Texas Instruments Development Boards

TI Hercules RM48 MCU Development Kit

I got this development kit in 2024 for just £6.70 shipped from eBay, the board was designed for evaluating TI's Hercules safety MCU R4 chip, geared in particular toward industrial and medical applications. The Hercules platform overall consists of RM4, TMS570, and TMS470M product lines, the following link has a video which gives a very helpful introduction to Hercules:

https://www.ti.com/video/3877726714001

The kit I received has an element14 United States sticker on the box with 'RM48L950' as the model number printed on the sticker on the front of the box, and 'TMDXRM48USB' printed on the sticker on the back of box as well as the main print of the box. RM48L950 it turns out is the microcontroller at the heart of the board, you can view the datasheet at:

https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/rm48l950.pdf?ts=1713964236718&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.ti.com%252Fproduct%252FRM48L950

TMDXRM48USB is more accurately the model number.

In the box there is a Texas Instruments branded torch (appears to be unused as the batteries were still inside and sealed), a USB 2.0 Male-A to female-A extension lead (if you don't want the board hanging off a USB port), the development board, quick start guide, and a DVD containing documentation and software (v1.0).

The board is powered through USB and contains on-board XDS100v2 JTAG emulation. A summary of the board's features:

On-board SCI to USB serial
6 white NHET LEDs
2 Tri-colour RGB NHET LEDs
Ambient light sensor
Temperature sensor
CAN transceiver
3 axis accelerometer
PORRST and RST buttons

The quick start guide recommends installing Code Composer Studio IDE v4/Hercules Demo Software before plugging the board in. Also says all applications run on the development stick should be limited to 100MHz HCLK speed. Additionally, the guide also takes the user through installing the software from disc, and details the pinout of the communication and peripheral pins on the board.

I had a looked at the DVD, it didn't autorun (I used an external DVD USB drive connected to my Surface Pro). Looking at Discinfo.txt on the disc it says:

Hercules Development Kit DVD V1.0
Build 7
August 25, 2011

I ran Hercules.exe, here is the start image:

The Hercules Home link (www.ti.com/hercules) no longer works (results in Error 404), the Videos option gives you four options; Hercules Overview, TMS470M, Hercules Kits, and TMS570 USB Stick. The videos play fine as they run off the DVD rather than online, here is a still from the Hercules Overview video:

On the video selection page there's a link to view more videos on the Hercules wiki but that results in a page not found error. Back to the starting screen, the DVD Documentation when clicked simply opens File Explorer and the Documents folder on the DVD. As there are folders for RM4, TMS470M, and TMS570, which were also featured in the videos, the DVD must have been included for all three development boards. 

Unfortunately, all the links aside the user guide are shortcuts for online datasheets, which no longer are live. I clicked on Install and went for the complete version to install everything. During install it said that Windows 10 Enterprise is not supported by Code Composer Studio v4, I clicked Yes button to continue - I have Windows 10 Pro, not Enterprise, it's odd it detected it as the wrong version. During installation of Code Composer Studio it asks you which version to install; Platinum Edition, Microcontroller Edition, or Custom. Platinum Edition is the full version with a default 30 day evaluation license,  Microcontroller Edition supports MSP430, C2000, Stellaris, and Cortex R4, and Custom lets you choose which device family and features to be installed. I went with Platinum Edition; after selecting some more options it began installing Code Composer Studio.

After installation finishes you'll have various apps and shortcuts under the Texas Instruments start menu entry. I plugged the board into my Surface, the white power LED came on and then the eight LEDs surrounding the main chip turned on and off. I noticed in Device Manager the board showed up as XDS100 Class USB Serial Port.

I launched Hercules Safety MCU Demos, this comes up with a selection for the board you're using or you can select Auto-Detect:

I clicked the Auto-Detect option to see if it would correctly identify the board, but it kept searching for ages so I had to close the app, reopen it and select RM48, and then Hercules USB Kit.

I started with the LED Light Show demo, a pop up warned that the demo software wasn't detected on the microcontroller and prompted whether to install it, I clicked the Yes button. During the programming the blue JTAG LED flashed on the board, but even after the LED remained off the app still said 'Now Programming'. I tried closing app, opening as admin and trying again, but it still got stuck programming. I also tried with the app’s compatibility set to Win XP but that also made no difference. I noticed when unplugging and plugging the board back in, although it still did the initial light sequence, the two colour LEDs remained lit purple and the red ERR LED was on. Looking online it appears the issue may be that the software won't run correctly on later O/S, such as Win 10, and clearly not even in compatibility mode.

One suggestion was to try programming the board using UniFlash and then launch the demo app. The UniFlash download can be found at:

https://www.ti.com/tool/UNIFLASH

After installing you'll be met with this screen:

I clicked on the Start Now button to auto detect the device, after a few seconds and clicking Allow on a pop up, it found ‘Texas Instruments XDS100v2 USB Debug Probe’. Under Choose Your Device I selected ‘RM48L950’, and for the connection I picked ‘Texas Instruments XDS100v2 USB Debug Probe’. Next, I clicked the Start button, which took me to this screen:

I clicked on the Browse button for flash image selection and navigated to and selected:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Texas Instruments\Hercules\Hercules Safety MCU Demos\Demo_Software_Ver1_1.out

Note: the path on your machine may be different.

I clicked the Load Image button but after a few seconds it came back with error: Does not match the target endianness, not loaded. I removed the flash image and then tried RM48_Demo_v1_2 instead (located in the same folder as the other file) and that successfully programmed after clicking the Load Image button. I also clicked the Verify Image button and it said the verify was successful in the Console window and the LEDs on the board lit up in sequence.

Next, I opened the Hercules Safety MCU Demos app, clicked RM48, then Hercules USB Kit, and clicked on the LED Light Show button. This time it didn't prompt to program the board and clicking on the various checkboxes lit the LEDs as expected. Oddly, the board's ERR LED was still on. In the image below you can see I have checked a couple of LEDs:

It takes a few seconds for an LED to update after clicking, during which time the board's SCIRX and SCITX LEDs will briefly flash. You can also click the 'Run Premade Show' button which will light the 8 LEDS in sequence, click the Stop button to end. You can click on the ‘?’ button to get an overview of the demo.

Satisfied the board was working, I returned to the board another day, after opening the Hercules Safety MCU Demos app again and selecting the board, when I clicked on the LED Light Show button it popped up that the Demo software wasn’t detected even though I had previously programmed it. I clicked the No button and when I clicked a checkbox to turn on an LED a pop up said it couldn't communicate with the microcontroller and I should press the reset button. So I pressed the board's button marked ‘RST’ and then I was able to turn the LEDs on/off as before. I now wonder if the board had actually been programmed previously with the demo software and I just needed to reset the board first.

Returning to the main page of the demo selection, I chose ‘Ambient Light’. For this demo a percentage and bar will increase accordingly as the board is exposed to increasing levels of light. A TI logo appears when the light level is at least 50%. The light sensor is located in one corner on the end of the board as ‘Light Sensor’.

The torch included with the kit was intended to be used with the demo but I used my mobile phone’s light instead.

The Ambient Temperature demo was the next one I tried which not surprisingly displays the temperature, or should; the sensor is located in one corner on the end of the board, marked as ‘Temp Sensor’. I found while the demo ran it bogged down my computer and I couldn't get the temperature reading to change even when I brought heat near to the sensor.

See further on when I try V4 of the demo software for a solution to the issue.

The Light Balancing demo also didn't appear to work but pressing the board's RST button and then selecting Light Balancing option brought it to life. Again you can use the included torch to affect the light which will change the brightness of 5 of the LEDs as well as affect the on screen bars.

Safety Features: in this demo example an overview is given of the internal structure of the main processor as a means primarily to demonstrate the Error Signaling Module (ESM). There are buttons for performing a CPU Self Test (LBIST), and Memory Self Test (PBIST). In the following image it can be seen I've run CPU Self Test:

Note that there are two Cortex-R4F cores since they run in lock step.

There are also numerous buttons you can click on to simulate different errors which can be cleared using the Clear ESM button.

The last demo to mention, CAN Reader, I wasn’t able to try since it requires connecting to a CAN network and soldering a header to the DCAN1 (J13) connector on the board.

Note that there are no demos to try out the board's accelerometer - see further on in V4 of the demo software which remedies that oversight.

Code Composer Studio (CCS) can be used to develop code for the board but note that if you try to launch CCS from the Hercules Safety MCU Demos main page it may claim CCS is not installed - instead launch the app instead from the start menu. When CCS launches it will prompt to select a workspace, you can use the default one. You may then get an Adobe Flash Player error - click the No button; Flash Player likely only needed for displaying the welcome page and such.

We can open the project for the demo code running on the board: in CCS go to Project->Import Existing CCS/CCE Eclipse Project. In the pop up window 'Select search-directory:' should be selected, click Brose... button and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Texas Instruments\Hercules\Hercules Safety MCU Demos\Demo_Software_Ver1_1 (may be different path depending on your installation) and click the OK button. You should then see one discovered project (Demo_Software_Ver1_1), click the Finish button. You'll likely not see anything once opened so select View->Outline to see the project outline. You can then expand the project, and look at the source files (in the src sub directory). A source file can be opened by double-clicking.

I couldn't see the source code for RM48_Demo_v1_2.out, which is what I successfully programmed the board with but Demo_Software_Ver1_1 should be similar; there is no folder with RM48_Demo_v1_2.out as the output binary file. This could be because of the similarity between the larger RM48 board and the smaller one.

In following image you can see I've opened led_demo.c, which appears to handle the LED light show demo:

As can be seen looking at led_demo.c the code adapts depending on which version of the board is detected. It looks like the SCI command interface is used to communicate with the board.

There are a lot of source code files in the project but likely a lot of them are standard includes and aren't necessarily needed for a given project. Unfortunately, it appears the source code for the other demos wasn't included.

I looked online and found a downloadable version of the safety demo v4 thinking that may be worth trying, you can find the download at:

https://www.ti.com/tool/HERCULES_SAFETY_MCU_DEMOS#downloads

After downloading and extracting I ran the executable, the installer had scaling issues so I had to fix the scaling and run again. During the install there is an option for HTTP Proxy Configuration, I didn't check it and just clicked the Next button. At the installation it failed with ‘There has been an error. Error running msiexec…’

(Not the full error.)

Checking the start menu, while it had installed some new apps there didn't appear to be the new demo app, however, I found Hercules Safety MCU Demos.exe in C:\ti\Hercules\Hercules Safety MCU Demos\4.0.0 (your install path may be different), which has a date of 2014 whereas the version from the DVD has a date of 2011. When v4 Hercules Safety MCU Demos.exe is run it will immediately look for a board, with the RM48 board plugged in it prompted to update the Hercules Kit ID:

In the Kit ID drop-down I selected TMDXRM48USB and clicked the Program button. It supposedly programmed but got stuck on ‘Validating EEPROM for RM48x’ so I closed it using the Task Manager. 

Note: in Device manager the board shows up as XDS100 Class USB Serial Port.

Opening the Hercules Safety MCU Demos app again it reported ‘RM48x USB Stick Board Detected’ and popped up that the Demo software wasn't detected on the MCU, it prompted to try resetting the board or to try programming. As prompted, I pressed PORRST on the board, clicked No but a pop up appeared saying to 'Please try again' and then the app closed.

Once again opening the demos program again, it came up with the same pop up about not detecting the demo software so I clicked the Yes button to program it. It then announced it was programming RM48x_demo_software.out. After waiting three minutes I terminated using Task Manager.

The solution, as before, was to use UniFlash; set device to RM48L950, connection as Texas Instruments XDS100v2 USB Debug Probe, then click Start button. With the Flash Image set to RM48x_demo_software.out in C:\ti\Hercules\Hercules Safety MCU Demos\4.0.0. I clicked Load Image and after about 53 seconds I got a data verification error and the board's ERR LED was now lit.

I closed UniFlash and reopened the demos app and after detecting the board it popped up with the demo selection screen:

However, none of the demos worked without me closing the app, pressing the board's PORRST button, and then reopening the demo app. I was pleased to see the temperature example works, now showing a continually changing reading and responding to changes in heat unlike the fixed 25degC from the earlier version, which perhaps had a bug related to RM48 boards.

Compared to the DVD version of the demos there are two extra tests which make use on the on board accelerometer, Maze Game and Digital Level. In Digital Level two virtual spirit levels respond to the tilt of the board:

The Maze Game is a simple game and another example demo of the accelerometer, in which you guide the TI logo from start to end. It's best to have the board flat and then enter the Maze Game. You need to tilt the board in the opposite direction that you want to move and the time will count up until you reach the exit. Here’s my completion attempt:

The other demos also worked and I noticed that the Safety Features demo now correctly controls the board’s ERR LED; if you click an ESM button to simulate an error the board’s LED lights and goes off if you click the Clear ESM button.

All content of this and related pages is copyright (c) James S. 2024