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Arduino and Loom Quick Setup

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Adam Kerr edited this page Jul 30, 2020 · 4 revisions

Table of Contents

Before You Start

Before you start installing Arduino IDE and Loom, you need the following material to set up completely.

  • Micro USB Cable that is not just for Power up usage
  • Adafruit Feather M0 Board
  • Solid Internet Connections

Quick Setup

If you already have the Arduino IDE installed on your device, you can go this step and this step in the manual setup for the Arduino and Loom install for to easily add the Loom Board Profile to your Arduino IDE

We highly recommend you use the provided install script to set up both the Arduino IDE and Loom on your device, even if for Windows users it requires you to additionally install a tool like Git Bash.

NOTE: If you have installed Arduino IDE on Windows using the Microsoft Store, the quick install script will not work.

NOTE: If you already have a previous version of Loom installed (V2.3 or older) you will need to delete duplicate libraries. Depending on your version of Arduino IDE, you may also need to uninstall and reinstall the latest version of the Arduino IDE.

Windows

You can find the Git Bash shell by clicking here. You can follow a tutorial on how to set up Git Bash on your computer here. Once you have Git Bash Shell installed, you can open a Git Bash window and execute the script by running the following command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OPEnSLab-OSU/Loom/master/setup/setup-windows.sh | sh

Mac

If you’re using macOS, you can just use the terminal that is provided by the operating system by looking up on your system. Once you open the Terminal, you can execute the script by running the following command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OPEnSLab-OSU/Loom/master/setup/setup-mac.sh | sh

Once it completes, you can install the Arduino IDE.

NOTE: When you open the Arduino IDE for the first time, there will be an error displayed about an invalid signature in the package index. You can ignore this or go to the board manager to update the index, it simply is a disparity between the Arduino command-line interface and IDE.

Fake-Error-Message

Install the Arduino IDE

  • Download and install the latest version of the Arduino IDE

  • NOTE: If installing on Windows, download the Windows Installer

  • NOTE: If installing on Linux, see the official Linux install guide

Select Board

Set your Board Profile to the Loomified Feather M0

Navigate to Tools->Board->Loom SAMD Boards, the Loomified Feather M0 boards should be listed, select the Loomified Feather M0

Turn on Verbose output for Upload

PC: File > Preferences

Mac: Arduino > Preferences

Show Verbose output during: [check the upload box only]

Showing verbose output during upload box checked

Plugin your Feather M0 Board

Connect a USB Micro Cable between your Feather M0 and computer USB port, then select your device via:

PC: Select: Tools > Port > COMx

Mac: Select: Tools > Port > Feather M0

Run an Example

Compile

  • Start by compiling our Basic Loom examples (File > Examples > Loom > Basic) to ensure that it compiles. If not, review the previous steps.
    • Once the Basic example is open, click the checkbox icon "Verify" in the top. (This may take several minutes to compile, this is to be expected)
    • You should get white-color font text readout mentioning a successful compilation and x% memory used. Successful compilation message
    • Note: may disregard orange-color warning text regarding nRF

Update Feather M0 WiFi Firmware

If you are using an Adafruit Feather M0 WiFi board (this step is not relevant to non-WiFi Feathers), you will want to update the firmware to be able to use SSL (used for Google Sheets and Spool). To do this:

  • Open the WiFiFirmwareUpdater example from the File > Examples > Loom menu in the Arduino IDE
  • Make sure in the Tools > Board > Loom SAMD Boards menu, that "Loomified Feather M0" is selected
  • Plugin your Feather board and then make sure in the Tools > Port menu that you select the device with "Adafruit Feather M0" in the name
  • Upload the sketch to the board, once uploaded proceed to the next step
  • From the Tools menu in the Arduino IDE, select "WiFi101 / WiFiNINA Firmware Updater"
  • In the window that opens:
    • Section 1: Select your board from the list
    • Section 2: Select the "WINC1501 Model B (19.6.1) (Arduino/Genuino MKR1000)" from the drop-down menu
    • Section: Click the "Update Firmware" button
  • Once complete, your WiFi firmware has been updated

Usage

For details on Loom usage, see our Quick Start Guide.

Optional Configuration

Using an External Editor

The Arduino IDE editor is a bit limited, so if you want to use a different editor to modify your code, open the Arduino IDE preferences and check the 'Use External Editor' checkbox. This puts a blue tint over the code and prevents it from being edited in the IDE. Instead, open up your preferred editor to modify your code - anytime you save in that editor, the code in the IDE should update.

Note – you will probably still need to use the IDE to compile and upload your code to the devices (unless your external editor is an IDE that can do this)

Issues

If the quick setup scripts do not work for you, feel free to contact the Loom team or post a GitHub issue. You can also try to do the manual setup for Arduino and Loom found here.

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