Newly created Inverter disappears from MCWB 6.1.2 new project wizard.

[Optician]

I am trying to create a new inverter board for a Motor Control Workbench 6.1.2 project. I have tried several methods :
1. Create clone of B-G431B-ESC1 in STMC Board Manager at choose Inverter stage of project wizard.
2. Create new board in BM and save as required inverter name.
3. Create new board in BM and save as required inverter name. Edit entry in BM to show correct "name" entry.

Method (1) produces an entry in the "choose Inverter" part of the wizard, obviously without image. If I later try to create a new project, I choose general info and motor OK, but when I come to the choose inverter stage, my new board has disappeared, although it is still shown in board manager list, and is accessible for editing, etc. In fact all 3 methods above produce that same result, inverter is in BM list but not in project wizard choice. I noticed that the wizard says it is showing 12 of 12 inverters, the board manager shows a list of 14 inverters.

If I search my whole PC for one of the inverters, say EVSPIN32F06Q1S1, I get 3 hits :

E:\ST\MC_SDK_6.1.2\Utilities\PC_Software\STMCWB\assets\www\resources\board\img\EVSPIN32F06Q1S1.png
E:\ST\MC_SDK_6.1.2\Utilities\PC_Software\STMCWB\assets\hardware\board\inverter\EVSPIN32F06Q1S1.json
E:\ST\MC_SDK_6.1.2\Utilities\PC_Software\STMCWB\templates\ioc_seed\boards\F0\EVSPIN32F06Q1S1.ftl

but if I search for my new board, RT-G431B-ESC1, I only get 1 hit :

C:\Users\my_name\.st_workbench\hardware\board\inverter\RT-G431B-ESC1.json

As expected, the new board has no image file, but it is missing the index file *.ftl. It has the board description json  file OK, but note it is not in the installation directory but in the user data which is normally never used here. Neither can I find a means of defining paths at all in MCWB. More importantly though, is, whatever the technicalities, the new board isn't available for use by the new project wizard which obviously is a show stopper.

I'm loathe to start copying the json about and creating image files, ftl files, etc until I get some advice on what is happening here. Thank you for any help.

Later... having seen a similar post from MMoha.10 in this MCU section on 17th June, I have in common with him that I have edited the JSON to use a very similar MCU in a different package, the STM32G431RBT6. That itself seems to be enough to trigger the cloned inverter's visible demise.

Later still...  OK, it seems to want the last digit of the MCU number to be generic 'x' rather than specific  2, 4, 6 etc.  STM32G431RBTx shows visible entry in wizard window, STM32G431RBT6 shows nothing. It looks like that is hoiw the startup code files are named, rather than specifically.

Now I am back to my old "ERROR : get invalid data format" when pressing OK after selecting the new inverter. By the way, it does this for any combination, I have found no way to start a new project without it. I have to find a suitable example project and edit it to suit.

Optician

 

 

 

Optician

[Gael A]

Hello Optician,

I am glad you found what was the blocking issue for the wizard. Indeed, the MCU needs to be the name of the wanted MCU in E:\ST\MC_SDK_6.1.2\Utilities\PC_Software\STMCWB\assets\hardware\mcu otherwise the wizard won't find it.

Concerning your other issue, I may have a clue but I am not certain about it. Check that your Current language for non-Unicode programs is set to English. You can find that in Windows Settings -> Language -> Administrative language settings.

Hope this will help,
Gaël A.

[Optician]

Thank you very much for your reply Gaël .

I have checked the system locale and it is definitely set to English(United Kingdom) for non-unicode programs, and everything else I believe. 

Googling that error message the only real hit I found was a Japanese thread on digikey's forum. The gist seemed to be the presence of stray "garbage" characters were causing the read error. I went through all the jsons I could see which I though relevant. There were no double byte characters. I even loaded each json file into a hex editor and AND'ed the whole content with 0x7F, but no changes were made so I don't think there are any stray characters in there.

 

Any further ideas welcome, this is bit of a show stopper for me. Thank you.

Optician

 

[cedric H]

Hello @Optician ,

Could you attach your json description in the post ? I will check it.

Thanks

Cedric

[Optician]

Thanks for your interest Cedric. I've rarred up the motor and inverter and attached them here. The motor  parameters were established at lower voltage with the profiler, and the inverter was cloned from B-G431B-ESC1 and editied.  I/m intersted in what you fined, but keep in mind I've seen the same with different, supplied, parts files. Even after an uninstall, clean up, and reinstall.

 

Optician

 

[Gael A]

Hello Optician,

You can find in E:\ST\MC_SDK_6.1.2\Utilities\PC_Software\STMCWB\assets a file called ConnectAlgo.exe. Could you please run it via command line with any configuration and send us back what is returned please ?
Something like ConnectAlgo.exe -i RW-G431B-ESC1 should do the trick (if you want to learn more about it you can run ConnectAlgo.exe -h)

Regards,
Gaël A.

[Optician]

Hello Gael, thanks for getting back.. Sadly, it won't run, as User or Administrator. Please see attached screenshot.

Optician

 

[Gael A]

Hello Optician,

Have you tried reinstalling the Windows api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-1.dll file on your computer before trying to launch the ConnectAlgo.exe again ?

Regards,
Gaël A.

[Optician]

Thanks for replying Gael.

You can't install just the dll. It's part of the windows visual C runtime library, and I have the latest 32bit and 64bit versions that are compatible with this OS. If ConnectAlgo.exe has been compiled with the latest Visual C updates then it may have produced an exe that is only compatible with Windows 10 upward. The project properties allow choice of runtimes used for backward compatibility. In other words, maybe ConnectAlgo isn't compatible with Windows 7, but I saw no mention of that during workbench install or during running any of WB's apps.

Optician

 

[Gael A]

Hello Optician,

Indeed, Windows 7 is not supported by MCSDK 6.1.2. It will be mentioned in a further note.
In the meantime, you can try version 5.4.8, or upgrade to windows 10.

In any case, thank you for your feedback,
Regards,
Gaël A.

[Optician]

I'm not super surprised, but what does surprise me is that this was definitely not mentioned on your web page anywhere near the download area, not mentioned on the download link, not part of the installation file name, and worst of all not mentioned during install or during launching the program. The latter is very surprising from a company the size of ST. Allowing installation of a program on an operating system it is not supported on is a  fundamental error of your programming department and says very little of any good about your quality control from there to the customer. Perhaps you could pass my comments to your programming department.

I am very disappointed in ST for contributing to the waste of months of time.

Optician