4 ms·

My experience with the launchpad has been mixed. The chips are definitely aimed at the low power, low requirements side of things; I had a project where the MSP

by phunge 13y ago

My experience with the launchpad has been mixed. The chips are definitely aimed at the low power, low requirements side of things; I had a project where the MSP430g2231's inability to clock from an external high-frequency crystal was a dealbreaker. There's also a wider breadth of hobbyist software targeting the AVR. If you're a hobbyist, it's definitely not worth saving a few bucks if you're only making a few of them and you account for the value of your time. YMMV.

IgorPartola 13y ago
I was under the impression that the newer chips are able to clock from an external crystal. My 2553 certainly came with one, though I have had no need to use it yet.
- Kliment 13y ago
  That's the crystal for the slow clock, which runs at about 32kHz. You still can't clock the main clock off it.
codehero 13y ago
The g2231 etc certainly are not specced to work from high frequency crystals or oscillators, but in actual use it works: http://forum.43oh.com/topic/594-use-a-12mhz-external-square-wave-as-mclk/ http://forum.43oh.com/topic/594-use-a-12mhz-external-square-...
sliverstorm 13y ago
The launchpad works with any MSP430 that fits in the socket, including smaller chips.
retSava 13y ago
While it can't use an external xtal, it still has an internal crystal oscillator which can clock it at some MHz, up 16 MHz I think. It's not as accurate but cheaper and more flexible. I did a port of the Contiki OS to the Launchpad, which now comes with the msp430g2452 (16kB flash/256 B RAM) and the 'g2553 (16/512). At home I have them using cc2500-radios (2$ modules from aliexpress) and a radio duty cycling protocol I wrote, with plenty of flash space left for user applications. You can find the port at https://github.com/msloth/contiki-launchpad https://github.com/msloth/contiki-launchpad and a write-up at http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/contiki-for-ti-msp430-launchpad/ http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/contiki-for-ti-msp4... and http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/simple-yet-efficient-wireless-with-contiki/ http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/simple-yet-efficien... with lots of measurements and other crowd pleasers.

by phunge 13y ago

IgorPartola 13y ago

I was under the impression that the newer chips are able to clock from an external crystal. My 2553 certainly came with one, though I have had no need to use it yet.

Kliment 13y ago
That's the crystal for the slow clock, which runs at about 32kHz. You still can't clock the main clock off it.

codehero 13y ago

The g2231 etc certainly are not specced to work from high frequency crystals or oscillators, but in actual use it works: http://forum.43oh.com/topic/594-use-a-12mhz-external-square-wave-as-mclk/ http://forum.43oh.com/topic/594-use-a-12mhz-external-square-...

sliverstorm 13y ago

The launchpad works with any MSP430 that fits in the socket, including smaller chips.

retSava 13y ago

While it can't use an external xtal, it still has an internal crystal oscillator which can clock it at some MHz, up 16 MHz I think. It's not as accurate but cheaper and more flexible. I did a port of the Contiki OS to the Launchpad, which now comes with the msp430g2452 (16kB flash/256 B RAM) and the 'g2553 (16/512). At home I have them using cc2500-radios (2$ modules from aliexpress) and a radio duty cycling protocol I wrote, with plenty of flash space left for user applications. You can find the port at https://github.com/msloth/contiki-launchpad https://github.com/msloth/contiki-launchpad and a write-up at http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/contiki-for-ti-msp430-launchpad/ http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/contiki-for-ti-msp4... and http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/simple-yet-efficient-wireless-with-contiki/ http://www.bithappens.se/blog/2013/05/26/simple-yet-efficien... with lots of measurements and other crowd pleasers.