USB without USB, in 10 cents!

I believe I now have made the cheapest USB enabled microcontroller. Check out this project's github here: github.com/cnl...
Patreon: / cnlohr

[@vincei4252]

That's a top quality cat right there.

[@CNLohr]

Friday is the best!

[@user-jp1qt8ut3s]

Nice, that you use a cat instead of a mouse to work on your computer

[@maxime22000b]

UUOC !

[@addrian27]

The mouse is in the cat

[@ericbwertz]

You didn't bit-bang that -- Friday signal-scratched it. Kitty power!

[@CNLohr]

I might steal that.

[@ericbwertz]

@@CNLohr Good luck clawing it away from Friday!

[@davidwillmore]

Good boy, Friday!

[@u2bear377]

How does one know a cat named Friday is male? P.S. In Russian the word for Friday ("пятница", 'pyatnitsa') is feminine. But we all have read 'Robinson Crusoe', so Пятница as a given name is perceived as male.

[@king_james_official]

@@u2bear377one has to ask. words in english aren't gendered like in russian, french, german, etc.

[@Xoferif]

Wow! Really amazing work! I've always been a bit "meh" about RISC-V,, but these $0.10 micros have really captured my imagination. There's so much you can do with them (as demonstrated in this video).

[@xThirdOpsx]

I mean the ESP family of mcu is pretty amazing

[@Markfps]

Dude you're insane, thank you and your friends. Amazing work

[@CNLohr]

It has been one ride!

[@not_just_burnt]

that passport on the floor

[@HilaryCheng]

Amazing! Watch your live several time and finally, you've done it!

[@CNLohr]

I was so worried along the way it wouldn't be possible. But yes, it indeed does work.

[@mariobv947]

@@CNLohr When I listened to a talk given by the guy that coded Grainuum for M0+, if i recall right, he said that it's ok for the device to miss a first USB query, so the MCU would have enought time to process the request so then it could reply to the second trial, and even he said that the code could dismiss the CRC checking because 99% of time, USB packets would remain error free. I think your Bit-banged USB implementation for RV is by far much more reliable.

[@remy-u8t]

Watched some of the streams. Nice job on fixing the bug 🎉.

[@CNLohr]

I'm glad to have had you all!

[@MH-GoL]

Amazing work! Time to solder some tiny copper wires to the usb c connectors of my boards.

[@guest7329]

🎉glad to help, it would be cool to see more projects on stream

[@CNLohr]

It's really stressful, and also reduces my subscribers :-/

[@guest7329]

@CNLohr hm interesting, it was same with libsurvive?

[@gustinian]

Congratulations, you did it. Sterling effort all round. 🎉

[@CNLohr]

🎉

[@happyhippo4664]

Your skills are beyond my capabilities - or more correctly put, my patience. The programmer is cheap and easy to use. And this chip now has Arduino IDE support, which makes it even easier to use.

[@CNLohr]

Start playing with it. I highly recommend. The on-ramp to doing more advanced things is stead and the learning curve shallow. Start by playing around in Arduino, then read through the reference manual.

[@DiyintheGhetto]

Hey Charles awesome you got it finally working. Congrats.

[@Chaminox]

absolute legend

[@CNLohr]

Thanks!

[@MaxintRD]

One word: Wow! Excellent job and amazing work indeed!

[@CNLohr]

Thanks!

[@randallyoung6715]

Congrats, so fun to watch this come together!

[@CNLohr]

I'm glad to have had everyone here for it.

[@luizcarlosf2]

Dude !! That's impressive to say at least.... curious to read how you capture the initiation... Thanks for posting the code!

[@CNLohr]

What do you mean by "capture the initiation" I only do things that feel like they *have* to get done.

[@stepannovotny4291]

Uh ...Okay! I really wasn't expecting this. Definite up-vote for this one!

[@RaOne-gk3ok]

THIS IS EPIC

[@NicolaGuerrera]

Astonishing as always! And cute cat :3

[@CNLohr]

Friday is the best!

[@ytfp]

Was fun, great work!

[@Afrotechmods]

Kitty!

[@matthewpeterson5159]

Great work!

[@flomojo2u]

Really amazing accomplishment, there's always that worry when working on smaller devices that you'll get 90% of the way through to implementing it, only to run out of resources... You kind of need to be willing to accept that possibility when starting such a project, but it sure makes it all worth it when you succeed! One question: is the 2KB bootloader separate from the main 16KB of flash?

[@moeezmalik13]

I believe so yes, he mentioned that on the Amp Hour podcast recently.

[@YusufBAYLAV]

That's cool Charles. Thanks

[@CNLohr]

Thanks!

[@rumidom]

would be nice if someone took this and started selling supercheap development boards, like arduino nanos but 50 cents

[@CNLohr]

That is what I am hoping for!

[@iamjimgroth]

​@@CNLohr Aren't you going to do it? I would totally buy a ton of them!

[@anispinner]

Legend has it, legend has done it

[@timmturner]

I knew you could do it, congratulations to all involved.

[@CNLohr]

🎉

[@vkoskiv]

What if they bump up the unit price now that they can advertise USB support 😅

[@shrikedecil]

The market for $0.10 chips is "Trying to sell them by the 10,000s to washing machine companies" and similar. Going to $1/chip to soak the home electronic maker community ... would make them far less competitive in far larger markets that already have plenty of tools to program without this.

[@mariobv947]

Taken into account that a CH32V203F8P6 as cheap as 0.50 has two USB interfaces, and one of them has Full speed USB host support, and the recent advent of the CH32V035, advertised as USB capable, then i guess the V003 hasn't got much margin for rising its price.

[@nikbivation]

thank you for this!

[@marios2liquid]

Why some dev boards for this device (ebay, aliexpress) have a USB connector on the PCB, if HW/SW USB didn't exist before? Was it just for power?

[@CNLohr]

yes

[@sundinmikael]

Impressive CNLohr. Order 40pcs of SO8 with the programmer for 15 usd :) Good to have a small fast MCU with 3.3v to 5v capability.

[@davidpatry4195]

!!!!! Congratulations!! Have they contacted you for a job offer yet ?

[@andreamitchell4758]

He looks so interested yet puzzled

[@CNLohr]

He never *really* knows what's going on.

[@hafo821]

@@CNLohr maybe you are wrong, and he will try himself when nobody´s at home

[@atc1441]

Woah! Great

[@nickst2797]

I saw the recent Arduino IDE integration, and your comments on Hackaday. I have two questions to ask. 1) I see some ch32v chips with 8 pins and other with many more pins. Is the Arduino Integration for the 8 pin ones only? Which ones do you suggest? 2) If we dont use a USB, can we program it with something like SPI on the arduino? If yes, is there a schematic available? Because I only find USB schematics (your github). Thanks for all the work!

[@CNLohr]

Oh gosh, I can't answer any of these but folks in my Discord can (message me at `cnlohr` for a link). Or you can open a ticket on github

[@nickst2797]

@@CNLohr Thanks!

[@mgk878]

Very nice work bro

[@CNLohr]

Thanks

[@landspide]

Epic!!!

[@tenet-rotas]

Aaamazing :))

[@iuri.castro]

It was a long journey, but the reward made it worth it!

[@CNLohr]

(!!!) I did not even know if we could get here.

[@juanestebanrodriguez9742]

TKS A LOHR!

[@CNLohr]

welcome

[@Chriva]

Hm. Why do I think your twitter post about bootloaders is related to this? ;) Do these have lockable partitions? :)

[@mariobv947]

Congratulations!!!

[@LogicEu]

Amazing, great stuff!

[@CNLohr]

Thanks!

[@silenthunter0019]

I have some problem about PD1 .It ing but I can't program it any more

[@roanbrand7358]

How to flash initially though

[@CNLohr]

Via the programming header.

[@SplitScreamOFFICIAL]

He truly is a good Friday

[@CNLohr]

Only the best.

[@TheBodgybrothers]

You are a treasure!

[@CNLohr]

I'll let Friday know.

[@tarnaigy]

You still got it... When is bitbang ethernet coming? :D

[@CNLohr]

whoo knowwws

[@bennguyen1313]

Any thoughts on Grainuum USB (sean xobs), or V-USB/tinyUSB? Or the Cynthion hardware for usb debugging?

[@CNLohr]

I really don't like tinyUSB because it is ANYTHING BUT TINY. But, V-USB is great, and I've played with grainuum.

[@irukard]

Wow! 🎉

[@onjofilms]

wow, that's amazing!

[@dominogolian7858]

Nice job!

[@CNLohr]

Thanks

[@167mm167]

awesome ..

[@ErbyArt]

do you happen to take commissions or gigs and do odd jobs in general for people who need something weird made? 😳

[@Philip8888888]

I guess I don't need to buy the CH32V203F8P6 any more :P

[@amoose136]

This is neat but I assume you need an external tool to initially flash this into the boot sector?

[@davidwillmore]

Yes, but you can make a temporary one.

[@CNLohr]

Or it could be done in the factory.

[@TojiFushigoroWasTaken]

Cat 🥰

[@abdoun8214]

No bridging IC ?? Direct communication?? that's Crazy !

[@CNLohr]

In software, there are no rules.

[@TheRainHarvester]

Great work! Could this be ported to esp12e/f? Those chips have lots of ram and wifi and cost $1.

[@CNLohr]

espusb already exists for them. You could take that project and add a bootloader.

[@mortenmoulder]

That's really awesome. Do you need to flash them beforehand, or can everything be done via USB?

[@bearnaff9387]

They would need to be programmed through the normal programming interface first.

[@CNLohr]

That could happen at the factory, though.

[@ermuhambetcalmenov8104]

Артыңдағы мысық бақыт әкелді

[@CNLohr]

I'm glad! Friday is a good boy.

[@Dyas777]

Is it hard to make real time C debug through USB? Does this approach even make sense? I know that you can do this with device programmer in some MCUs.

[@CNLohr]

For gdb-style debugging this doesn't make sense, but it should be possible to "printf" back through the interface.

[@king_james_official]

how the hell did you fit a usb stack inside the boot sector lmao

[@CNLohr]

If you realllyyyy wanna know, I recorded the livestreams.

[@king_james_official]

@@CNLohr oh i realllyyyy wanna know ;3

[@king_james_official]

@@CNLohr oh i see the streams, thanks a lot!!!

[@loudthing87]

what distro is that

[@CNLohr]

Linux Mint Mate

[@a_pullin]

Does anyone sell those boards yet?

[@CNLohr]

Not quite but sooon

[@hafo821]

you need a CH32 and the cat

[@CNLohr]

We can take on the world

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

Is this going to be as finicky as teensy?

[@CNLohr]

Oohh, I am curious your take on this! What aspect was finicky? If I can understand that I can make it not finicky!

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

@@CNLohr Mostly the USB to serial drivers.

[@l3p3]

Can the USB interface only be used for reset-flashing or also by the userspace program put on the payload area? Can I flash a program on it that accesses the usb bitbang interface, without having a second usb implementation in userspace area?

[@CNLohr]

The idea is the userspace app would use its own copy of the USB stuff, then it could be a keyboard, joystick etc.

[@LandonRaces]

Run Linux on it

[@pacsmile]

these chips are going to shot up in price, aren't they?

[@CNLohr]

That isn't how these chinese companies work. Why try to extract every last cent from a market, when you have the opportunity to grow it 10-fold? The western approach to this is awful.

[@Vampirat3]

Im here from being a developer and youtube algorithms. But im staying for the lean mean coding , and nifty project demo! and friday 2. friday should have his own meme coin. there , I said it.

[@CNLohr]

I'm glad I have you here! Did I get the sub?

[@Vampirat3]

@@CNLohr Yessir , that was a sub well earned!

[@Diamonddrake]

Putting the risc-v in vUSB? bit banging usb for the win!

[@classyjohn1923]

can you teach me? I want to learn and be good at programming microcontrollers...

[@CNLohr]

Watch my livestreams and videos! I try to teach everyone.