It would be awesome to see someone drop the photon firmware onto a dash button for fun…
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Working on it… 
I hit a roadblock trying to figure out the compatible WICED build, hopefully someone here can help me figure that out. The Dash and the Photon are “of the same cloth”, with similar STM MCU and BCM radio from the same family. I’ve figured out how to get the scripts in the develop branch to attempt to build the platform, but it chokes on a demo/soft_ap which doesn’t come with the official SDK. I’m guessing it’s a Particle addition, made of a few bits from other demos, plus additional glue, but I couldn’t figure out the recipe.
Hopefully the Particle devs can help shed some light. I don’t need the wiced code, just steps to recreate the magic sauce. Please and thank you!
Ian
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I am not big into firmware hacking but I would sign up for an account and download the WICED libraries. Just be aware the Amazon dash was never meant for what you are doing with it so there is a good chance you could brick you Amazon dash. What outputs does the Amazon dash have and could the Amazon dash be used as a micro controller? How does Amazon sell the dash device for 5 bucks? How can they make any money? The components them selves cost more than 5 bucks.
this makes me so happy. i hope you make this work. would be awesome to see a dash hack that turns them into Particle buttons!
@rpiswag I would imagine that the economics are based on the fact that people will purchase those items from them rather than anywhere else given that the sole purpose of the dash is selling products
Great effort Ian! Do you need to recompile the wiced libs? If so let me know and I can build them for you (we’re not permitted to release the full repo.)
This is awesome @impressiver! Can’t wait to hack mine 
How are you planning to program the Dash? Will you use the Particle Programmer Shield, the ST-Link STM8/STM32 v2 Programmer, or something else?
Btw, have you guys seen this partial dash hack? It’s cool, but not as cool as running the full particle firmware.
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@mdma That would be awesome. That’s the missing piece, and with the correct WICED build I think I can have this thing running tonight (maybe a little ambitious, but soon).
Also, I have downloaded the official WICED SDK. If there’s a way to describe the steps required for me to recreate the build w/o disclosing licensed code, please let me know. I’m guessing there’s too much involved to make it feasible, but I’ll cross my fingers in the meantime.
Thanks!
If your SDK is 3.3.0 I can send you a patch with the differences. Might not get to it until Monday though.
@sazp96 I have both an STM32F207 Disovery board w/ STLink/V2 and a SEGGER J-Link EDU. I tried the STM first, but ran into serial issues w/ OS X 10.11 beta, so switched to the J-Link. But I know of at least one other who’s using the ST-Link w/o issue on an Ubuntu VM in Windows.
The ST-Link will do you just fine, but the J-Link is my new best friend.
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I can wait… I think. This is like Christmas.
I have 3.3.1, but will grab 3.3.0 (it’s still available on Broadcom’s dev site) and get it ready for a proper patch.
Thanks again!
@impressiver by any chance have you ohm’d out the connections between the STM32 and the BCM radio (you’d have to remove both on a spare dash). I think this may be necessary in order to re-map the I/O properly 
@bdub That’s pretty much where I am right now. I got my particle repo w/ Dash HAL building, but got stuck trying to bypass the main STM mcu to flash the BCM directly, it doesn’t show up on a JTAG/SWD scan and the board resets when I try to connect directly to the BCM pads.
Good news is I have a few of these to play with, and just ripped a pad off the first test mule. So it’s soon going to sacrifice it’s organs in the name of science.
I’m now entering new and unfamiliar territory in my hardware skillz, so any pointers and protips are appreciated.
If anyone is interested in playing, I’m happy to post a diff of my WICED repo. I can’t post the whole thing due to BCM’s licensing, but I can share the modifications to a stock 3.3.1 SDK after applying (manually :p) the 3.3.0 diff from @mdma, plus the added HAL and platform files in my Particle firmware fork.
It’s not perfect, and not even very pretty, but it builds 
Two new X-acto blades work great for "beeping" out tiny SMT pads like this. You can also touch one X-acto blade to a source point, and rub a swatch of aluminum foil (a tiny one) over the board to find more quickly where it goes... then home in on it with the other X-acto blade 
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Please do!
someone did it!
@mdma any chance you can send me your diff against WICED? I’m interested in poking at it too.
@impressiver hey there, i’m interested in the patch if you’ve still got it. been fiddling with getting access to the SPI but no luck so far.
@lapse: Give me a day to dust off the cobwebs and I should be able to send you a patch. Your timing is actually perfect, right now I’m updating my build env to try out a custom debug adapter I received this afternoon from a friend. Fits like a glove, no more soldering a bunch of wire wrap directly to the board!
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