Friday, July 12, 2013

Freescale: STAR-XL-S08 XL Star Accelerometer


XL_STAR : a complete, flexible, low cost development environment. On a single board XL_STAR combines a Freescale 8-bit HCS08 MM128 MCU, a Freescale MMA8451Q three-axis Accelerometer, a Freescale MC34673 battery charger, and a Freescale Open Source BDM Interface. Demonstrate and evaluate any, or all, of these devices, with the pre-loaded demo program that illustrates orientation, shake, tap, freefall, and transient mode applications, at three user-selectable sensitivities, and two accuracies (8-bit and 14-bit data). The XL_STAR even automatically goes into sleep or wake mode based on movement of the board.


XL_STAR also includes Freescale’s powerful CodeWarrior IDE Special Edition, providing full programming, trace, and debug capability for 64K of object code at no additional cost. If required, the platform is easily extensible to Freescale’s 32-bit Flexis platform. XL_STAR also simplifies interfacing hardware prototypes to all MCU signals on XL_STAR, using two Single In-Line (SIL) connectors.
XL_Star Sample Application Program

XL_STAR includes a sample application pre-programmed into the on-chip Flash of the MM128 MCU. The program is designed to show some of the things that can be done with the on-board MMA8451Q accelerometer.
Orientation: Try tipping the board and watch the orange LEDs indicate the direction and magnitude of tip.
Shake: Try flicking the board in a direction, either up or down, left or right, or forward or back. You need to use a sharp flick, like striking a ball in a game of table tennis. The orange LEDs will point in the direction of the initial flick, resetting after a couple of seconds.
Tap: Hold the board loosely and tap it once with your finger; the LEDs will show a 'pulse' pattern. Tap twice in quick succession (double tap) to get a different animated pattern.
Freefall: Drop the board from the height of a few centimetres or more. The freefall event will be detected and displayed on the LEDs for a couple of seconds.
Transient: The orange LEDs will all illuminate if the board is moving (strictly, if it is accelerating or decelerating) and turns off after a short while if the board is stationary.

Key Applications: Medical devices, Test and Measurement, Instrumentation, Industrial Control.