Arduino BBC vspace pro

How to use the “Arduino Board” and “BBC micro:bit” in vSpace Pro LTS and Enterprise Editions?

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software and is commonly used by education experts, content developers, engineers and interaction designers from all around the world. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online. You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board.

BBC micro:bit is another popular programming platform for all sorts of cool creations, from robots to musical instruments and is widely used in many schools around the world. It can be coded from any web browser in Blocks, Javascript, Python, Scratch and more.

Please follow instructions below to properly configure the Arduino board and/or BBC micro:bit support in the vSpace environment (vSpace Pro 11.2 or newer):

1.       Launch vSpace Console and select “Managed Servers”.



2.       Choose the vSpace Server.


3.       Select the “Settings” tab on the left panel and click on “Peripheral Devices” icon on top right.


4.  Click on “Enable USB redirection” (this is required) and “Enable COM ports management” and leave the default “COM3” value as the first redirected COM port name. Click “Apply” to save.  This will enable the connected Arduino board and/or BBC micro:bit board to be managed properly by vSpace.
Set First Redirected COM port name for e.g. to COM3




Setup on the client side:

Access the RX devices firmware UI to change custom settings for serial port:

  1. Set Peripherals -> Serial port to Generic USB
  2. Choose Custom VID:PID
  3. For original arduino UNO, select "Arduino SA Uno R3 (CDC ACM) - vid pid (2341:0043) from VID:PID list of connected devices.

Instructions to use Arduino in vSpace environment:

 

1.       Install the latest Arduino IDE Windows Installer on the vSpace host machine.  Latest Arduino IDE Windows installer, for Windows XP and up can be found here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Important note: 

Arduino IDE for Windows App will not work in terminal session (i.e. in vSpace), make sure “Windows installer, for Windows XP and up” is used (see screenshot below).



2.       Connect Arduino board to NComputing thin clients (e.g. RX300, L300)

 

3.       Login to the vSpace user session, invoke the Arduino IDE and open any example codes under “File’ tab.  To update the new code to the connected Arduino board, please first check the following configurations:

a.       Navigate to “Tool” pulldown menu, make sure the corresponding Arduino board type is selected (in this example: Arduino Uno).

b.       Check the ‘Port’ sub-menu assignment. There should only be one COM port auto-assigned to this connected board. No user action is required here.




4.       Click the “Upload” icon to update new code to the connected Arduino board.



Instructions to use BBC micro:bit in vSpace environment:

1.       Connect BBC micro:bit  board to NComputing thin clients (e.g. RX300, L300)

2.       Login to the vSpace user session. Open www.microbit.org/code URL with any browser to access the HTML5 editor to create code or import code to BBC micro:bit.


3.       Once the new code is ready, click on “Download” in the micro:bit browser editor to download the hex file.


4.       Copy the downloaded hex file and move this file to the top level of the micro:bit drive. This action will trigger software update to the BBC micro:bit board which is connected to the NComputing thin client.


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