That's some Great Work!:) Soldering those Tiny Chips! See more Below... I have an MSP430 and I wrote an Article about it on my Blog, called... Beginners Guide to The TI MSP-EXP430FR5739 Experimenter Board. The article has a bunch of links with info that I found on the TI MSP-EXP430FR5739 Experimenter Board and MSP430's in General. I got my TI MSP-EXP430FR5739, for free from Element14 at, http://www.element14.com. They give away Dev Boards and Test Equipment, etc, in return for Writing Articles on them. You, have to Apply on the site, to get to do a "RoadTest". And then wait to see if you are chosen, among the other Applicants, to win the Prize and write the Article. Pretty cool deal, I think!:) I was lucky on the MSP-EXP430FR5739. TI, Decided to give one to everyone who Applied, that time!:) I've only applied a couple of other times since. For other Boards and Test Equipment. Since, most of the stuff on there, is really above my knowledge and experience. I didn't win any of those Road Tests. I really wanted that Oscilloscope too! And I do know how to use one. Mostly for Video Editing work, but I do know some basics and want to learn how to use them with Electronics. That's why I joined Element14, anyway, to learn... The people in the Element14 Community, are willing to help others too. I want to use my MSP-EXP430FR5739 in a Project that will be useful to me, when done. Not just to make some blinking lights or something like that. So, I've been following the Projects that come out, using MSP430's. I read on the TI site, that most of the Code for MSP430's will work on all of them. I would like to do something with WiFi or Power Harvesting. But, that may be Way Over my Head!:O The Temp Sensor and Balance Sensing aspects of the Board are really interesting to me too. I did run the Tests that came with mine and it was very easy to follow the instructions and see the MSP-EXP430FR5739 in Action. I'm not really into Gaming. Although I can see how the MSP430 would be good for small Gaming Devices. I do like Car Racing and Flight Simulators. But, the Retro Games, that make the funny noises... Really don't appeal to me. Other than the Skill that People show in Recreating them. That is very cool to me!:) I found an Online MSP430 Editor and Compiler that is run by an Open Source Project at, http://www.inventortown.com. It is pretty Cool to me too. And they have some Code and a Demo Board Setup so that you can Program it Online, Shared there too. Along with some Resources and info on MSP430's. Below, I will put some info on the Low Power Operation of the MSP430430. This guy runs some tests that I think it would be interesting to those who really understand them...

Don

TI MSP-EXP430FR5739

Features

Integrated MSP430FR5739 :
- 16KB FRAM / 1KB SRAM
- 16-Bit RISC Architecture up to 8-MHz
- 2x Timer_A Blocks, 3x Timer_B Block
- 1x USCI (UART/SPI/IrDA/I2C ) Blocks, 16Ch 10-Bit ADC12_B, 16Ch Comp_D, 32 I/Os
3 axis accelerometer
NTC Thermister
8 Display LED's
Footprint for additional through-hole LDR sensor
2 User input Switches
Connections
- Connection to MSP-EXP430F5438
- Connection to most Wireless Daughter Cards (CCxxxx RF)
User Experience
- Preloaded with out-of-box demo code
- 4 Modes to test FRAM features:
  - Mode 1 - Max write speed
  - Mode 2 - Flash write speed emulation
  - Mode 3 - Fast sampling with writes using accelerometer
  - Mode 4 - Fast sampling with writes using Thermistor
  - Mode 1 & Mode 2 include ULP option to turn off display & optimize for power management

http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430fr5739

Bear24rw: MSP430 Launchpad GamingPack

Saturday, July 28, 2012

MSP430 Launchpad GamingPack

TEAM MEMBERS

Max Thrun
Brittany Finch
Kathleen Foster

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Based on the Gameduino, the GamingPack transforms your MSP430 LaunchPad into a full fledged gaming console complete with audio / video output and two Nintendo controller sockets. Just hookup your computer monitor, plug in a controller and you'll be writing games in no time.

PROJECT FEATURES

- 400x300 Pixel VGA output
- 256 16x16 Pixel simultaneous sprite images
- Up to 256 colors per sprite
- 2 Nintendo (NES) controllers
- Nostalgia

Video

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDE0ZfmsVrw

Design

The schematic capture and PCB layout were done in CadSoft EAGLE. The PCBs were fabricated by Silver Circuits

The GamePack is designed around a Xilinx Spartan 3A 200K Gate FPGA. It implements the same sprite rendering core as the Gameduino and communicates to the LaunchPad via SPI. The FPGA bitstream configuration is stored on an external EEPROM which was programed using a FTDI FT2232D development board and Flashrom in Linux. The FPGA 1.2V internal core voltage is provided by a TI TLV70212 low drop out regulator.

A resistor DAC provides the various voltage levels for the VGA interface and audio is achieved by passing 2 channels of digital audio through a 4KHz low pass filter. An optional SPI EEPROM can be installed to store large game data such as images and level maps. Two status LEDs indicate power and SPI data transfer to the FPGA.

2 Nintendo (NES) controller sockets are included to provide a classic gaming experience. They are ideal for this project as the interface is simple and they can be easily purchased online or simply found in a box in your closet.

Read More and see More Pics...
http://bear24rw.blogspot.com/2012/07/msp430-launchpad-gamingpack.html

IT LaunchPad. Watches and consumption.

July 30th, 2012 3 Comments

A couple of years or so Texas Instruments brought out the LaunchPad , a very low cost plate to start with 16-bit microcontrollers designed for low power applications, and we made a blog post on this board.

At that time with the kit gave us a couple of somewhat limited microcontrollers, these have been replaced by more attractive, we can still use the free development environment (limited program size to 16 kB) of the plate without its restriction affects us. If we seek a family of microcontrollers and development tools for low power circuits, such as all sensor networks (IOT and the like) of both spoken lately, the LaunchPad is probably the best option Get interested, for less than 5 euros have everything you need to start with this microcontroller.

Microcontrollers that come with the latest kit LaunchPad are MSP430G2553 and MSP430G2452 , 20-pin microcontroller, 16kB of Flash and 512 B of RAM the eldest, ADC, USCI, 16 bit timers, etc. .. that improve we gave earlier in the kit.

I link you need to get started with the board:

Environment and development tools for Windows and Linux.
User Guide MSP430x2xx: slau144i .
Starter and materials and examples of the guide .
Inicación page .
Schemes for Eagle plate (it is clear who they want to go ..).

The plate we can buy directly from IT , or in major electronics distributors like Farnell , if you buy these you have to ask if they have stock corresponds to the latest version (1.5 I think it is) because it may be a previous earlier smaller microcontrollers. I remember I bought one at Farnell and Mouser few months ago and was the older version of the kit, so that in the end what I have done is to buy directly MSP430G2553 (about 2-2.5 euros). Another option is to watch this page , where IT usually offer them at half price and free shipping. To order a distributor must be exploited to order them with other things, as they have minimum order and shipping charges, unless we're going to ask lots of launchpads ..

My idea with this microcontroller is to start developing low-power circuits powered by batteries for various applications such as sensor networks, or so much is heard now: " internet of things ". So for the price of the kit is the first family to think about, also are recommended microcontrollers for such applications.

Looking at the page of the microcontroller and its characteristics we sell it as "ultra-low-power microcontroller" look these features:

Ultra-Low Power Consumption
- Active Mode: 230 uA at 1 MHz, 2.2 V
- Standby Mode: 0.5 uA
- Off Mode (RAM Retention): 0.1 uA
Five Power-Saving Modes
Ultra-Fast Wake-Up From Standby Mode in Less Than 1 ms

Internal Frequencies up to 16 MHz With Four Calibrated Frequency
Internal Very-Low-Power Low-Frequency (LF) Oscillator
32-kHz Crystal
External Digital Clock Source

Microcontroller consumption depends on the supply voltage, temperature, of the code, of active modules, frequency and clock signals we use, etc. ..

And with the clock of this module microcontroller I entertained this warm Saturday night (nothing better to do = P), following the examples in the Getting Started guide that has been very easy to start. I leave here the tests.

The microcontroller clock signal is a square signal that triggers and synchronizes the hardware of the various modules of the microcontroller, the microcontroller needs this signal to execute the program. Within the microcontroller there are several clock signals for the CPU and various peripherals, and various clock sources that create those signals. The consumption of the microcontroller depends on clocks and clock sources you use.

Looking at the Getting Started guide found the following outline of the microcontroller system clock:

Read More on the Google Translate Page in English...
(There are several Videos there, but you will have to click the links in the Error Windows to see them)
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwebdelcire.com%2Fwordpress%2Farchives%2F2068

Or go to the Original Article (in Spanish I think) here...
http://webdelcire.com/wordpress/archives/2068