Using with Arduino IDE

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The Feather/Metro/Gemma/QTPy/Trinket M0 and M4 use an ATSAMD21 or ATSAMD51 chip, and you can pretty easily get it working with the Arduino IDE. Most libraries (including the popular ones like NeoPixels and display) will work with the M0 and M4, especially devices & sensors that use I2C or SPI.

Now that you have added the appropriate URLs to the Arduino IDE preferences in the previous page, you can open the Boards Manager by navigating to the Tools->Board menu.

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Once the Board Manager opens, click on the category drop down menu on the top left hand side of the window and select All. You will then be able to select and install the boards supplied by the URLs added to the preferences.

Remember you need SETUP the Arduino IDE to support our board packages - see the previous page on how to add adafruit's URL to the preferences

Install SAMD Support

First up, install the latest Arduino SAMD Boards (version 1.6.11 or later)

You can type Arduino SAMD in the top search bar, then when you see the entry, click Install

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Install Adafruit SAMD

Next you can install the Adafruit SAMD package to add the board file definitions

Make sure you have Type All selected to the left of the Filter your search... box

You can type Adafruit SAMD in the top search bar, then when you see the entry, click Install

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Even though in theory you don't need to - I recommend rebooting the IDE

Quit and reopen the Arduino IDE to ensure that all of the boards are properly installed. You should now be able to select and upload to the new boards listed in the Tools->Board menu.

Select the matching board, the current options are:

  • Feather M0 (for use with any Feather M0 other than the Express)
  • Feather M0 Express
  • Metro M0 Express
  • Circuit Playground Express
  • Gemma M0
  • Trinket M0
  • QT Py M0
  • ItsyBitsy M0
  • Hallowing M0
  • Crickit M0 (this is for direct programming of the Crickit, which is probably not what you want! For advanced hacking only)
  • Metro M4 Express
  • Grand Central M4 Express
  • ItsyBitsy M4 Express
  • Feather M4 Express
  • Trellis M4 Express
  • PyPortal M4
  • PyPortal M4 Titano
  • PyBadge M4 Express
  • Metro M4 Airlift Lite
  • PyGamer M4 Express
  • MONSTER M4SK
  • Hallowing M4
  • MatrixPortal M4
  • BLM Badge
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Install Drivers (Windows 7 & 8 Only)

When you plug in the board, you'll need to possibly install a driver

Click below to download our Driver Installer

Download and run the installer

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Run the installer! Since we bundle the SiLabs and FTDI drivers as well, you'll need to click through the license

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Select which drivers you want to install, the defaults will set you up with just about every Adafruit board!

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Click Install to do the installin'

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Blink

Now you can upload your first blink sketch!

Plug in the M0 or M4 board, and wait for it to be recognized by the OS (just takes a few seconds). It will create a serial/COM port, you can now select it from the drop-down, it'll even be 'indicated' as Trinket/Gemma/Metro/Feather/ItsyBitsy/Trellis!

Please note, the QT Py and Trellis M4 Express are two of our very few boards that does not have an onboard pin 13 LED so you can follow this section to practice uploading but you wont see an LED blink!

adafruit_products_comport.png

Now load up the Blink example

Download: file 
// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin 13 as an output.
  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(13, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(13, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
}

And click upload! That's it, you will be able to see the LED blink rate change as you adapt the delay() calls.

If you are having issues, make sure you selected the matching Board in the menu that matches the hardware you have in your hand.

Successful Upload

If you have a successful upload, you'll get a bunch of red text that tells you that the device was found and it was programmed, verified & reset

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After uploading, you may see a message saying "Disk Not Ejected Properly" about the ...BOOT drive. You can ignore that message: it's an artifact of how the bootloader and uploading work.

Compilation Issues

If you get an alert that looks like

Cannot run program "{runtime.tools.arm-none-eabi-gcc.path}\bin\arm-non-eabi-g++"

Make sure you have installed the Arduino SAMD boards package, you need both Arduino & Adafruit SAMD board packages

adafruit_products_gppnotfound.png

Manually bootloading

If you ever get in a 'weird' spot with the bootloader, or you have uploaded code that crashes and doesn't auto-reboot into the bootloader, click the RST button twice (like a double-click)to get back into the bootloader.

The red LED will pulse and/or RGB LED will be green, so you know that its in bootloader mode.

Once it is in bootloader mode, you can select the newly created COM/Serial port and re-try uploading.

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You may need to go back and reselect the 'normal' USB serial port next time you want to use the normal upload.

Ubuntu & Linux Issue Fix

 Follow the steps for installing Adafruit's udev rules on this page.

 Arduino IDE Setup Adapting Sketches to M0 & M4 

This guide was first published on Apr 18, 2018. It was last updated on Apr 18, 2018.

This page (Using with Arduino IDE) was last updated on Jan 15, 2021.