Why can't I see the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board on my computer running Windows 8?

I have MATLAB installed on a computer that is running Windows 8. When I plug in the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board to the computer, the computer does not recognize my board, and when I press the Build button in my Simulink model the model says it builds successfully but nothing happens on the FRDM-KL25Z.

Why is this happening?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Student Competitions Team]

There are a couple of steps you need to do to make sure your computer can recognize the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board:

1. You need the PEMicro USB Driver for this board. This can be found on this PEMicro Webpage.
2. You need to install the most updated firmware. There is a bug in the Open SDA firmware version 1.10 that ships on some of the boards from Freescale. To fix this, you need to upgrade the firmware on your board, which requires access to a computer running Windows 7.

To install the USB Driver, simply download the file PEDrivers_Install.exe from this PEMicro Webpage and run the downloaded executable.

If your board has the firmware version 1.11 or later it should now be recognised by your computer when you connect the SDA usb port on the FRDM-KL25Z board to a USB port on your computer. If the computer does not recognize the board, and create a removable drive called FRDM-KL25Z, then you will need to update the board's firmware. To do this:

1. Install the USB Driver on a computer running Windows 7.
2. Download the Firmware Apps (zip) file from this PEMicro Webpage.
3. Unzip the downloaded file
4. find the zip file called "OpenSDA_Bootloader_Update_App_v1.11_2013_12_11.zip" inside the directory where you just unzipped the Firmware Apps archive.
5. unzip OpenSDA_Bootloader_Update_App_v1.11_2013_12_11.zip
6. Connect the FRDM-KL25Z board to the Computer running Windows 7 while holding down the board's reset button to get it into Bootloader mode. This should create a removable drive on your computer called BOOTLOADER
7. Copy the file BOOTUPDATEAPP_Pemicro_v111.SDA from the folder where you unzipped "OpenSDA_Bootloader_Update_App_v1.11_2013_12_11.zip" to the BOOTLOADER removable drive on your computer. This will update the App Firmware on the board. Wait for the file to finish copying.
8. Unplug the board from the computer, and then plug it back in while holding the reset button.
9. Copy the file MSD-DEBUG-FRDM-KL25Z_Pemicro_v114.SDA from the folder where you unzipped the Firmware Apps archive to the BOOTLOADER removable drive on your computer. Wait for the file to finish copying.
10. Unplug the board from the computer and plug it in to the computer running Windows 8. It should now be recognized as a removable drive called FRDM-KL25Z.