I have an ALFAT SD Board (p# ALFAT-SD-338) that I am hoping to get up and running. I have seen several of the manuals and have tried to read up and get myself familiarized with the board, so I got it connected to my PC via one of the USB-serial modules and flashed the firmware to the latest version.
I have also seen a C library example of code to talk with the ALFAT SD board. My main question is this:
Is there an easy way to use that C library in a Gadgeteer or pure NETMF project?
Do people port the code over to C# to use this board or is there some easy way to get access to the library in the C# code? By the way, I am using Visual Studio 10 Express Edition, in case that makes a difference.
Thanks for the quick response! It is just one of the things I have been working on to get SD capability on the Cerberus. Maybe I don’t fully understand what the ALFAT offers vs what the Cerb can already do.
From what I have read it seems like the Cerberus board has less support than other (premium offer) boards in terms of SD Card Module support. I also own a microSD Card Module and have been trying to get that up and running, but have been unsuccessful due to a failure to mount SD card error.
I figured that if I could use SPI/UART to talk with the ALFAT board, and have it take care of all my SD card storage needs, it would be an easy fix to being unable to mount the card using the other module.
I have been reading the forums about the SD card modules (*links to several discussions after my sign-off) and it seems that SD card module support on the Cerberus is (or at least was at the time of the posts) in the works. What is the current support of the SD card features with the Cerberus? Maybe I’m just way behind the times and there could be a simpler solution to my problems.
These are completely different and unrelated products, targeted fro complete different audience. However, you can connect ALFAT to Cerb and make it work.
Thank you for your answer, Gus. I will do as you suggest and go back to using the SD card module. I will create a different thread regarding my difficulties with that module and go from there.
I purchased a new Kingston 2 GB uSD card and everything worked properly! So in the end, my SanDisk card was the problem.
I had seen the sd-card-module page, but not the file-system page previously. I have a question regarding the file-system stuff. I am having trouble adding the GHIElectronics.NETMF.IO reference to the project. I can’t see it in my list of assemblies on either a Gadgeteer or NETMF console project. Any idea why that could be?
Nope, I don’t think that is it. I just did a quick test where I made a blank .NET Gadgeteer Application (NETMF 4.2) project and then tried adding the GHIElectronics.NETMF.IO reference but did not find it on the list. The only GHIElectronics references listed are:
I also tried searching for ‘GHIElectronics.NETMF.IO.dll’ in my Program Files(x86)/GHI Electronics folder and didn’t get any hits. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places?
The examples here mention that “File system is supported starting in NETMF 3.0. GHI adds more functionality to the standard support.” Perhaps it was taken away in more recent versions?
I was able to use the code examples in the link on the sd-card-module page to get a file written to the uSD card through the Cerberus using a Gadgeteer program, so all is good in that department. But, I have a separate, pure NETMF project, that I was hoping to get the SD card working in.
Does anyone know of a good way to do this using the Cerberus? I saw that the premium libraries use pure NETMF code. Does this mean that the only way to use the SDCard module with pure NETMF code is to have a premium board?
Also, I would like to know more about the file system code. Does it still exist in some other dll somewhere?
I’ve just started looking at the NETMF file system stuff (sample here: File System Sample | Microsoft Learn) to see if I can find a way to use it, but I’m not too sure about that. It looks like a daunting task for me.
If you can do it in Gadgeteer, you can do it in a plain netmf app. The code is all there. The references are all there. The only task is making sure you put all the right pieces together - the Gadgeteer designer is the way that it adds all this together simply for you, but there is no reason you can’t do what you want - you have the bits you need.
Awesome! Thanks for the response. I’ll get to work on that a bit then. If I end up with a nice looking/functional class type project I’ll try to come back and post my results.