Fred

The MSP430FR4133 is listed as preview. Is this another beta chip like the early FR5969s? The errata sheet lists it as XMS430FR4133 I can't see any marking on the main microcontroller in the photos. Also, the hardware files seem to list it as a MSP430G621 on the BOM (along with a F5528 for the FET and a G2452 for the EnergyTrace), but I assume that's just a mistake.

You could get the MSP430 to echo back what it's received (or a checksum byte). It depends what the rest of your application is doing.

That's exactly what I did. The big question - can Fred manage to solder QFN? And the answer is YES. One solder bridge and a couple of pins that needed a bit more solder applied, but my v1.6 Launchpad is now happy again. I suspect that a home etched QFN board might be pushing my luck. I'll try a LQFP board soon but may draw the line there. I just proudly showed showed my wife. She was so unimpressed.

I'm not entirely sure what you're doing with the UART once you have it set up. I can't see any code listed above that actually sends or receives anything. Apologies if I'm stating the obvious, but I'd suggest that you do the following: Take some sample code (whether TI's or zeke's) in its entirety and get that running. Debug it. Set breakpoints. Try to work out what it's doing. Strip it down so it has only what you need. Get something really simple going. (e.g. when you press the onboard button it sends "Hello" to your phone.) Work slowly from there, testing each simple step. I find borrowing

It looks like the MSP Gang Programmer should do what you need. Might be a bit over the top though. http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-gang

I started typing a reply about checking for USART/USI/USCI differences and suggesting looking at the MSP430Ware examples. (Nowhere near as detailed as Katie's, of course.) However, then I checked the spec pages and saw they were both USCI. I didn't even notice the subtle eUSCI change! I guess that reinforces the point. It's usually the first thing I struggle with and starting from a working example usually speeds things up for me. Going back to the USART on an AFE253 was particularly painful recently.

I went to this seminar recently in the UK, although we used a NFC tag emulation shield rather than Bluetooth. It was fairly informative, although I'm more impressed with the Energy Trace features on the MSP430, especially the Energy Trace++ on some of the newer FRAM devices.

Well, it's not a case of what came in the mail today, but what didn't. TI were great as usual and were happy to send me some FR5969 samples (to replace the deprecated chip on my version 1.6 launchpad and see if I can solder QFN). However, Fedex have decided to be a pain. I just got a voicemail to say that they need to see my import licence or they'll send them back. WTF? It got them shipped to my work address as I've done with many things, but my work is nothing to do with electronics. I doubt they have an import licence and I wouldn't want to try to use it anyway. [update: I explain

So - poor audio quality, uninspired delivery, spamming and no sign of anyone getting any dev kits. (I only found time to view it after the 9th so wasn't expecting one anyway.) Fairly unimpressive all round.

Anyone else getting spammed to complete surveys by UBM Tech since viewing the webinar? It's definitely due to this as it's the only thing I've used that particular email address for (and there's a tiny UBM logo in the top right). Unsubscribing has no effect. I'd suggest avoiding this webinar if you were considering it.

Just got my 2.0 board to replace the 1.6 (with the slashes on the rear silkscreen). The onboard ezFET has been updated from 1.0 to "1.2 with Energy Trace" and the micro from X430FR5969 to 430FR5969. It's a bit wider and has a couple of stand-offs too. The earlier revision chip marked X430FR5969 seems to be no longer supported, either by the MSP-FET or even by the onboard ezFET 1.0 once the firmware has been updated. I guess that makes the earlier LP useless unless you feel like replacing the MSP430. If you have an earlier one and want to use it, be careful of updating CCS or your FET.

@@rampadc That looks good. I was going to do something similar as they're hard to get in the UK too. Then bluehash managed to sort out some kits. I wouldn't have thought that it would be too critical on the size of the mounting holes. Whilst your .9mm pins might rattle around a little in the holes for a standard TagConnect footprint, it should still line up well enough to give good contact. You can my my home etched board for a TC2030 here which has holes that are drilled slightly too large. I had no problems connecting. It might be worth reading through that whole thread. We ha

@@dubnet @@yosh I saw that. It looks really interesting but I suspect it'll never actually get implanted. The size and location don't look ideal. However the real issue might be the silicone coating. The guy who fitted my implant was telling me about some issues with silicone coated neodymium magnets. Apparently with a bit of pressure the contents of the implant can rupture the silicone and it starts getting very nasty. What the guy should do is ensure that it will be possible to implant before going off designing something that'll never be used. I bet he won't though. My much smaller xNT

My updated board had just shipped too.

The EnergyTrace stuff is the thing that's impressed me the most so far. (Enable the EnergyTrace++ option in CCS if you haven't already.) More so than the ESI if I'm honest.

@@chicken Don't click on the graph tabs then. They're even cooler.

Another thing I noticed is that when using the MSP-FET instead of my MSP-FET430UIF I immediately got an EnergyTrace window showing up. Without even digging into the detail it already looks really useful. Don't stop there though! All it takes is enabling the EnergyTrace++ option in CCS and you get this:

Well, my MSP-FET arrived and I've finally found a little bit of time to play with this. (Lots of other crap going on I won't bore you with.) I decided that the easiest ESI stuff to toy with would be the example quadrature encoder that comes with MSP430Ware. You'll find it at examples\devices\fr5xx\MSP430FR58x8x_MSP430FR6x7x_MSP430FR6x8x_Code_Examples\C\msp430fr69xx_esif_01.c. This example seems simpler than the TI design examples here and it also processes digital signals (from an optical encoder) which are more closely aligned to the hall sensor I'm using. One thing I did find is t

As SugarAddict mentioned, the dimension layer shouldn't be there. It was my first attempt at an Eagle part. I think for now you can ignore the DRC error. I'll try to get round to fixing the part.

Wow. That sounds like an incredible job. I do IT for a life insurance company. Not quite as exciting.

It's always a bit weird to put a face to a forum name. Nicely presented @@spirilis

If little a bit of condensation killed it, WTF is some lightning going to do to it?

@@roadrunner84 That sounds interesting. Do you have any more details?

I guess it'll be a while until someone like TI manufacturers one and sticks it on a Launchpad, but ARM have announced the M7 which will be above the M4 in the microcontroller range. http://arm.com/products/processors/cortex-m/cortex-m7-processor.php

Some more info and a video featuring Trey over on Hackaday http://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/freescale-and-texas-instruments-goodies-and-world-maker-faire/