Newbie need help... MSP430G2553 Stopwatch with datalogging

[JapiMostert 0]

Hi Leo

 

Thanks a million for your input..   Everything seems to brighten up a little bit every day.

 

I am really excited about this project and believe it is do-able. I will follow all the advice everyone has given to me thus far. Thank you for making the data logging a bit more clear to me.

 

I first want to establish the basic concept and once the whole thing is working, I can always add onto this concept.

 

Regards

[roadrunner84 466]

BUT.... The data logging is a very unclear matter. In a way I understand what you are explaining with this. I am not bound to Ethernet. Spoke to Lecturer and asked if I can maybe first establish it with serial (UART) usb? or Rs232? I don't know if this is easier? He said it is fine.

 

I get what you saying about storing the information on flash, RAM etc but please clarify my understanding about this process... because I think I got this process wrong? Do I first need to finish a lap like 00:12:45 for example, store this in flash or RAM for example, and then send this over serial (usb) to PC. How will the PC receive this information, do I need to write my own software and can I log each process on the PC.

 

 

For logging you'll need a memory, either SD, flash or RAM (internal or external). The big drawback of SD cards is that you'll most probably want to conform to the FAT storage format, which introduces a lot of overhead. Using a dedicated flash or RAM chip will save you that trouble. Be aware that memory is always finite, so how much will you actually store (100 laps, 1000 laps, a million?)

Is Ethernet a must have? Or is a serial (or serial over USB) connection permitted as well? If Ethernet is required, you may look into the boosterpack, but prepare for a lot of low level Ethernet thingies.

You could (albeit not as educative or fun) also use a Raspberry Pi (they do ship in SO-DIMM format these days) and have Ethernet and time keeping done all for you.

I highlighted your preferred option. If you're free to log data to the PC instead of offline onto the device itself, you'll most surely want to "store" intermediate logging to internal RAM. This is a puffy way of saying you want to store your information in variables. You woudn't need to think of storage in any other way than any other program would for just "remembering" information for the running time of the program.

If you're free to use serial (over USB) then it is definitely the preferred option (imho). This would enable you to (after setup code) write the data in a self designed format to the serial port register (or use serial.write when using the Energia framework).