How to physically program a device

Simon,

There are a number of ways to do this.  If you just want to flash the program without debugging afterwards then loadti or Uniflash are better suited.

If you are looking to debug in CCS after loading then this is what I would do.

In CCS to to View -> Target Configurations.

Click on the button to create a new target configuration.  Select your MSP430 device and the MSP430 USB FET as the connection.  Save.  This tells CCS what your hardware setup looks like.

In the target configuration view the file you just created will be listed under "User Defined".  Right click on it and select to launch it.  This will launch the debugger.  you can then click on the connect button to connect and then the load button to specify the program to load.  

You can make that target configuration file the default if you are always debugging the same device.

If you are doing this a lot you can set it up so that ti will connect and load automatically.  After you have done the above once if you click on the down arrow beside the bug button select Debug Configurations.  In the list on the left should be an item that matches the name of the target configuration file you created above.  Select it.

Now you can set the program for it to load automatically:

You also want it to setup to automatically connect to the target otherwise the load will fail:

Now you can click on the down arrow beside the bug button and you should see the target config file name in the list and be able to just select it and it will launch the debugger, connect to the target and then load your program.

CCS is a development environment.  If you just want to load and run without and feedback in a debugger I would suggest Uniflash or the loadti script that comes with Debug Server Scripting.

Regards,

John

what i need to do (and explain to my boos to do while he is away commissioning the system) is open the project up, change program values and then compile and load the program into the target MCU (a version of MSP430)

You should be able to do all of that with CCS. What's not working?

J

So basically debug = program, if I hit F11 it will compile and load. (I need to make this simple for the un initiated and i'm not a TI user myself).

Simon Turner1 said:

So basically debug = program, if I hit F11 it will compile and load.

Basically, yes.

It actually does a little more. The full list of actions it does is:

-Prompt to save source files
-Build the project (incrementally)
-Start the debugger (CCS will switch to the CCS Debug perspective)
-Connect CCS to the target
-Load/Flash the program on the target
-Run to 'main'

Note that the above default actions are configurable (i.e. if you want to disable the 'run to main' action after program load, you can do so).

ok well it's the simplest thing to do i suppose, tell my boss to open the project and hit F11 after the program loads he needs to stop the debugging session and possibly terminate the connection.

If the debug session is stopped will the MCU run it's program normally without the "conection2 being terminated ?

if you shut down the debug session while the target is halted, the target will not resume execution. You will need to resume execution before terminating the debug session.

And yes, the debug connection to the target is terminated when your shut down the debug session

So after the programmer is physically unplugged I tell my boss to turn the unit off and back on so that it resets into normal running ?

Yes that sounds about right