Hello I have been playing with a low power sub giga kit with a cc430F6137, with the sample code all works well, the problem start when I made my own hardware board, I have made a design with a cc430F5135 and when I upload de sample code the micro controller don't wake up from the idle mode, I was searching difference solutions about, and at the end I met the answer, the problem was that the exposed die was not soldered and this make that the radio couldn't be enabled.
I played with the crystal and the capacitors and at the end I have to say that the relation between them it's extremely important to make the radio works correctly.
Now I'm extremely confused because the radio starts correctly and apparently send some bytes by rf but never lets the idle mode!!!
I don't know what more to do, or what compare, or...
can anybody give me help please, I'm extremely lost!!!
thanks in advance
Up Up Anybody can lend me a hand??
thanks
Did you get the exposed die soldered properly? That die is the ground for the chip, and an intermittent connection (not soldered properly) WILL cause problems.
The crystal and loading capacitors are extremely important. Incorrect capacitors will shift your frequency, which can prevent devices from communicating.
How do you know the radio sent some bytes of data? How do you know what mode it ends up in?
I don't remember the differences between the cc430F6137 and F5135 offhand (other than the LCD driver) - but you may want to make sure there's nothing that would cause problems like bad pinout shorting an IO pin, register differences in software, etc.
Let us know what else you've managed to find out with your hardware -
Chad C.
First of all thanks in advance for your answer.
"Did you get the exposed die soldered properly? That die is the ground for the chip, and an intermittent connection (not soldered properly) WILL cause problems. "
Yes in the first test, the micro controller was soldered by hand so the exposed die was not soldered and it cause the problems, but in the second test it was soldered by hand with hot air, so I think that this was solved, however how can I test if the exposed die its full of contact or is it in an incorrect way?
"The crystal and loading capacitors are extremely important. Incorrect capacitors will shift your frequency, which can prevent devices from communicating."
Yes I have been testing with this because I have used a different crystal that is used in the evaluation kit, I have noted the importance of this because I have make a sweep in the value of these capacitor from 2pF to 20pF and I have noted that between 6pF and 12pF it works fine but out of these the radio can't start, in the code the micro controller was waiting for be ready and never start.
"How do you know the radio sent some bytes of data? How do you know what mode it ends up in? "
I Know that the radio send something because it start the code that sends something, only this, How can I test it?? I know that its in send mode when I try to send something only this I don't know more... It starts the code to send but the other micro controller don't receive anything (there is an echo code uploaded in both).
"I don't remember the differences between the cc430F6137 and F5135 offhand (other than the LCD driver) - but you may want to make sure there's nothing that would cause problems like bad pinout shorting an IO pin, register differences in software, etc."
Yes in fact the most significative difference between them are the lcd controller and the pin out but this has been tested. the registers are the same so the code is very similar.
The radio kills me slowly and painfully...
Ivan leiva
OK, a few more thoughts -
Have you tried using RF Studio to control your board and send data, then set up a demo board to receive data and see if there's anything being transmitted? At least that would rule out software problems.
Did you use solderpaste when soldering the chip with hot air? Depending on your layout, you could check the ground connection by testing continuity between pin 42 and ground (assuming you connected pin 42 to the exposed pad, and not to ground with its own separate trace).
Also make sure Vcore is not tied to Vcc (I made this mistake once - everything actually works pretty well except for some obscure problems).
Is anything shorted on the antenna, and did you follow an example design? You could put an analyzer on the end of the antenna and see if it's transmitting, outputting proper power and frequency.
Let us know if you have any more luck -
Hello Chad and thanks again for the help!!
"Have you tried using RF Studio to control your board and send data, then set up a demo board to receive data and see if there's anything being transmitted? At least that would rule out software problems."
No it's a good idea, in the next days I will try to do this. Now I'm using a custom board with an example firmware for the transmuter node and a evaluation board in the receiver node.
"Also make sure Vcore is not tied to Vcc (I made this mistake once - everything actually works pretty well except for some obscure problems)."
Yes Vcore is connected by a resistor if I remember correctly.
"Is anything shorted on the antenna, and did you follow an example design? You could put an analyzer on the end of the antenna and see if it's transmitting, outputting proper power and frequency. "
yes the next day I will try to meter with the analyzer, If i find anybody who could let it to me!!! at the first say the antenna circuit seem to be correctly without any short circuit or something like this.
Now I'm working with the PC interface and another PCB project with more or less the same behavior but using the little brother of this micro the msp430F2013, and a RFID eeprom! so I have to part the time between the two projects!! but don't mind if I find the solution I will post it for the community!!
Leiva