rampadc

This makes me think about a book I read a decade or so back: When Things Start to Think. For me, this book was a complete paradigm shift about what connectivity could be used for. There's lot of anecdotes in the book about things that are, that were and failed and where the future (which is now) is heading. I agree that a lot of IoT is just screaming to get pushed onto the market, but there are products that actually add a benefit to your life which are or might be classified as IoT.
 
I think there is a slight difference between M2M and IoT. M2M is about machine interaction and machine monitoring, while IoT is about human interaction with machines in a more immersive way than the mouse/keyboard/screen. Alas, most IoT solutions nowadays interact through smartphones, which are these stupid screens again.
Genuine Things (note the capital T) do not interact through a smartphone or website, they interact through other Things. For example, I do not want to switch on my coffeepot through scheduling it in my calendar, I want my coffeepot to figure out when I want coffee and have coffee ready when I want it. The pot can do so by querying my phone, watch (which monitors when I am asleep or not), my door lock, my alarm clock, my car, etc. I think Things are about smartness, not about connectivity.
 
Cloud is different from servers, although just slightly. Cloud is about virtualization. Cloud is a server(park) that allows clients (or yourself) to use a virtual machine (IaaS), virtual back end (PaaS) or virtual application (SaaS) while not paying for the physical servers. Cloud is about being able to migrate machines from one cloud provider to another, unlike renting a dedicated server, which must be either physically moved or backuped and restored in another physical location. I still think a virtualization pool is a better name than a cloud, but cloud just has a better ring to it.

Not sure if you still need the help, but it's probably easier if you use UART instead. The 5529 LP has a UART COM port interface when plugged in with USB so you can use that to listen to, at baud rate up to 115200 (maximum I've used). You can use oPossum's printf function: http://forum.43oh.com/topic/1289-tiny-printf-c-version/. 
 
Attached is a class that allows you to use oPossum's function. All I did was adding appropriate registers that 5529 uses.
 
You can also install RXTX terminal plugin for Eclipse if you want a more compact feel. http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/How_to_install_the_terminal_plugin_in_CCSv5
 
Printf.hPrintf.c

I'm working on building a speed controller for a belt grinder and I'm using a G2553 for the controller.  Since the speed of the motor will need to vary between 1000-8000 RPM, the 32.768Khz clock was too slow and the DCO was drifting too much and causing the RPM to vary by several hundred counts even when the motor was running at a constant stable speed. This in turn caused the PID loop to act really weird and I could not hold a stable speed.  What I needed was a stable reference oscillator to use for sensing the RPM of the drive motor. 
 
Being stubborn, I wanted to do this with only a single G2553 cpu and since the 2553 isn't spec'd to use a high freq crystal I went looking for an alternate way to provide a reference for the timers.  I was quite happy to discover that P1.0 can be configured as an input for an external timer reference. Thus the "Launchpad Timer Reference Oscillator" was born. 
 
In my application I'm using a 16MHz oscillator, but any speed could be used to fit the given application.
 
 

It is a small 0.3" x 1" pcb with an Abracon oscillator, a 0.1uF cap., and connectors.
 
It only took a minor code change to have the Timer use the external reference and so far it seems to have resolved my timing issues.
 
While this is without a doubt the most simple PCB I think I have ever designed, it just may turn out to be one of the most useful.
I will definitely be including an external reference oscillator in any of my future projects that need very accurate time references.
 
Here it is in action.

 
 
thanks for looking
 
Brian
 

Problem is duct-tape fixed, I triggered a software power-on-reset in a group of unused interrupts. 

Do you mean something like this?
 

#define SOME_CONSTANT 123 #define OTHER_CONSTANT 34 uint8_t fun(uint8_t arg) { if(arg == SOME_CONSTANT) { arg = OTHER_CONSTANT; } return arg; } That can result in warnings as the integer constants are of type "int" or larger by default. 
You can fix that by casting the constant to the appropriate type as part of the definition:

#define SOME_CONSTANT ((uint8_t)123) #define OTHER_CONSTANT ((uint8_t)34) ...or by using type suffixes if appropriate (long/unsigned types only).

Hi all,
 
Just made a tutorial both written and video on how to use the graphing tool built into Code Composer Studio.  I meant to do this awhile back just not had the time until now, hope it proves of some use.
 
http://coder-tronics.com/code-composer-studio-graphing-tool-tutorial/
 
https://youtu.be/-iGnh0_9YxE
 
Cheers,
Ant

Found a misbehaving while loop in phy_transmit(). Thanks for the help guys.

TivaScope is an oscilloscope which works with Tiva Launchpad (http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c123gxl, only 12.99$) from Texas Instruments. It communicates with PC via USB port. Its maximum sampling frequency is 1MSa/s with 12bit resolution. The signal which is shown on screen was obtained from referance signal output with10KHz %30 Duty Cycle. It also supports Stellaris LM4F120 LaunchPad.
 

 
Tutorials
https://youtu.be/B4GVoiZVIM4
https://youtu.be/O0G1Gm5h3fk
 
Specifications
Maximum sampling frequency is 1MSa/s with 12bit resolution. It supports USB 2.0 Single channel input PE3(AN0) Referance signal output with10KHz %30 Duty Cycle from PB6 Labview Interface TI E2E

Here we go - found the kickstarter campaign - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/802159142/nuimo-seamless-smart-home-interface?ref=category

Microchip rolled out a 3D gesture controller IC MGC3030 in their GestIC family around January with code, free GUI and video tutorials. It looks interesting though the only application I could think of for this is a 3D mouse, sign language recognition and maybe a navigation mechanism of sort when holograms become mainstream. What other applications/scenarios can they use this for?

Was sitting at home all afternoon, went to check the mail and found that fedex had tried to deliver, but I missed them.
 
I'm reminded of this

 
They're re-delivering tomorrow, so hopefully I'll catch them then. If it's like others this is likely only the MSP-FET.

VUSB is the output from an internal LDO. it still needs to have capacitance on it.
 
First part of the USB manual section describes this.
 

4.2 of the App note you linked slaa457a describes part of the internal power management of the USB module. As well as the MSP430F5xxx family guide.
 
@@chicken is right. The VUSB pin is internally connected to the output of an internal 3.3v LDO that is sourced from VBUS. From what you are saying, leave it disconnected.
(By disconnected I mean, only connect a capacitor between it and ground. As done with the V1.8 pin)

 
I am concerned with your lack of decoupling capacitors. Some 100nF's around your board would go along way to reduce transient spikes. Especially since USB is a high speed bus, not having a stable system voltage could lead to some unpredictable hard to trace errors. You mentioned you don't have much room on the PCB, I'd try for atleast a 100nF at every major IC. (MSP, BLE, LDO, DC/DC). That's only 4.
 
If a device has more than 1 Vdd/Vcc pin then it is recommend to have one on each.

What's your reasoning behind connecting VUSB with VCC? Do you want the MSP430 to enumerate and run when the on/off switch is turned off? If that's not a requirement I don't think you need VUSB.
 
If you want VUSB to power the system when VBAT is not present, keep in mind that VUSB can only deliver 12mA max. This might not be enough when the MCU is running and the Bluetooth module is transmitting. 

and a 35% off deal on the MSP-FET and i2040 target board bundle.
http://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/msp430blog/archive/2014/11/06/get-a-jump-on-black-friday-with-these-early-deals.aspx

You're looking into doing a lot of Bluetooth programming for this task as it is quite specific to what you want to do. You're also looking to spend $50+ on this by the way. There are a few choices available:
- BLE112 with their custom BGScript that can act as both master and slave
- TI's CC2540/1 mini development kit, seeing how most BLE devices nowadays use CC2541, it might be wise to get the corresponding dev kit. You will be tied to using the full version of IAR though.
- CSR Bluecore4 - get BlueLab 4.1 and those HC-05, HC-06 modules. This path is the most difficult in my opinion as CSR doesn't provide as much support and documentation as TI, and also because Bluetooth 2.0 is quite old. But then you get to connect to a much bigger pool of devices.
 
I would recommend the BLE112. It's so much easier to work with than getting the CC dev kit. I went down the TI dev kit as I have access to a full version of IAR but the steep learning curve completely overthrow the lower cost per module advantage.

This is a adapter to make up a TagConnect 10-pin TC2050NL. It works very well with the current TagConnect PCB footprint. This post may be beneficial to those who can't buy a TagConnect cable due to high shipping prices or if local stores do not stock them. Cost per adapter is about $4 for me.
 
Parts:
+ Pogopin P50-J1: http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6227387475.html
+ 0.9mm drill bits: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/271617786070
+ M3 standoff - up to 10mm.
 
PCB:
+ Direct order from DIrtyPCB: http://dirtypcbs.com/view.php?share=1669&accesskey=1fb157c034189e070dded66a08caf57b
 
I don't think I kept the original gerber files. I have a few variations but their PCBs have not been manufactured. I'll include them here just in case. It is best to keep the PCB thickness less than or equal to 1.0mm. I ordered mine at 1.2mm and to solder the pogopins, it requires a fairly tiny soldering bit. As for the drill bits for the 3 mounting holes, soldering was not possible as the exposed copper was too small, thus hot glue was used to secure the bits and it worked quite nicely as you can move the bits around for alignment as the glue slowly solidifies.
 
Some photos in attachment.
 
 
 
TagConnect_4_10_2014.zip
TagConnect_7_10_2014.zip
TC_21_10_2014.zip

The 0.9mm drill bits finally arrived today for my TagConnect 10-pin adapter. It was a quite hard to solder the bits as there wasn't sufficient exposed copper on the board but hot glue fixes anything.
 

Just noticed a new launchpad MSP-EXP430FR4133 appeared on the website this morning:
Microcontroller Features16MHz 16 KB FRAM 2 KB RAM 256-segment LCD controller 10-channel 10-bit ADC 3 16-bit timers 60 GPIO SPI, I2C and UART Support BoosterPack connector20 pin BoosterPack connector
Why this LaunchPad?Lowest power MCU in the industry with an integrated LCD controller Integrated 16kB FRAM for experiencing fast non-volatile memory writes Analog and digital integration including a 10-bit ADC and IR Modulation Logic Price$13.99
 
 

@@spirilis Thanks, I like where TI is going with this, So I've ordered a new v2.0 EXP430fr5969.
 
Still trying to install CCSv6
 
I can see some differences in the boards. I'll try to dig up the old schematic, just because I'm curious about the changes.
 
 
For anyone interested here is a patent on their current measuring technique. (http://www.google.com/patents/US20130154594)

I believe that one day my flasher (much faster / simpler / smaller than MSP-GANG, and affordable too) will work with any android mobile phone. So txt/hex firmware file will be transferred from PC to phone, and later flashed with flasher connected to phone, anytime, anywhere.

Hey guys, is there a small device that lets you store firmwares in an SD card or other memory devices and flash MSP430 MCUs on-the-go without a computer? Preferably with a simple user interface for non-tech-savy users to select which firmware they need to flash. I can probably build one but it would be much nicer to use an existing solution.
 
Thanks

Maybe implement BSL on another microcontroller and connect it serially to your target.
The BSL guys would know better.

Sure, they're gonna be used as a substitute for an actual TagConnect TC2050 No Leg connector. Shops in Australia doesn't seem to stock these and shipping from the TC's website increases the total cost of 1 cable to $85, which is quite a bit much. 
 
I'm using pogo pins model P50-J1 from Aliexpress. The mounting holes of the actual TC2050 has a diameter of 0.991mm. It's very specific and I'm not sure where to get those from so for the time being, I'm getting 0.9mm carbide drill bits for now, which is very cheap in packs of 10 from eBay. If they don't fit into the footprint of a TC2050 snugly enough, maybe some taping would do. Two boards make up 1 adapter. They are stacked vertically to ensure the pins are straight. The two larger holes on the sides are for M3 10mm height standoffs. I shall post some details later if this works out fine.
 
PS: Just found out about these 0.99mm rods from eBay.

This is awesome! I love using Altium Designer, I used it in uni then bought a student license last year.
 
 
Hehe you're way off, the student license is actually 1.5% of the cost of an individual license.