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DRAGON12-Light Trainer Rev. D
  A popular upgrade for 68HC11 and 68HC12 boards

 

A popular upgrade for 68HC11 and 68HC12 boards.

The DRAGON12-Light trainer Rev. D comes with D-Bug12 monitor firmware or serial monitor firmware installed. 

The D-Bug12 monitor for HCS12 is similar to the BUFFALO monitor for 68HC11. It will execute all BUFFALO commands and work with an ASCII  terminal program, like AsmiDE and MiniIDE. With the vast online resources available for the HCS12, it will not take much time to start a HCS12 course for a professor who is currently teaching a 68HC11 or a 68HC12 course.

The serial monitor is required to work with the CodeWarrior IDE 5.1 SE.  That's only version will support the serial monitor.


DRAGON12-Light Rev D. silkscreen

Sample programs and Textbooks

The DRAGON12-Light Rev. D trainer kit includes a DRAGON12-Light board, a solderless breadboard and a 3 foot USB cable.

 

DRAGON12-Light features:

  • Backwards compatible to 68HC11 and 68HC12 code
  • Supports source level debugging with single step and breakpoints for C and Assembler
  • On-board CH340G USB interface with auto installation for Windows 10
  • RGB color LED
  • 16X2 LCD display module with LED backlight.
  • 4-digit, 7-segment display module for learning multiplexing technique
  • 4 X 4 membrane keypad
  • Eight LEDs connected to port B
  • An 8-position DIP switch connected to port H
  • Four pushbutton switches connected to PH0-PH3
  • Speaker driven by timer, or PWM, or DAC for alarm, voice and music applications
  • Light sensor for home automation applications
  • Potentiometer for analog input
  • Temperature sensor for home automation applications
  • X-Y-Z accelerometer module interface header
  • Two analog sensor input headers
  • Dual 10-bit DAC for generating analog waveforms
  • High efficiency dual H-Bridge for controlling two DC motors or one stepper motor
  • Four robot servo PWM outputs
  • Resettable fuses to protect USB port and H-bridge controller
  • Abort switch for stopping program in D-Bug12 when program is hung in a dead loop
  • BDM-in connector to be connected with a BDM from multiple vendors for debugging.
  • BDM-out connector for making this board as a HCS12 / 9S12 BDM or programmer. No extra hardware needed.
  • 4x2 Female headers provide shortest distance (great for high speed applications!) to the most I/O pin of the MC9S12DG256
  • Bus speed up to 25 MHz
  • Comes with AsmIDE under GPL (general public license)
  • Pre-loaded with D-Bug12 monitor for working with AsmIDE or serial monitor for working with CodeWarrior
  • Mode switch for selecting 4 operating modes with D-Bug12 monitor: EVB, Jump-to-EEPROM, BDM POD and Bootloader
  • Fast prototyping with on-board solderless breadboard
  • Many fully debugged 68HC12 program examples including source code
  • PCB size: 7.2" X 5.1"

Optional plug-in modules for projects:


Applications:

  • A perfect stand-alone 16-bit HCS12 trainer for classrooms. It's not too simple like an 8-bit trainer and not too complex like a 32-bit trainer
  • Perfect for upgrading all outdated 68HC11 / 68HC12 development boards 

MSRP:  $189,  Educational price:  $169

 

Verify the type of monitor firmware on your Dragon12-Light board:

  1. Apply power to your Dragon12-Light Rev D board via a USB cable connecting to a USB port.
     

  2. Observe the 8 port B LED indicators. (Make sure that a jumper is placed on the J40 or the LEDs will not flash)
     

  3. If your board is pre-installed with D-Bug12 monitor firmware, the 8 port B LED indicators will flash sequentially from left to right and the speaker will chirp once when the board is powered up. If the chirp is too soft you can remove the label sticker on the speaker to increase volume.
     

  4. If you ordered the board with serial monitor firmware for the CodeWarrior, it would be pre-installed with the serial monitor and a factory test program. The state of the left switch of the 2-position DIP switch (SW7) is tested by the serial monitor for selecting RUN or LOAD mode during power up or reset, and the 8 port B LED indicators will flash sequentially from right to left and the speaker will chirp once to indicate that the serial monitor firmware is functioning.
    For more information please see this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmwBMWII0p8&feature=related
    The video was made for the Dragon12_Plus2 board, but the procedure is the same for the Dragon12_Light board.

    If the left switch is placed in the "LOAD" mode (in the "low" position) the monitor will wait for a command from the host PC.
    If the left switch is placed in the "RUN" mode (in the "up" position) the 8 port B LED indicators will flash again from left to right to indicate that the program execution is diverted to the user code.

    The CodeWarrior communicates with Freescale serial monitor firmware only in LOAD mode and so in order to interface with the CodeWarrior you have to place the left switch in the “low “ position. The 8 port B LED indicators will flash from right to left and the speaker will chirp once when the board is powered up.

     If your board does not communicate with CodeWarrior, the first thing you should check is that if the left DIP switch of the SW7 is in the LOAD mode ( in the "low" position).
     

  5. If monitor firmware is not installed or is erased by a BDM, the 8 port B LED indicators will not flash sequentially during power up or reset.

The DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board comes with a built-in USB interface based on the CH340G. The driver for the CH340G will be automatically installed by Win10.

Install and verify USB driver:

  1. Plug the Dragon12-Light Rev. D board to your PC via a supplied USB cable.  Let Win10 search the driver on the web and automatically install it for you.  If the auto installation does not work for your PC (it's very unlikely), you can download the exe file and then run it to install the driver manually

    http://www.wch.cn/downloads/CH341SER_EXE.html  

    The driver web site is in Chinese,  Google will ask if you want to translate the page, click the Translate button, then click the Download button.  It will save the CH341SER.exe in your HD.  Just click it to run, it will install the latest driver for you.
     

  2. Verify it in Device Manager
     

  3. Once you have verified that the USB driver is properly installed, you may invoke the IDE (CodeWarrior or AsmIDE, or MiniIDE).
     

  4. If you are going to use CodeWarrior IDE and have not installed it you need to Download and configure CodeWarrior  http://www.trainer4edu.com/dragon12/codewarrior_hcs12.html
     

For AsmIDE users:

If the AsmIDE does not communicate with your Dragon12-Light board then you need to check if the COM port number that is assigned by the AsmIDE matches the USB-to-Serial COM port number that is assigned by Windows' Device Manager. The Device Manager assigns the USB-to-Serial COM port number randomly and it does not know which COM port number that AsmIDE is going to use.

In order to find the USB-to-Serial COM port number that is assigned by Device Manager, you can click through "Control Panel -> Systems -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Ports".  The USB-to-Serial COM port number will appear.

For setting the COM port of the AsmIDE to match that USB-to-Serial COM port number, you can click through "View-> Option->Terminal Window Options" menu, then select the correct COM port from COM1 to COM4.
In order to establish a reliable USB communication, always connect the DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board to your PC's USB port first before invoking the AsmIDE, otherwise the AsmIDE will not be able to communicate with the DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board.  During a debugging session, if you accidentally unplug the USB cable from the DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board, you need to re-establish the USB communication.  The AsmIDE will not recognize the DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board again if you just simply plug the USB cable back. 

To re-establish the USB communication you need to exit AsmIDE and power cycle the DRAGON12_Lighy board (disconnect the USB cable from the DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board, then re-plug in the USB cable), then you can invoke AsmIDE again and the AsmIDE will start to communicate with the DRAGON12-Light Rev. D board. If this does not work, you may need to restart your PC.

If restarting the PC does not solve the problem, you can try it on another PC.

 

Download the MC9S12DG256 Device User Guide
http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheet/motorola/9S12DT256DGV3.pdf

Download the D-Bug12 Reference Guide, DB12RG4.pdf
 http://www.ece.utep.edu/courses/web3376/Interrupts_files/DB12RG4.pdf

Download the AN2548.pdf (serial monitor)
 http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/doc/app_note/AN2548.pdf

Download the AN2153.pdf (serial bootloader)
http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/doc/app_note/AN2153.pdf