So, has anyone had any trouble with their USB which came with the LaunchPad? The last few day's I've been having trouble with my LaunchPad randomly disconnecting from my computer, and sometimes dropping just the virtual com port. I didn't realize it was the cable till I moved some things around and put a longer cable onto my LaunchPad and moved the LaunchPad's cable to my Logic Analyzer which then proceeded to not stay connected. So be careful; if you are having connection troubles, try another cable before you loose your mind. Is anyone else having this problem?
Ok, now onto my main question to you, the community members.
I have decided to start writing a proposal which would create a shield standard for the LaunchPad. I think this is needed. I am willing to put the time in to make a truly comprehensive and complete standard for shields. I am not saying that what I would write I expect to become law; I would want feedback from everyone and I would modify the document until you, the community, are completely satisfied with it. I might even start to design and/or sell some basic shields if this gets off the ground in addition to providing an Eagle template which would adhere to the standard.
If enough people respond here I will continue writing the proposal. When it's done I would not only make a blog post about it, but I would also post it in every LaunchPad related forum I can find in addition to making it available in different formats (such as .doc, .pdf, .txt). Also if there is general acceptance of the design, a final version will be made in multiple languages (and I don't mean just a Google Translator translation) so more people can start making "standard" shields.
I will NOT continue to write this standard though if there is not enough desire from you guys; writing a standard that it short, complete, comprehensive, and all encompassing takes a decent amount of time. So that being said, I have about 70+ visitors a day, 40 of which are returning visitors. I have decided that unless I have about 15-20 comments from people who would like me to propose a standard for LaunchPad shields, I will not continue writing up the proposal. If there is no desire for me to do this, no problem at all. :-)
So, in the next post we will be using an FTDI breakout board to communicate at higher data speeds. I am currently working on turning the SPI peripheral into a hardware/software UART which would allow for VERY fast communication with the PC or other devices. I will also show how I connect my LaunchPad to a breadboard.
Since there are so many people who still haven't gotten their LaunchPads, and I'm sure there is going to be a huge growth in the community in the next few weeks. I also think that if the community grows, there will be a second influx of new people just because we have created a good community. The more visitors, I will try to make new posts more often.
So, please comment on my shield idea. Even feel free to tell me why you don't think I should.
UPDATE!!! I just got the SPI interface to act as a UART at speeds of 1100000 baud...thats right 1,100,000 baud. I am super excited, this is a great step for me with my project. It turned out to be quite simple. Expect a future post discussing this.
