Cheaper chinese clone of Maple mini.

[Dude72]

I tried the cheaper chinese clone of Maple mini: http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/503134004-Free-shipping-ST-STM32-Cortex-M3-Maple-Mini-wholesalers.html
This is not working properly. First it was not possible to install the driver, the system will indicate that it is not appropriate for the product. Second LED by pressing the reset button did not blink, and is constantly on. Checking the quality of installation and the appropriate circuit device revealed no defects.
Then I tried to re-flash the device to perform as described on leaflabs website using UART adapter but could not understand how to work with Python libraries so used GUI flasher for Windows on ST site. With this program, I did a global erase the device and put firmware file maple_mini_boot.bin to the device. After that, the device manager successfully detected device that came drivers.
Then flash the device on the procedure described on preenfm site by using mini USB cable.
Of course, perhaps the time taken to find a solution is not worth the gain in value compared with the original device, however in my opinion the price of the original device is an exaggeration, is close in value to the development board   

[6581punk]

So is it working now or not?

This is the one big problem with ARM boards, availability is so tricky and some are proprietary or closed (Raspberry Pi).

[Dude72]

Work as well, really happy becouse I thought about that this product is fake. But really no, just they flash it wrongly. Re-flashing this and resolve the problem.

[Altitude]

Honestly, why not support Leaflabs and just dish out the extra 9$?  These Chinese clones rip off open source projects to make a quick buck and usually deliver a sub standard product.  I had the unpleasant experience of working with a arduino clone and it was a mess..

[Dude72]

I don't know exactly. It was my first experience with STM32. I made something like MidiBox FM on PIC18F452 based and megadrum  on Atmega32. And I registered on this chinessian site, bought not bad MIDI interface from there USB 4x4. Anyway I ask technical support when I have no ideas anymore, before this I try and try again, just for get more experiences.

[6581punk]

The only think you can say against Leaf Labs is their flow of stock isn't very consistent.

[shiftr]

Someone on the MI forum just postes this option... anybody have some experience with this one?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120995270976

[Xavier]

I saw that also on the MI forum...
I'm looking forward to see how this maple mini clone behave.

Xavier

[6581punk]

I ordered one too

[shiftr]

Ok i've got the ebay one now...

i can't get it to work yet....
it's working with the Maple software but i can't get the preenfm code on it.

this is what i get:

dfu-util - (C) 2007 by OpenMoko Inc.
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY

Opening USB Device 0x1eaf:0x0003...
Found Runtime: [0x1eaf:0x0003] devnum=0, cfg=0, intf=0, alt=0, name="DFU Program RAM 0x20000C00"
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
Transfer Size = 0x0400
bytes_per_hash=1934
Starting download: [#########Error during download get_status
dennis:preenfm dennis$

anybody any idea what's wrong?

[Xavier]

Hi shiftr,

"Found Runtime: [0x1eaf:0x0003] devnum=0, cfg=0, intf=0, alt=0, name="DFU Program RAM 0x20000C00""

Seems like you try to upload the program in RAM instead of Flash.
As the RAM is only 20Kb it quickly stops.
I would say "-a1" is missing from your dfu-util parameters.

See the following *.cmd files :
http://xhosxe.free.fr/PreenFM/firmware/

Xavier

[shiftr]

Thanks! The flashing worked now!... I have no way to test it yet because i still have to build the PreenFM. But i think it will be ok.

For all who go for this Chinese maple copy... It has a different size!! So you will need to do some trick to be aple to plug in into the PreenFM.