L6480 developing tool and compatibility between demo/eval board

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Dear Sirs,

I've to develop a microstepping application (1/128) and I'm thinking about the L6480 stepper driver. My question is how to correctly start in developing with this driver. Actually I've bougth a EVAL6480H (R1.1) eval board, on this there are the two bridge and the driver, so I'm thinking to connect the board through the SPI connector (SPI_IN) to another board with a microcontroller, here start the doubt, what should be the best choice to start.

I've see the EVAL6480H-DISC board and the STEVAL-PCC009V2 board listed into the L6480 web page section Evaluation Tools (at the bottom of the page).

Concerning the EVAL6480H-DISC board from the datasheet I can read:

"The EVAL6480H-DISC is an ideal starter kit for both beginners and experienced users, it is

autonomous and can be used with a software interface, or it can be used with custom firmware thanks to the embedded microcontroller."

QUESTION #1

The sentence "or it can be used with custom firmware thanks to the embedded microcontroller" means that I can delete all the previosuly written firmware and then download into the micro my cutom firmware or I've some limitation in doing this operation. I've to written a custom application to control a system able to guide a small rope on a drum precisely (slow rotation speed) so I've to code my firmware on the microcontroller, is possible to do with this board?

QUESTION #2

If the previous question answer will be yes what type of C compiler I've to use?

QUESTION #3

Can I do same things by means of the other board STEVAL-PCC009V2 directly connected to the EVAL6480H board thorugh the SPI port? In other words can I code my custom application also with the STEVAL-PCC009V2 and a suitable C compiler and by using the STSW-SPIN005 firmware library? From the board datasheet I can read:

"Supports two modes:

– application mode: the PC GUI allows SPI, I2C and UART interfacing and control of the communication parameters

– DFU mode: allows the user to change the firmware if required to suit specific applications"

The DFU mode means that I will be able to rewrite and reprogram the microcontroller or I've some limits?

QUESTION #4

About the EVAL6480H-DISC, in order to download the new firmware (if this is possible to do) can I use the JTAG port or the USB is also available (I've see that the USB lines are connected to the microcontroller, but I don't know if this is only used by the GUI demo application or if I can use it as bootloader)?

QUESTION #5

For the microcontroller, concerning the USB, is available a free library to implement a design with bootloader or I've to write my bootloader?

I know there are many question, most of them may seems simple but I need to start into the right direction, thank for everyone that have time to give me some hint.

Best regards

Fabio