Update and Configure an Existing MHC-based MPLAB® Harmony v3 Project to MCC-based Project

Objective

This tutorial shows you how to update and configure an existing MPLAB Harmony Configurator (MHC)-based MPLAB Harmony v3 project to MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC)-based project. 

The application makes use of Curiosity PIC32MZEF v2 Development Board and I/O1 Xplained Pro Kit (optional if you intend to exercise the extended functionality described below).

​This application demonstrates an LED toggle (LED1 toggles when switch SW1 is pressed and LED3 toggles when switch SW3 is pressed) on a timeout basis and prints the LED toggling rate on the serial terminal. The periodicity of the timeout will change from 500 milliseconds to one second, two seconds, four seconds, and back to 500 milliseconds every time you press the switch SW1 or SW3 on the Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board. The periodicity will not change while switching between SW1 to SW3 or vice versa.

The demo application has extended functionality to print the current room temperature periodically when switch SW2 is pressed (the Xplained pro extension connector on the Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board must be plugged with I/O1 Xplained Pro Extension Kit).

This application will utilize:

• Timer Peripheral Library to periodically sample temperature sensor data and to toggle LED.
• I2C Peripheral Library to read the temperature from a temperature sensor.
• Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART), Direct Memory Access (DMA) Peripheral Libraries to print the temperature values on a COM (serial) port terminal application running on a PC.
• GPIO Peripheral Library to toggle the LED.
• Help develop your first MPLAB Harmony v3 application using MCC.

In the process, the lab will also demonstrate the use of callback functions.

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Two Ways to Use This Tutorial

1. Update and configure an existing project:
   • Use the provided source files and step-by-step instructions below.
2. Use the solution project as an example:
   • Build the solution project and download it to the Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board to observe the expected behavior.

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Lab Objectives

1. Open and update an existing MHC-based project. i.e., Getting Started Extended Application on Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board using MCC.
2. Configure and generate Harmony v3 Peripheral Libraries code for GPIO peripherals using the MCC.
3. Extend the application code in the project, build, program, and observe the outputs.

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Materials

Hardware Tools

The Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board (DM320209) includes an integrated programmer and debugger, which requires no additional hardware to get started. No external tools are necessary to program or debug the PIC32MZ2048EFM144.

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The I/O1 Xplained Pro Extention Kit provides a light sensor, temperature sensor, and microSD card. It connects to the extension headers of any Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit.

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Software Tools

​This project has been verified to work with the following versions of software tools:
MPLAB^® X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) v5.50, MPLAB® XC32 Compiler v3.00, and MPLAB Code Configurator v4.2.4

Because we regularly update our tools, occasionally you may discover an issue while using the newer versions. If you suspect that to be the case, we recommend that you double-check and use the same versions that the project was tested with.

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Overview

This lab shows you how to update and configure an existing MHC-based project to the MCC-based project. This lab:

• shows you how to open an existing MHC project and migrate it to the MCC project,
• verifies the existing MHC configuration on MCC,
• configures the Pins for LED and Switch to extend the application,
• generates the code,
• extends the application code,
• builds, and
• program and observe the output.

It demonstrates an LED toggle (LED1 toggles when switch SW1 is pressed and LED3 toggles when switch SW3 is pressed) on a timeout basis and prints the LED toggling rate on the serial terminal. The periodicity of the timeout will change from 500 milliseconds to 1 second, 2 seconds, 4 seconds, and back to 500 milliseconds every time you press the switch SW1 or SW3 on the Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board. The periodicity will not change while switching between SW1 to SW3 or vice versa. The demo application has extended functionality to print the current room temperature periodically when the XPRO connector is plugged with I/O1 Xplained Pro Extension Kit.

The application initializes the clock, GPIO, and other peripherals (configured through MCC) by calling the function SYS_Initialize.

The application registers callback event handlers for I²C, DMA, TMR, and GPIO PLIBs. The callback event handlers are called back by the PLIBs when the transaction completion events occur.

The application checks whether the temperature read initiated, the configured timer (TMR1) period has expired, and the previous UART transmission is completed. If the temperature read is initiated then the application prints the read temperature value on the serial terminal else print LED toggling rate on the serial terminal on every timer period by initiating the DMA channel transfer function DMAC_ChannelTransfer for transmitting channel. The DMA PLIB calls back the registered callback event handler when the transmission completes. Finally, the application sets a flag in the TMR1 callback event handler.

The application also monitors the pressing of switches SW1, SW2, and SW3; if SW2 switch press is detected, then the application reads temperature value and prints it on the serial terminal, toggles an LED (LED3 if SW3 is pressed else LED1), and prints the Sampling temperature rate on the serial terminal. If switch SW2 is not pressed then the application toggles an LED (LED3 if SW3 is pressed or LED1 if SW1 is pressed) and prints the LED toggling rate on the serial terminal. The periodicity of the timeout will change from 500 milliseconds to one second, two seconds, four seconds, and back to 500 milliseconds every time you press the switch SW1 or SW3 on the Curiosity PIC32MZ EF 2.0 Development Board. The periodicity will not change while switching between SW1 to SW3 or vice versa as shown in this figure.

Truth Table for the different switch press modes and the status of active LED

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Lab Source Files and Solutions

This ZIP file contains the completed solution project for this lab. It also includes the source files needed to perform the lab following step-by-step instructions (see the "Procedure" section on this page).

‍Extracting the ZIP file creates the following folders:

• getting_started_ext contains the lab solution (in the firmware folder) and source files (in the dev_files folder).
  • dev_files contains subfolder pic32mz_ef_curiosity_v2, which contains subfolder dev_files containing application source files and other support files (if any) required to perform the lab (see "Procedure" section).
  • firmware contains the completed lab solution project. It can be directly built and downloaded on the hardware to observe expected behavior.

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Procedure

​All steps must be completed before you will be ready to build, download, and run the application.

Lab Index

Step 1: Open the existing MHC project and migrate it to the MCC project

• Step 1.1 - Open MPLAB Harmony v3 Project on MPLAB X IDE
• Step 1.2 - Migrate to MCC project
• Step 1.3 - Verify the Clock Settings

Step 2: Verify the existing MHC configuration on MCC

• Step 2.1 - Verify the UART, I2C, DMA, and TMR peripheral configurations
• Step 2.2 - Verify the Switch and LED pin configurations

Step 3: Configure Pins for Switch and LED to extend the application

• Step 3.1 - Configure the Switch button pin
• Step 3.2 - Configure the LED Pin

Step 4: Generate code
Step 5: Extend the application code in the project
Step 6: Build, program and observe the outputs

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