[The Backwoods Engineer] tested out a new accessory set for the STM32-F4 discovery board. The picture above shows two boards interacting with the UDP protocol. notice the additional PCB into which each discovery board has been plugged. This is a third-party add-on which adds Ethernet, RS-232, SD card slot, as well as a connector for LCD or Camera. We’ve had one of these F4 discovery boards on hand for a while as well as haven’t figured out a great method to link outside hardware to the big double pin-headers. This doesn’t fix the issue — the base board likewise includes double headers to break-out all the pins — however having Ethernet, serial, as well as SD definitely reduces the requirement to add all that much more. The other drawback to the hardware is that the sample firmware is targeted at the IAR Embedded Workbench which is neither free, nor in the realm of affordable for hobbyists.

The NIC utilized on the baseboard has auto-crossover abilities so the boards were linked utilizing a routine Cat6 patch cable. This example has the boards regularly sending UDP packets with the module on the ideal reporting condition info to a terminal by means of the serial connection.