ago
This looks really interesting. I haven't jumped into the Pico pool yet for my hobbyist microcontroller fun, but I guess I "should", it does look pretty cool and the price/availability is right. I was initially turned off by the lack of onboard flash, that made it look ... less mature/complete than e.g. most AVRs or STM32s. I wonder if it's possible to port the Black Magic Probe [1] firmware to the RP2040 (as a host, I mean now)? I always felt the Black Magic seemed so nice, but haven't managed to get it running on the variety of Shady Blue/Black Pills [2] I've managed to get hold of the past few years. [1]: https://black-magic.org/index.html https://black-magic.org/index.html [2]: https://robocraze.com/blogs/post/introduction-to-the-stm32-bluepill https://robocraze.com/blogs/post/introduction-to-the-stm32-b...
xchip 4y ago
Is this how we say 'cloned the repository' now? 'Bell wrote the software, taking inspiration from the DapperMime project.' Any way you can use Black magic, which is a firmware that can make any MCU a debug probe that acts as GDB.
- jdiez17 4y ago
  +1 for Blackmagic [1] (the firmware and the probe itself.) I integrated the open hardware and software into a dev board, super easy! [1] https://black-magic.org/ https://black-magic.org/
  - xchip 4y ago
    Blackmagic supports a ESP32/ESP8266 and you can wifi to it as if it was a remote DBG. Despite of it awesomeness companies (Nordic, STM) are still _not_ supporting it and they are building their overpriced ($100+) and wired debug probes.
vbezhenar 4y ago
They still did not upstream their openocd changes. I wonder what's the reason. Is their debug protocol so proprietary? OpenOCD works with many controllers out of the box, including ARM ones, but not raspico.
- argulane 4y ago
  Looks like RP2040 support was merged some time ago and should be available in recently released OpenOCD v0.12.0 https://github.com/openocd-org/openocd/commit/92169e9f5529959aa63f13c47c3975dfe90a686b https://github.com/openocd-org/openocd/commit/92169e9f552995...
xchip 4y ago
Who asked for this? Blackmagic is already awesome.
- MikusR 4y ago
  This seems to be six times cheaper and actually available.
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    You can turn a $3 stm32 blue pill board into a blackmagic probe. https://jeelabs.org/202x/bmp/ https://jeelabs.org/202x/bmp/
  - xchip 4y ago
    Same thing for a esp8266 or a esp32, and you can connect using GDB to it remotely

70 points by schappim 4y ago

What has been the deal with RPi's decision to continue using micro-usb connectors? Is it just a huge price difference at the scale they're working at? Not a big deal, but if everyone's going to complain about Apple not using USB-C, it's only fair to throw a bit of shade here at others creating micro USB products in 2023. That aside, this looks like a useful board! I have an RP2040-based keyboard I made, and in the latest iteration I ended up using a TRS connector to expose the SWD wires. I wanted to also create a dedicated RP2040 debug board with a corresponding TRS connector, very similar to what's made here. Maybe I'll just buy one of these instead...

schappim 4y ago
Micro-USB connectors are cheaper than USB-C connectors, and low cost is kind of Raspberry Pi's shtick. This is particularly important for their lower-end products, such as the Zero and Pico.
15155 4y ago
The cost of cables and receptacles is quite a bit lower for Micro USB Type-B connectors and these microcontroller products have tens-of-cents (or maybe even less) in price sensitivity. The RPI4 has far less sensitivity and USB OTG, so it uses USB Type-C.
Nullabillity 4y ago
Micro-USB is a widespread standard, Lightning is not.
- trollied 4y ago
  The parent comment did not mention Lightning. USB-C, the form factor, is widespread & is becoming more common by the day.
crote 4y ago
I completely agree with this. You can get a USB-C connector for $0.02, sticking to Micro-B in 2023 is starting to become a dealbreaker for me.
packetlost 4y ago
Official response from Pi Foundation is they don't think it's worth the additional BOM cost.
- bschwindHN 4y ago
  That's fair enough, do you have a link to their response? I'm curious what the actual cost increase is. I'd be more than happy to pay an extra 50 cents or whatever for USB C :)
  - packetlost 4y ago
    https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-debug-probe-a-plug-and-play-debug-kit-for-12/#comment-1590786 https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-debug-probe-a-... They didn't give a cost difference.
    - bschwindHN 4y ago
      Someone in the comments had a good point - they provide a USB cable with the debug probe. I wonder if it would be cheaper to use a USB-C connector, and _not_ provide a cable. It's not like the RP2040 is pushing any sort of high data transfer rates. Oh well, I'm sure the people at the RPi foundation already had this discussion quite a few times.
epakai 4y ago
It sucks, but I kind of like how it has opened some space for rp2040 boards with differentiating features. Most are 2-3x cost, but still competitive with say, a teensy or high-end arduino.

actionfromafar 4y ago

Can you use it to program ESP8266?

bschwindHN 4y ago
Maybe not out of the box, but it has UART pins so in theory you should be able to.
polonbike 4y ago
It has UART, so I guess you can

unwind 4y ago

This looks really interesting. I haven't jumped into the Pico pool yet for my hobbyist microcontroller fun, but I guess I "should", it does look pretty cool and the price/availability is right. I was initially turned off by the lack of onboard flash, that made it look ... less mature/complete than e.g. most AVRs or STM32s. I wonder if it's possible to port the Black Magic Probe [1] firmware to the RP2040 (as a host, I mean now)? I always felt the Black Magic seemed so nice, but haven't managed to get it running on the variety of Shady Blue/Black Pills [2] I've managed to get hold of the past few years. [1]: https://black-magic.org/index.html https://black-magic.org/index.html [2]: https://robocraze.com/blogs/post/introduction-to-the-stm32-bluepill https://robocraze.com/blogs/post/introduction-to-the-stm32-b...

xchip 4y ago

Is this how we say 'cloned the repository' now? 'Bell wrote the software, taking inspiration from the DapperMime project.' Any way you can use Black magic, which is a firmware that can make any MCU a debug probe that acts as GDB.

jdiez17 4y ago
+1 for Blackmagic [1] (the firmware and the probe itself.) I integrated the open hardware and software into a dev board, super easy! [1] https://black-magic.org/ https://black-magic.org/
- xchip 4y ago
  Blackmagic supports a ESP32/ESP8266 and you can wifi to it as if it was a remote DBG. Despite of it awesomeness companies (Nordic, STM) are still _not_ supporting it and they are building their overpriced ($100+) and wired debug probes.

vbezhenar 4y ago

They still did not upstream their openocd changes. I wonder what's the reason. Is their debug protocol so proprietary? OpenOCD works with many controllers out of the box, including ARM ones, but not raspico.

argulane 4y ago
Looks like RP2040 support was merged some time ago and should be available in recently released OpenOCD v0.12.0 https://github.com/openocd-org/openocd/commit/92169e9f5529959aa63f13c47c3975dfe90a686b https://github.com/openocd-org/openocd/commit/92169e9f552995...

xchip 4y ago

Who asked for this? Blackmagic is already awesome.

MikusR 4y ago
This seems to be six times cheaper and actually available.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  You can turn a $3 stm32 blue pill board into a blackmagic probe. https://jeelabs.org/202x/bmp/ https://jeelabs.org/202x/bmp/
- xchip 4y ago
  Same thing for a esp8266 or a esp32, and you can connect using GDB to it remotely