The version installed by the Arduino IDE is out of date

[rtek1000]

Hello,

The repository is at version 1.0.4, and the IDE is installing version 1.0.4, but the version installed by the IDE is missing files.

I noticed this in the missing files like HardwareTimer and EEPROM

I also found a quote about this:

Board Manager version 1.0.4 will not work with this sketch because it requires the HardwareTimer function. You will need the latest updates available HERE.

Source: https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Timer-Interrupts-for-the-CH32V003-WCH-MCU/

The released file 1.0.4 is out of date with respect to the repository contents.
https://github.com/openwch/arduino_core_ch32/releases

Is there any plan to release a version 1.0.5 perhaps?

[maxint-rd]

Hello @rtek1000 - Others have requested the same, for instance in #197 and #166.

There were some plans back in April, but I kind-of lost hope. Unfortunately WCH only provides incidental support for this core. Their latest activity last april closed some issues, but didn't include any significant merging of PR's or the release of v1.0,5.

I'm trying to follow issues and give answers where possible, in hopes this Arduino Core doesn't die silently. I still find the CH32 platform having some significant benefits for me as a maker and I also like to use Arduino for it's simplicity and large ecosystem. (If only more people would participate...)

---

I recommend all users to first update their v1.04 core with the files of the current latest master branch. It contains many improvements.

• Just download the zip file and copy all files over the existing v1.0.4 files.
• Secondly you can review the currently open PR's to see if they fix your specific needs.

Step 4 of these instructions gives you more info - it's part of the readme I made for PR #200. As mentioned there: for certain things you may need to empty the IDE cache and restart.

[rtek1000]

I'm also managing to program with the MountRiver Studio IDE, and I've noticed that the program's memory consumption is much higher in the Arduino IDE. Perhaps that's why the repository doesn't get as much attention.

Compared to the STM32, the CH32 has very few example projects, either in the Arduino IDE or MountRiver. I don't know if the CH32 manufacturers are very interested in increasing the use of these microcontrollers.

[maxint-rd]

I've also looked at MounRiver Studio and at CH32fun. Although they produce smaller binaries and perhaps use less RAM, their closeness to the bare metal requires more effort to get results and they don't support generic Arduino examples.

Because I've done most of my projects in Arduino (for various different processors), I wanted to add CH32 to my collection. Next to being very affordable, CH32 also made real time debugging much easier. I try to get my projects working for CH32 without too many changes. To get to that state there were some improvements needed to the Arduino core. I think eventually this core should be fully compatible and be able to run most Arduino examples.

I'm afraid many makers that tried the Arduino core moved on due to its initial unfinished state. After the first wave of publicity around the 10ct MCU and subsequent release of it's first Arduino core, many things were still missing. In the months after first release many issues were resolved and if you now look at the latest code in the master branch, combined with various PR's, you find a core that's very usable. Unfortunately lack of an updated release makes installation cumbersome.

BTW. A major roadblock for me was the issue of flash memory usage. The 16kB of V003 and V002 quickly filled up even when using only one or two peripherals.
In my local environment I managed to improve that quite a bit and shared the improvements in a couple of PR's. The standard Blink sketch now compiles to less than 1K. My approach was two-fold:

1. fix LTO compilation (see Fix for using LTO in Arduino IDE 2.x to reduce flash usage #215)
2. make manual optimizations. (see this comment)

[rtek1000]

Another difficulty I had with the Arduino IDE was support for peripherals like Ethernet and USB Host. I created a project with the STM32F407VGT6, and despite having plenty of memory, I had to use the STM32CubeIDE.