RedBoard Turbo Hookup Guide

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Contributors: Alex the Giant
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UF2 Bootloader and Drivers

The RedBoard Turbo is now easier than ever to program, thanks the UF2 bootloader. With this bootloader, the RedBoard Turbo shows up on your computer as a USB storage device without having to install drivers for Windows 10, Mac, and Linux!

From the Arduino IDE, you'll still need to select the correct port on your machine, but you can just as easily use another programming language such as CircuitPython or MakeCode, which will be available in the near future.

Windows 7

If you are using a Windows 7 OS, you will need to install the SAMD drivers using the SAMD Windows 7 Installer. Head over to the GitHub repo to install the executable.

Scroll down the page to the assets in the Latest release and click on the '.exe to download. The version number may be different depending on the release. The image below shows sparkfun_drivers_1.0.5.3.exe .

Windows 7 Driver Download

Click on the image for a closer view.

After downloading, click on the executable and follow the prompts to install. The steps to install are the same even though the following images show drivers for v1.0.5.1.

SparkFun Driver Executable

You will receive a warning from Windows. Click yes to continue.

Windows 7 Warning

Another window will pop up. Read through the license and click "I Agree".

License Agreement

When ready, hit the Install button.

Install SAMD Drivers

Another window will pop up. Click on "Install this driver software anyway" to continue.

Windows Warning

Your Windows 7 will begin installing the driver. This should take a few seconds. When the drivers have installed, hit the "Close" button to exit out of the installer.

Successful Install

What is UF2?

UF2 stands for USB Flashing Format, which was developed by Microsoft for PXT (now known as MakeCode) for flashing microcontrollers over the Mass Storage Class (MSC), just like a removable flash drive. The file format is unique, so unfortunately, you cannot simply drag and drop a compiled binary or hex file onto the Turbo. Instead, the format of the file has extra information to tell the processor where the data goes, in addition to the data itself.

For Arduino users, the UF2 bootloader is BOSSA compatible, which the Arduino IDE expects on ATSAMD boards. For more information about UF2, you can read more from the MakeCode blog, as well as the UF2 file format specification.