Frequently Asked Questions

General

It’s third-party Arduino SDK for Ameba development boards.
It is an officially supported MicroPython port for Ameba development boards. Please refer to MicroPython official website for more information.
They used different programming languages. Ameba Arduino uses C++ while Ameba MicroPython uses Python.
You can get the Ameba development boards from Buy Ameba Boards
You can ask your questions on our forum here: Forum. Alternatively, you can raise an issue in the corresponding GitHub repositories.

Hardware

Navigate to the “Getting started” page for each Ameba development boards to see the pin diagram via Ameba ARDUINO
[AMB21/22] Refer to the Link
[AMB23] Refer to the Link
[BW16] Refer to the Link
[AMB01] Refer to the Link
A0, A1, A2, etc refers to the pins where ADC function is available. For example, on AMB23, connect to D1 to D7 for ADC function.
For other boards, please refer to their pin table respectively.[AMB21/22] Refer to the Link
[AMB23] Refer to the Link
[BW16] Refer to the Link
[AMB01] Refer to the Link
Please refer to the pin table respectively.
[AMB21/22] Refer to the Link
[AMB23] Refer to the Link
[BW16] Refer to the Link
[AMB01] Refer to the Link
Refer to the respective link for each board. [AMB21/22] Refer to the Link
[AMB23] Refer to the Link
[BW16] Refer to the Link
[AMB01] Refer to the Link
If there are any changes to the pin number or code, it will be noted in the “Remarks”/”Comments” section.
First, open the Serial Monitor and enter download mode. If you successfully enter download mode, you will see “#Flash Download Start” in the Serial Monitor.
They are the same, they burn the bin file into the Ameba development boards.
They uses the same chip; however, the PCB are different in size and offer different number of pins and functions.
AMB21/22 does not have any user-configurable push buttons and LEDs. AMB23 has 1 user-configurable push buttons and 2 user-configurable LEDs.
Both boards support BLE 5.0. Classic Bluetooth (BR/EDR) is not supported.
AMB21/22 and AMB23 can operate as either a BLE Central or BLE Peripheral device.
No, those marked “NC” are not connected to any pin and thus unusable.
AMB21 and AMB23 supports dual band 2.4G + 5G WiFi. AMB22 only supports single band 2.4G WiFi.
Press and hold the UART DOWNLOAD button. Then Press the RESET button and release both UART DOWNLOAD and RESET buttons.
Please make sure the antenna is connected properly. Check your code for the correct Bluetooth configurations.
Try to debug your program using printf and Serial.print statements. If the issue persists, you can ask for help at Forum.
Boards by default are configured at 115200 baud rate, please check if your serial terminal is configured to 115200.
The default antenna for RTL8722CSM/RTL8722DM uses the I-Pex Connector. Please change/connect the I-Pex Connector antenna.
Please make sure the connector J38 beside resistor R43 is connected. The connector is used to link the power to IC.
When the green LED flashes, it indicates that the board is waiting in download mode. When the red LED flashes, it indicates that the sketch’s code is being downloaded to the board.
No. You only have to connect it if you wish to use the onboard USB port to upload sketches into BW16.

Ensure that you have followed all the instructions to enter download mode. If issue still persist, please raise the question in Forum

To use the NFC function on AMB01, you need to first weld the NFC antenna on the board. Please refer to one of the NFC examples for more information.

Software - Arduino SDK & Examples

To determine which software to download, by depending on the SDK and IDE you intend to use, you can visit here and refer to the “Getting Started” page based on the Ameba development board you are using.
Make use of any terminal tools, such as SecureCRT/teraterm/putty etc.
Check that the json link is added to “Preferences” in Arduino IDE (find the respective json link from “Getting Started” page for each Ameba development boards). If you are still unable to find the Ameba development board in the Arduino IDE’s “Boards Manager”, you can download the offline packages from here.
To set the serial terminal baud rate value, it should be same as the baud rate set in the ino file. Eg, ” Serial.begin(9600);”
You can find the Serial Monitor at the top right-hand corner of the Arduino IDE by clicking on
You can find it at “Tool” -> “Serial Plotter”.
No, because the upload command includes compiling and uploading.
Shortcut to add a file is “Ctrl+Shift+N” and rename the file accordingly.
Firstly, please try the instructions on Arduino website at https://docs.arduino.cc/software/ide-v1/tutorials/Linux If you still encounter the same issue afterwards, please uninstall the IDE, and then re-install it using terminal in the Arduino IDE root directory and type the following command in the terminal: sudo ./install.sh
Check that you have updated the DAP firmware. You can refer to the link to learn how to update DAP firmware.


1. Check that you have correctly selected the board and COM port number on Arduino IDE.

2. Check if it’s a hardware issue.

3. If issue still persist, please raise the issue in the Forum.

Look for cygwin folder in C drive, then look for cygwin1.dll in the bin folder and add cygwin1.dll to “C:\windows” directory.
At any given time, only 1 Serial Monitor can access 1 particular COM port. There are two Serial Monitors trying to open the same COM port in the above example.

D13 refers to Pin 13 on Ameba development board. You can refer to the pin diagram for each board under “Getting Started” on the link

Follow the example in “Getting Started” on the link
Yes, however, the wiring connection will be different from using Arduino Uno. Suggest referring to the pin diagram of the board you are using.
D7 is NC on AMB21/22. NC is “Not Connected”.
Make sure that your Bluetooth and Location Service are both turned on.
Do remember to install the patches from here and necessary Arduino library in Arduino IDE. Installation instructions can be found in the readme file.
Same network should be used on your computer and development board.

Software - MicroPython SDK & Examples

No, MicroPython only support a small section of the classic Python standard library. However, this can be done by porting the classic python library to MicroPython.

During the building process, some user may encounter error that suspend the process, this is due to missing system environment setup and can be fixed as follows,

1. Error related to python
By default, MicroPython use python3 to run building scripts for the MicroPython kernals, if you encounter error related to python, it may be because the path of the Python3 executable is not added to system environment variable.
However, if environment variable is already added but the build could not be completed, you may try,

1) Re-start your PC
2) type “python” on your terminal, if the python shown is python3, then please add
PYTHON = python
to the second line of the “Makefile” under “port/rtl8722” folder

2. Error related to MPY-CROSS
If building process stop when mpy-cross shown as error, there is a step to be done as follows,
1) navigate to “MicroPython_RTL8722/mpy-cross” folder
2) Open your Cygwin/Linux terminal and just type make

Wait for make finish building the MicroPython Cross Compiler, then this should fix the error

Please note that MicroPython only support Python 3 syntax.

There are 3 ways of uploading your python code into Ameba,

1. via REPL normal mode
In the normal REPL mode, you can paste your into REPL code line by line and have them executed sequentially, but note that syntax will be automatically indented when using condition checking or loop, like “if” or “while”, incorrect indenting will crash your input script

2. via REPL paste mode
When in normal REPL mode, press “Ctrl”+ “e” will enter paste mode, paste mode only allow pasting a large chunk of a complete code, incomplete code or editing after pasting will mess up your syntax and cause error

3. via mp_frozenmodules
By placing your python script into the “mp_frozenmodules” folder under “rtl8722” folder, your code will be embedded into the MicroPython firmware and uploaded to Ameba, after that you can use it by simply importing the name of your python script. If you get syntax error using this method, you better check your python code syntax again.

Please confirm that QQ communication software is installed