stm32f4xx-hal VS atsamd

I would personally use the abstractions provided by the stm32f4xx-hal crate more. See https://github.com/stm32-rs/stm32f4xx-hal/tree/master/examples/ for examples.

For this project, the audio ended up being the biggest challenge. I spent a few days on-and-off working on it because it would stop working as I modified the PWM frequency. I was eventually able to track it down to a bug in the HAL and opened a PR accordingly: https://github.com/stm32-rs/stm32f4xx-hal/pull/555

For my specific issue, I'm using the stm32f4xx-hal library to control a bunch of RGB leds, each with a pwm output. Since I have to get pins and timers where I can find them, each component of the led is made by something like

At the time of writing this post, I noticed that if going with option 1 stated earlier that returns a PWMChannel can prove to be quite problematic. In navigating the documentation, the PWMChannel implementations do not include methods that allow to get and set the period of the peripheral. There is an issue that I submitted here for that.

Maybe check out this example from the stm324xx-hal repo?

Here is an example for stm32f407 (trivial to change to stm32f411) that gets random numbers from the rng peripheral and displays them on an ssd1306 display: https://github.com/stm32-rs/stm32f4xx-hal/blob/master/examples/rng-display.rs although this uses Rust, which you may or may not like. Arduino will have you covered as well, obviously.

A major benefit of Rust in embedded is how easy it is to use libraries. This example implements USB serial communication on an STM32 in under 80 lines. You add some libs and if it compiles it works.

It’s definitely used for “nonsafety” stuff like infotainment. The ATSAMD HAL/PACs are probably the most complete embedded microcontroller family as far as Rust support goes, and that’s a part with heavy intent toward automotive use.

The Rust ATSAMD community has been very helpful getting me going. I've really become fond of RTIC as a way to get a little structure in my programs.

The atsamd-rs rust folks (https://github.com/atsamd-rs/atsamd) have made this way easier! Check out my top level comment!

I'm obviously biased, but as a starting point I would recommend getting an Arduino and following the process in the article. Once you have a blinking LED, try it again using a HAL like atsamd-rs/atsamd. Then try making it more complex: configure the clock and replace the delay implementation with something that takes a proper duration argument, add serial IO via the USB port so you can communicate with your program as it runs, connect some more LEDs or buttons and interact with them, or make some network requests.

The embedded-hal project supplies these for a wide variety of controllers, for SAMD specifically, https://github.com/atsamd-rs/atsamd .

No love for Microchip nee Atmel? https://github.com/atsamd-rs/atsamd

Am admittedly too inexperienced to properly weigh the pros and cons of various platforms, but I find the Rust support for certain embedded platforms to be particularly compelling.

https://github.com/atsamd-rs/atsamd

I have at least managed to get some literal blinkenlights doing what I want on various Adafruit boards with very little effort.