Questions about an STM32 card

[LleytoN]

Hello! I am honestly a newcomer in the field of embedded systems and I have some questions about a card I have been studying for a few days in class and within the company where I am working. I am enclosing the data sheet and I would like to know:

-       What are the main advantages of this card (especially in comparison with an Arduino one)?

-       What kind of projects could we carry out with this card?

-       What does STM32Cube precisely mean?

-       Could we connect an oscilloscope in order to observe the output signal by using an additional card?

I truly thank you in advance for your answers.

Sincerely,  

[Tesla DeLorean]

The boards are relatively cheap, have an on-board debugger. Arduino has improved over the years, perhaps more libraries and a relatively low complexity to be had there. The real power is programming the MCU natively, using interrupts, RTOS, etc. On the NUCLEO you have the benefit of the Arduino shield format, but also the breakout of most MCU pins to headers.

People use them to prototype all sorts of complicated designs. If you want screens and more integrated features, but less available pins, try looking at the DISCO and EVAL series boards. The EVAL boards being designed to allow testing of most all features of the MCU, and there is BSP (Board Support) and HAL examples built around them. For custom boards these can be ported based on pin/part choices.

STM32Cube MX/IDE is an automatic code generator and IDE for those that like that level of complexity. Saves reading Data Sheet and Reference Manuals until there is a problem. The HAL is a library that provides a common view of the hardware across numerous STM32 models.

You can connect an oscilloscope or logic analyzer to any pins you want, and have access too. Most pins are exposed on the Nucleo boards

[LleytoN]

Hello! I truly thank you for your complete answer! 

Inside the company where I am working, I would like to develop a new testing system that will support the programmable logic controller currently used to count the sheets of paper consumed by the production machines. Several inductive sensors are connected to this PLC. Indeed, the idea is mainly focused on the development of a solution that will be able to check out the number of sheets of paper consumed, calculated by the PLC. By the way, this signal which represents this number will have to be observed for some analyses. I do not know exactly what kind of card I could use and I would need some tips (I do not think the nucleo board broached just before might be perfectly appropriate).

Once again, I truly thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,