Going from Teensy to "Real Product"?

G

gatheround

Well-known member
Hey everyone,
I use a Teensy LC in a product that I've been lucky enough to sell a few hundred of. I designed my PCB so the Teensy LC just plugs right in, but now that the Teensy LC is discontinued, I am trying to figure out what my options are. A few questions I have:

1. If I'm able to source enough of the MKL26Z64VFT4 chip (the microcontroller on the Teensy LC), can I just incorporate that directly on my board by mimicking the Teensy schematic?

2. Can I leave the bootloader chip out if I never intend to reprogram them via USB?

3. If I have my compiled .hex file from teensyduino, can a PCB assembly house use that to program the microcontroller?

4. What can I program the MKL26Z64VFT4 with at home?

Unfortunately I can't use a Teensy 4 as a replacement, since I use the LC's DAC pin.

Mike
 
1. My company bought a ton of MKL26Z64VFT4 chips that are still sitting sealed in the bag from Digikey / mouser - let me know if you need some, I'd be willing to sell at cost. Yes, you can basically mimic the design as long as you understand the reasoning behind the schematic (i.e. placing decoupling caps near the power pins, etc). You can even modify the design based on the components that are used / not used. For the Teensy LC, the footprint (i.e. part number) can be changed slightly depending on your size and I/O requirements.
2. Yes, however, you would need the boot loader chip on a separate board to flash the initial code over USB with the boot loader. A product I designed right before the 2020 supply crunch used pogo pins to connect the programmer to the product board. It worked well, the product timing was just bad luck.
3. Assuming that you provide them the programmer (#2) and instructions, sure. I've always just done it in house so that I can QA the product before shipping.
4. See #2 and #3.

Honestly, if you're all setup around the Teensy toolchain and the Teensy LC, I would just design a programmer board with the boot loader chip.
 
Agree with all brtaylor said, let me add, if your only concern when migrating to teensy 4 is the dac, you can add an external dac chip and that's it. Even you can use a PWM + LPF arrangement to mimic the DAC, but that's depending on the application. I've done it in an LFO with really good results.
 
I too backed into productizing a Teensy LC based prototype. I made an Altium schematic page for it. I'll send you a copy if you want. I have enough ICs for the next year or so, but at some point I want to switch to a microcontroller that can update over a UART. The problem is that many of them are still in short supply. The Teensy's Arduino IDE ease of use is also better than most others for simple products even though its debugging environment is crude at best. I guess I'm such a crusty old EE that anything fancier than raw ASM seems like easy street...
 
RJF said:
I too backed into productizing a Teensy LC based prototype. I made an Altium schematic page for it. I'll send you a copy if you want. I have enough ICs for the next year or so, but at some point I want to switch to a microcontroller that can update over a UART. The problem is that many of them are still in short supply. The Teensy's Arduino IDE ease of use is also better than most others for simple products even though its debugging environment is crude at best. I guess I'm such a crusty old EE that anything fancier than raw ASM seems like easy street...
Click to expand...

One of the super nice things about the RP2040 environment is the utter simplicity of programming. Basically, you prevent it from reading the program on startup (via the bootsel line) and it runs the built-in code that acts like a USB storage device. You copy the firmware file onto the drive that it creates and it programs itself. Makes upgrading in the field really simple. My customers absolutely love that feature - drag and drop upgrade. No app to find and download, no special hardware beyond a USB cable. My RP2040 HW has a run switch plus bootsel so they don't even have to fuss with power cycling it.

I sure wish Teensy had something like this.
 
PhilB said:
One of the super nice things about the RP2040 environment is the utter simplicity of programming. Basically, you prevent it from reading the program on startup (via the bootsel line) and it runs the built-in code that acts like a USB storage device. You copy the firmware file onto the drive that it creates and it programs itself. Makes upgrading in the field really simple. My customers absolutely love that feature - drag and drop upgrade. No app to find and download, no special hardware beyond a USB cable. My RP2040 HW has a run switch plus bootsel so they don't even have to fuss with power cycling it.

I sure wish Teensy had something like this.
Click to expand...

That does sound really nice!
 
PhilB said:
One of the super nice things about the RP2040 environment is the utter simplicity of programming. Basically, you prevent it from reading the program on startup (via the bootsel line) and it runs the built-in code that acts like a USB storage device. You copy the firmware file onto the drive that it creates and it programs itself. Makes upgrading in the field really simple. My customers absolutely love that feature - drag and drop upgrade. No app to find and download, no special hardware beyond a USB cable. My RP2040 HW has a run switch plus bootsel so they don't even have to fuss with power cycling it.

I sure wish Teensy had something like this.
Click to expand...


I would add that you can program RP2040 from Arduino as you do with Teensy. The dual core M0 is not as difficult to program as it seems: you have 2 setup() and 2 loop(). I did an audio recorder that runs on Teensy (4.1) and on RP2040, where data acquisition is on RP2040 running on one core and saving to disk on the other. It needed only a little bit care for synchronisation.

The support for Teensy by Paul and this community seems however better channeled than for an Arduino oriented RP2040.
 
WMXZ said:
I would add that you can program RP2040 from Arduino as you do with Teensy. The dual core M0 is not as difficult to program as it seems: you have 2 setup() and 2 loop(). I did an audio recorder that runs on Teensy (4.1) and on RP2040, where data acquisition is on RP2040 running on one core and saving to disk on the other. It needed only a little bit care for synchronisation.

The support for Teensy by Paul and this community seems however better channeled than for an Arduino oriented RP2040.
Click to expand...

I wasn't suggesting people here move to the RP2040 but rather hoping that a similar "drag and drop" programming capability be added to the teensy tool kit. It was a very large reason for me adding an RP2040 product to my mix. My customers are not terribly techno savvy so anything that simplifies setting up their machine is good. Plus, not having to document how to do it for multiple environments is a good thing, too.
 
PhilB said:
I wasn't suggesting people here move to the RP2040 but rather hoping that a similar "drag and drop" programming capability be added to the teensy tool kit. It was a very large reason for me adding an RP2040 product to my mix. My customers are not terribly techno savvy so anything that simplifies setting up their machine is good. Plus, not having to document how to do it for multiple environments is a good thing, too.
Click to expand...

Two possibilities come to mind.

1) You could use MTP_Teensy . You would then be able to send a file from a PC to the Teensy and then use Flasher_X to re-program the Teensy.
or
2) Use an RP2040 and a program downloaded to it to re-program the Teensy.
Obviously the "New" RP2040 would have the Teensy file as a payload.
 
Some guys in Santa Barbara talked me into setting aside my masters, and putting together a board for them, but they were using this TI chip with no real IDE for it, and I should have asked the simple question like do you know what you are doing?

They turned me onto Arduino and I’ve never looked back. Of course coming from a company that used Motorola processors everywhere.(GM), I think the Tennesy is incredible. (600MHz) What makes it special is the library created to date for it.

I invented a circuit. These guys wanted to just give away. 11,302,162. It’s pretty much a standard set of parts. You would put between the output of a processor and the real world. It’s the idea of being able to hook up just about anything (of course it needs divisions by current requirements)

I would like to know if there are some people that would like to get together and make a product that the average person who can program one of these chips can use the library we would create create alarm parts for a home automation systems

It might be time to take these alarm systems and make them kit parts that almost anyone can put together
 
You have to go to USPTO.gov or Google’s patent search
The only important one is the circuit, 13 resistors and about the same MOSFETs
But some of the MOSFETs should handle the output current

I envisioned this as a ‘shield’, more literal that figurative

I found some of Honeywell’s commands along with DSC’s on the web

Now I’ve seen the advertised all in one garage door opener app

There is a very big market out there
Everyone would like access to their home remotely from their phone
At least 100 million???
 
BriComp said:
2) Use an RP2040 and a program downloaded to it to re-program the Teensy.
Obviously the "New" RP2040 would have the Teensy file as a payload.
Click to expand...

Has anyone done this yet? If so, is there an example of using an RP2040 to program a teensy? This would be a game changer!
 
CircuitPython seems to work well on a Teensy 4. They have a Teensy-appears-as-a-folder-where-you-can-drag-stuff-to scheme that you might be able to figure out.
 
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