MSP430 microcontrollers

MSP430 Launchpad

I got a fairly early Launchpad kit. I had been looking at MSP430 before. I've also picked up a few smt 430 chips and a few of the newer Value Line DIPs. I did a bit of trainee work involving the Chronos watch kit.

Hardware

Added the 32k crystal to my launchpad.

I plan to make a (more or less) minimal target board for some suitable chip (G2450 maybe for a start) and a 3V battery to run it off. This could be used as a minimal building block or node and adapted.

Toolchain

The new msp430 gcc port, of course. Sometime in 2012 it was taken over by RH or something and buried. After years there is the occasional upstream announcement, but nobody seems to be taking care of integration. TI has a page for their MSP430 GCC fork. Meanwhile the excellent old effort from Peter Bigot is probably still available.

Mspdebug is pretty much the universal programmer and debugger interface for msp430.

Another approach could be Mecrisp Forth.

Firmware development

Ran some tests.

Projects

Servo motor test
Stepper motor test

Ideas

Automated hallway light