N32G455REL7 patched bootloader to allow full 512k flash

[Crazy-Charles]

I have been playing around with my old Aquila X2 board V1.0.1 with the N32G455 MCU and once i had it running at the full 144Mhz i turned my attention to the bootloader which was limited to 256k.
The code has the full address space defined but for some reason the counters were limited to 114 sectors + the 14 sectors taken up by the bootloader resulting in a max address of 0x08040000 (262,144)
A few patches later to increase the sector counters now means the bootloader will use the full amount of flash space available.

N32G455_bootloader_full_512K.zip

[classicrocker883]

that sounds like great news, except how would the average user go about this?
like:

• step-by-step instructions

as well as risks and any limitations

[Crazy-Charles]

Unfortunately, It's not really aimed at the "average user" as the procedure involves using an external programmer, I built one based on this repo GCY/JLINK-ARM-OB but still had to do additional research and changes to make it work properly.

If your familiar with programming on-board MCU's there is a risk but that is always down to experience and i've not found any limitations as the bootloader mainly uses standard library functions as found in the Nsing.N32G45x_DFP.1.0.7 pack.

edit: fixed URL - was broken

[classicrocker883]

that looks like a "blue pill"
well I suppose if it works then it works.

the thing right now is I was able to reduce the flash size so I was able to fit as much options and features as possible, more than before.

all I did was change [email protected] to @1.90301.200702. this saved something like 7,000 bytes. what is strange is 1.90201.191206 is almost identical except it uses a couple extra bytes, anything else like 1.100301.220327 or the newest (i think 1.12--- something) adds a ton extra. which I don't understand the whole thing at all.

one would think the higher the version the less bytes it uses, but totally not the case.

[classicrocker883]

so as of now, most of the features/options which were missing before are mostly there now. I would say the only reason for someone to increase the size to 512K would add a few other features (off hand cant really name anything special, maybe change color scheme, and add custom C gcode commands), or basically anything the 427 board build have the 256K ones do not.

maybe I'll do a write-up sometime like in the Wiki, suggesting users if they want to extend their board's memory and add extra features or what not they can refer to this