Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Appearance Change

I finally got around to changing the template for the blog since I was not happy with how the old version looked. Now everything should be a bit easier on the eyes and hyperlinks show up much better now.

Please let me know if there is anything I forgot to change or something else that I did not notice. Hope you like it!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The DEV.BO is Born!

I would like to introduce you all to the DEV.BO prototype. This board is built around the MSP430F5510, it not only includes the typical on-board items, but also an FTDI chip.

The Dev.BO
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I was using the MSP430F5528 in a personal project of mine (which I will be posting when I have more time). TI just released a new set of chips in the MSP430F55xx series, one of which caught my eye, the MSP430F5510. This chip has all of the features I needed the 5528 for, but is half the price! Granted the 5510 does has less memory and a less precise ADC (and is lacking a few other things) but this was not important to my project.

Note: The MSP430F5510 on the DEV.BO is the 48 pin version which has a bit less peripherals than the larger sized MSP4305510 package.

I needed to get a board made for my project and decided to just go ahead and make a small target board which I might start selling if all goes well. Keep in mind this just a prototype and I need to test at least one more version before I can start selling them.

Some DEV.BO’s Features
  • Based on the MSP430F5510
    • Max clock speed of 25MHz
    • Integrated 32kHz crystal
    • 25K of flash memory
    • 1 USCI_A (UART/LIN/IrDA/SPI)
    • 1 USCI_B (I2C/SPI)
    • 2 16-bit (3CCR), 1 16-bit (5CCR), 1 16-bit (7CCR)
    • 10-bit SAR ADC
    • Much more!
  • Connectors for both SBW and JTAG
  • USB interface (FTDI323RL)
  • 1 programmable push button
  • 1 programmable LED
  • Much more!
DEV.BO size comparison
As you can see in the picture above, it is quite small. For me, it replaces the MSP430F5528 target board on the right and the FTDI breakout board from SparkFun on the upper left.

I am still here and working hard, sorry that my last posts have been quite sporadic. I love how the DEV.BO came out and am excited to get it more finalized in the upcoming weeks. It makes programming the 5510 a breeze because of how simple it is to connect to the LaunchPad. I was very frustrated with my MSP430F5528 target board and how many wires I needed to get things up and running. Mouser just got the MSP430F5510 (in the correct package) in stock, so I can start pushing things along.

The reason I wanted to post this now was because my next two posts will be about one of my latest mini projects - a heart beat detection algorithm implemented on an MSP430F55xx. Once I finish those posts I will delve into the details of I2C because it can be a very confusing topic for beginners (and even advanced developers!).