HiLetgo 2pcs STM32F103C8T6 ARM STM32 Minimum System Development Board Module STM32F103C8T6 Core Learning Board for Arduino

If you want genuine BluePills then you can get them here. I tested these and they show as genuine and pass all the visual checks too. I'd recommend this seller.

I've just begun to explore the world of STM32 after using Arduino for many years. These boards are much more powerful than a typical Arduino due to the faster 32-bit processor. I was able to successfully program these using the Serial Port on Pins A9 and A10, and was able to set up my Arduino IDE environment to program them easily. I used a USB-TTL converter but there many other ways to program these too. The USB is not the same as on an Arduino, so don't expect to plug in a USB cable and have it work the same. These are programmed either through the Serial Port (A9/A10) or the 4-pin header on the end of the board using an ST Link programmer. I'm looking forward to building these into my next project and taking advantage of the faster processor.

Out of all of the dozens of these I have purchased over the years, these are the best. I’m so glad I finally found some with genuine STM32 chips, and ones that work without strange issues that make you scratch your head, or second guess your code.

Bought a pair of these to replace some fake, DOA modules I purchased from AliExpress. While they report as 64KB, my .hex file was 107kb and had no issues loading and functioning at all.

My IDE of choice is vscode and I use platformio for all my microcontroller projects. When I bought this board I followed the instructions on the platformio website to configure the board but I couldn’t get it to work. After trying everything I actually gave this product a 1 star review because I thought I had a bad board but after some more fiddling I found that if you set the ‘upload_protocol’ environment variable in platformio.ini to ‘serial’, switching the boot0 mode to 1 and pressing the reset button before you upload, this board works like any other arduino microcontroller with the arduino framework. Unfortunately, the platformio documentation for the blue pill board does not list ‘serial’ as an upload protocol option. Also this board actually has 128kb flash memory, not the listed 64kb. That was a refreshing surprise. You do need a USB to serial adapter to get it to work. Just connect the power(3v3) and ground of the adapter to power and ground on the board and the tax/rx to any of the 3 serial rx/tx pins on the board. Minus the extra work and hardware to get this work, it’s a solid board.