Getting started with the STM32 microcontroller - STM32F103C8T6 via Arduino

In this video I explain as simple as possible how you can start programming the STM32F103C8T6 microcontroller (Blue Pill). It’s cheap and very fast….. But be aware of the 32-bit pitfalls.
There is also a community forum for Arduino on STM32: www.stm32duino.com
My video about direct port manipulation in Arduino
• Why I’m switching over...
I bought the STM32F103C8T6 here:
www.dx.com/p/stm32f103c8t6-arm...
And also the FTDI programmer:
www.dx.com/p/crius-ftdi-basic-...
The Arduino_STM32 project of Roger Clark on GitHub
github.com/rogerclarkmelbourn...

[@mosespio5376]

I'm a beginner in Arduino. I am amazed at the possibilities and usefulness for automation. Your videos are educational and of great value. Thank you so much Mr. Joop Brokking for sharing such important information.

[@manuel56354]

Your video is absolutely awesome. No unnecesary info, no delays to get to the information, clear speaking. Just awesome. I cringe every time I get to a youtube video that makes me waste life. Good job.

[@ozgemmo3445]

Absolutely brilliant - I have learnt so much by your patient and exceptionally clear explanations! Ditto for your following video as well (which I watched before this one)!!! I have looked at stm32 boards previously and as a newby to this microprocessor felt a bit overwhelmed by it - you have succeeded in clearing away a lot of the fog. Cheers and keep up the really great videos.

[@abhijitrashinkar]

My goodness, what a fantastic explanation, I appreciate all your efforts. Thank you.

[@andygyakobo7122]

It's been 3 years now and I still watch your videos

[@PilatusPorterPC6]

Thank you, You are a gifted teacher. On mine, I had to unplug power and then put the jumper in program position and after that, it worked just as you showed.

[@m1geo]

Thanks, got me started. I have years of PIC and Arduino experience and a large code base, but needed something cheap and a bit faster than 16 MHz!

[@valerioturrini9414]

Your videos are always really interesting, thanks for sharing!

[@DerickPelser]

Always happy to watch one of your videos. Very information!

[@noamw3841]

Great video, you explained everything so well. Learnt quite a few things about the stm32 boards.

[@heyarno]

Thanks a lot, I was considering this chip for a while, but wasn't sure if the hurdles with the native development environment might be too big. This easy alternative gives me more confidence.

[@Harrzack]

Well done. Also great info on the float & precision issues. Will def be checking out this board. 🍺

[@ChunkySteveo]

Awesome timing - not watched yet, but just got one of these boards and need to know the basics and why i've bought one?!! cheers! Steve

[@drpainnuk3d]

Your videos are amazingly! Thanks for all the great content, learnt loads from watching you!

[@alex.germany]

Joop, you are such a great guy. I love your videos and they helped me sometimes to understand things without hours of research on the Internet. It's one of my favorite channel. Thank you :-)

[@keen2461]

Awesome video you made mate. Totally subscribed. Thanks for your time.

[@glynnmason8205]

iver watch this video before and now ive watch it properly and done it as you have ive relized there is libraries for other projects so it's been help full thanks

[@CosmJJ]

What an amazing educational channel! Thank you so much!

[@davidgmos]

Great video, thanks for taking a bit of your time to share this.

[@kholdstare993]

Awesome video, very educational as always. Good job!

[@russelldicken9930]

Great explanation. Well done. A very useful point of reference.

[@walterhynson2898]

Thank you just right to get me started,now please do a video like this for the ST IDE

[@maximilianobarac8066]

Excellent video, your explanations are amazing! thanks a lot for share your incredible knowledge!

[@nyakoi]

Thank you for this video! I definitely learned a thing or two.

[@stevetobias4890]

Great video. I have some STM32 boards and a USB programmer I couldn't get working so I was thinking of selling them. I might try again now.

[@gatisozols]

Thank You Joop for showing that this board can be programmed with UART only that made my day! I use these boards for about a year now they are great! But I use ST-LINK v2 USB dongle to program them, because it allows to debug the code by stepping through it. Unfortunatelly my ST-LINK died last week so I had no means to program my MCUs! Now I will use my USB to UART converter to do the same thing!

[@Tea-Spin]

thanks for the video, such an excellent presentation

[@joelrichard-foy4938]

Thank for this excellent video. I only regret that subtitles or script are not available, it would be a plus for non-English speakers, although your diction and sound are excellent.

[@altamashabdulrahim8862]

Nice work, expecting more tutorials on stm32. Cheers!

[@MB-st7be]

Very nice. Great success!

[@GeekMustHave]

Love your videos, your pace of delivery is excellent and the care you took to layout the breadboard to actually track where the wires were going between the FTDI and STM32 was spot on. Someday I hope to be able to do videos of this quality. It sounds like you script voice-overs, if so, how long does it take for you? Keep Broadcasting!!!

[@federicogabrielluna5995]

Thanks very much! graet video! Regards from Argentina..!

[@allinthefamiliy3122]

Bedankt joop,met veel plezier bekeken

[@yunusemreates6976]

really educational. Thanks. Good job

[@pixelflow]

As someone who just took the blue pill dive, this saved a TON of confusion and information overload. Also you can choose st-link in the IDE if yours came with one of those clone usb boards. Connect SWDIO/GND/SWCLK/3.3V to the 4 pin header, and prestouplodo (the boot pin does not seem to affect its ability to upload)

[@PatrickHoodDaniel]

Very clear and well organized explanation of the STM32 Arduino development environment. That specific line of stm32 chips has an onboard USB feature I believe. Too bad the FTDI is needed. It would be nice for the bootloader to take advantage of the USB on-chip peripheral. The stm32 chips are excellent and very inexpensive. Keep up the great work. We should collaborate as I teach bare chip STM32.

[@Joop_Brokking]

The SUB connector can be used to upload programs. But not all boards of this type are made correct and you might have to solder a resistor. Some computers recognize it, some don't. And then there is the hassle of installing drivers, etc. This method is the simplest way to use this kind of boards. And your channel is great: kzbin.info

[@goirikdhar4265]

Thank you! it worked perfectly.

[@GhassanYousif]

thanks for the excellent video tutorial most easy and direct

[@Cptnbond]

In the past, STM32_Arduino core or "Rogers core" was the only Arduino core (wrapper) for the STM32F103 chip. The STM32duino was written by ST themselves and is now considered the "official" Arduino core. This core supports many more boards Nucleo, disconvery, and chips, F0, F1,F2,F3,F4,F7. The official core uses HAL where as "Rogers" core (STM32_Arduino core) uses the Standard Peripheral library. I think in this video you are using the Rogers core which many people still use. The STM32duino core can be installed into the arduino ide . The ST official core became available in May 2017.

[@stevenalex9439]

Thank you for the video!

[@ronaldhofman1726]

Nice video, well explained, the static on the upper edge of the osciloscope can be resolved by the use of a decoupling capacitor?, in the 80's i learned electronics and used the 6502, Z80 , 8051, was a good time , learned a lot from building thnigs.

[@ThiwankaWimalasuriya]

Thank you for this great video

[@tmack4207]

Thank you for your tutorial.I found it easier to use a ST-LINK v2 programmer.Change the upload method to STLINK in Arduino ide

[@gyoosuhnjee8698]

Thanks a lot, good lecture!

[@EvertvanIngen]

My god, the solder job on this thing :O

[@altamiradorable]

Many thanks Joop !

[@joelrichard-foy4938]

Thank for this excellent video,

[@nicolasbug]

Really interesting !!

[@DavidFeliz]

Nice video! Instant subscribed 😉

[@tmtguitar]

Thanks for the videos! Does the Flip32 need some changes on the code? Or can I directly upload the sketch to it?

[@pkvs79979]

thanks for your video, it's very helpful :DDD

[@fromgermany271]

Update to floating point: Since some time (and AFAIK v9.x) avr-gcc comes with 64-bit float support. Might be tricky to set the correct compiler flags in the Arduino environment, but it is available now.

[@desidavinci7898]

great video. thanks a lot

[@sivam450]

Very usefull work!

[@mennomjorna]

Thanks for the excellent video! So the STM32 is quite a bit faster than the Uno (if programmed well). But how much would you notice this difference in reality while flying the quadcopter?

[@kenwallace6493]

Hi Joop. Several years ago you said you were going with Atmel Studio instead of Arduino IDE. What is your opinion now, SAMD21 versus STM32? Thanks.

[@radarmusen]

Thanks this was excellent.

[@naseer48]

Very informative

[@brettmcgrath4363]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I have been following your videos and have been building the autonomous quad. I have now run into trouble with the GPS testing. and now the Q-A page is "page not found 404". Will it be back?

[@hackerspacep.e7969]

Great tutorial

[@strikerjasma68]

Hey! Love the series! Have you thought about creating a quadcopter with rpi pico? It would allow python programmers, that are not so savvy with C++ to give it a try as well.

[@nathanas64]

Excellent!!!!

[@paradoxlab2023]

thank you. 😁subscribed

[@ariegt]

weer zo'n top video Joop. Could this board be programmed as a Host usb device ?

[@venug2617]

Superb......

[@Cyberplayer5]

I found your tutorial useful. However the screen shots of the IDE were hard to read. It would help to sharpen the camera focus on this part in future videos if you have not done this already. Again thanks for the fairly simple setup to a micro I have just started using.

[@partouelectric2353]

Grate video, Joop Thank you, I am having problem understanding where to copy the Github file, would you explain that part in writing please

[@Loopyengineeringco]

Great video but you missed an important trick - you can load a DFU bootloader to the STM32F103C8T6 which enables uploading and serial straight through USB with no jumper swapping necessary! Google for the details. PS these boards also have double the flash than they claim, you can use it by changing the setting in Arduino IDE :)

[@GnuReligion]

I enjoyed the video, Joop, but I agree with some of the comments, that you miss the point somewhat. This device is novel because it has an inexpensive USB 2.0 full speed interface, that can be programmed and debugged without extra hardware. github.com/DAlexis/stm32-usb-bootloader An Uno facilitates programming the fantastically low-powered 8-bit Atmel Mega series, which can cost as little as 50 cents. It would be better to compare this board to an ATmega32u4, and measure the Mips-per-watt, or Mips-per-Benjamin.

[@Joop_Brokking]

I did not missed that trick. As I mentioned in the video and in the description: the goal of this video is to get people started as easy as possible. And after researching this board for quite some time this was the simplest way I could think of.

[@ujjvalkavathia4474]

Hey sir you surprised me , I've been working for over couple of months now on this exact board and trying to build ymfc al quadcopter using stm32f103c8t6 as its brain. Can you help me out?

[@omerfaruksolmaz5363]

I have a question. How did upload this code with "Arduino as ISP" programmer? 4:58

[@frxprince]

thank you for sharing :-)

[@arashabdi4052]

hello, thank you so much for all of your tutorials, but i faced to the problem, i hope that i can get some guidance. i followed all steps as you have done, but i do not know why the micro controller can not read receiver signals, all channel are always zero??what do you think Sir.?

[@yacinehefied7390]

thx for this video but please can you tell me what's the difference between FTDI programmer and st-link programmer??

[@boudebzabadra9749]

Thanks Sir for this video, my question is if i want to control my drone by raspberry pi over wifi how can I connect STM32 with Pi to get the commands?

[@sahebkumar5197]

sir thank you so much for publishing this video ............sir we will really greatful to you ....if you add gps and barometer sensor for altitude hold to this project.......again thank you so much sir

[@sofienkhalifa430]

good job and thnx for help

[@sumit_kashyap..]

When you will teach us about GPS RTH and GPS hold ..... I think in this year. ?

[@ghifordmizzard1897]

I have the Blue Pill card. The boot 0 if I put it to one the led will always flash. Does not enter programming mode. Is there a way to set Jumper BOOT 0? To make it possible to load skethc

[@nicholaschite5418]

Is there anyway to make the YMFC-32 drone compatible with arduino ctc 101 as a flight controller without the MPU (using the 101's internal IMU) and without the STM32?

[@minseokkim6144]

It gonna be fun when you make a drone using STM32F103 board (blue pill)! I'm trying to do it!

[@ujjvalkavathia4474]

Hey even im trying to build drone using stm32f103c8t6 can you help me out with one of my problem? You can contact me on [e-mail] please contact me..!!!!

[@jcallano]

Nice video. I did a video in spanish comparing multiple MCU doing pi calculation using newton method using 1 millon iterations. Price performace of stm32f103 "Blue Pill" is awesome!!, also esp8266 with wifi is good performer and the best performance from esp32.

[@offensivebias3965]

Stlink upload also works for this one !

[@gocnhin8101]

In 2021 January, we don't need a fidi ttl usb any more, using roger clark bootloader by upload it via stlink v2 once, then using built-in micro usb port

[@rolandberendonck3900]

Sounds very good. Do you have a link to a video in which this is explained plz?

[@johns66723]

Please, could you link to data-sheet? In every video where you show a data-sheet it is different to the corresponding data-sheet I can find online. For instance my stm32F103 data-sheet dose not have section 9.2.4 shown at 8:32 . I am very confused by this, please could you help. Thank you.

[@aakash512]

How do I write code for direct port manipulation of stm32 Any tutorials?

[@macieksoft]

I heard that somebody have made a 64bit float library for ATmegas. Not sure if it's true but i heard about it somewhere.

[@satyanandkommuri6058]

Hello sir can I use PL2303 to stm 32 as a serial connector , I want to connect 3.3v pin of PL2303 to 3.3v pin of stm32 does it works?

[@lizaidir]

les gars , est ce c'est normal d'avoir un SMT32 qui se surchauffe , avec un carte d'un moteur shield alimentée de 24 V en sortie , qui pilote un moteur brushless triphasé ?

[@mkr32]

can you help me how to connect Arduino with hoover board wiring diagram and code for Arduino for speed control

[@jeff7365]

Thanks! It helps me alot. Now, do you have anything about CAN Bus on STM32 using arduino IDE or other?

[@Joop_Brokking]

I have no videos about CAN bus on a STM32.

[@RinksRides]

you will need the CANBUS interface board (it's like USB but signals differential of 12V so dont waste your STM32 by trying to plug directly into CANBUS) and possibly something like Atmel Studio (ST ver IDE?). I dont believe Arduino IDE has good examples, there may be bugs, it's best use is for beginner level simple programs. Many caveats using Arduino IDE for complex programs.

[@Handballprofi117]

From where do you know the command GPIOB_BASE is there a wiki for the library or can you see this anywhere in the datasheet of the stm32?

[@edwintjoa6099]

Was also thinking how did author know about this definition of GPIOB_BASE?

[@typedef_]

@@edwintjoa6099 Datasheets. Ever heard of them ? They are this white paper things with writing on them, that explain how a chip works better than ANY tutorial. Make sure you read carefully.

[@misterwilliam8877]

Thanx for the clean explanation. I ve made the code for home automation with esp8266 which is for arduino uno or mega. should I required to completely change the codes?

[@northshorepx]

for esp you need to use different ports control on esp9266 arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/44531/arduino-esp8266-direct-fast-control-of-the-digital-pins

[@misterwilliam8877]

you mean just assigning TX, RX pin to esp8266 is good enough without changing codes? and also I have no idea of storing output states of controller in external eeprom. Can you help with that?

[@youcef.hammar7516]

HELLO , firstly thanks for you all your works and your help, I have a problem with the calibration of my brushless motor I used your code of calibration but I cant know the real value of min and max , I have a brushless motor a2212 13T 1000KV, thanks for all your helps

[@nemobondt9117]

Just run a PWM testcode and print the values

[@youcef.hammar7516]

nemo bondt thanks for your answer, I choose two values min and max then I varied the throttle value between 0 and 180 , I find the motor start turn for 10 and stop for 175 the max is for 174, please what do you think about this result

[@bullygram]

Can we use the same setup for stm8, in terms of hardware setup.

[@matthieupicardat-dubois2752]

Hi :) just one question why did you write GPIOB_BASE->BSRR = 0b1 BSRR = 0b1

[@Joop_Brokking]

I'm explaining the register access in this part: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gHe2d5WJnJWfaK8m17s Hope this helps.

[@user-ng8ig5ul6p]

Great video! But when I did all the things as you do, except that I didn't use the FTDI, but another general USB board, the LED didn't flash. Is there anything wrong?

[@Joop_Brokking]

Most likely the general USB board does not work. Use a FTDI programmer instead.

[@glewiss6696]

Is programming STM32 still usefull with arduino interface knowing that being so user friendly that it will hide a lot of code wich could sometime screw the timing of the program? I've started to look for a more proffesionnal IDE like Eclipse based AC6 system workbench and realised that there is also a really handy tool named STM32 CubeMX that creates all the code for the pinout depending on which chip your are using. Well other than being more bulky the down side of htese IDE is that all is writen in regular C programming vs the more user friendly C++ oriented Arduino. What do you recommend?

[@Joop_Brokking]

The Arduino is a great way to get started. Once you know what you are doing you can move on to some more advanced IDE's. The learning curve on advanced IDE's is just to steep for hobbyists.

[@azhangjamali6169]

Hello,how can i run the ov7670 with a stm32f103c8t6 via arduino?

[@davidb8398]

Can work any touch screen on this module?