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AFE4300: circuit board development

Bob Bellagh
Prodigy 80 points
Part Number: AFE4300
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP430F449, MSP-FET

I'm embarking on a development effort involving the AFE4300.  I've procured and tested the AFE4300EVM board and I'm satisfied with its performance and am ready to begin development on a circuit board based on this chip.  Initially my goal is for my circuit board to behave like the EVM board insofar as how it measures impedance and uses the weight scale.  

My development plan is as follows: 

  1. Download Code Composer studio and available firmware from TI for MSP430 on AFE4300 EVM board.
    1. Get it to compile as-is
    2. Modify code, compile, reprogram AFE4300 EVM’s microcontroller with new code (is that microcontroller reprogrammable?)
  2. Develop schematic for AFE4300 based circuit board– based on EVM schematic minus unnecessary components. (I'm currently evaluating PCBWeb Designer software: is there a free schematic capture/pcb layout package that is better for TI products/recommended by TI?  Are there other schematic capture resources/libraries available to import to PCBWeb thru TI?)
  3. Develop PCB from schematic: get a prototype.
  4. Develop new code for MSP430 (starting with available firmware from TI for MSP430 on EVM board, modified as needed).
  5. Develop simple GUI based on writing/reading AFE4300 registers (With Excel? or use existing GUI for EVM board to communicate with proto board?)
  6. Test/troubleshoot prototype board.

I have a few questions embedded in that list in parentheses: can you address those questions?  Please comment on any aspect of this development plan; whether anything I've outlined looks problematic, or whether you have some other suggestions.   I've been navigating around your extensive web site to see what sort of tools/training are available to me that would be helpful to my effort; maybe you can help direct me to applicable training or resources.  

  • 0
    TI__Genius 12575 points
    Hi Bob,

    Thank you for the detailed plan.
    Here are few answers.
    1)Microcontroller in the EVM is programmable.
    2)TI doesn't have any recommendations for tools for the schematic capture.
    3) We don't have library for PCBWeb.

    Please let us know if you face any issue during the development.

    Regards,
    Prabin
  • 0 in reply to Prabin Yadav
    Prodigy 80 points
    Thanks for your reply. I've been familiarizing myself with CCS, and have downloaded the firmware for the AFE4300 EVM board: slac681.zip. When I installed this on my PC, I got a main directory of 'AFE4300EVMPDKFWSRC-1.0' under which is a subdirectory 'AFE4300-F449'. From within the cloud version of CCS I was able to 'upload local files' and I uploaded the 'AFE4300-F449' directory, so I could then navigate and read thru the code. For some reason even though I uploaded the directory only once, two copies of that directory were uploaded into CCS and when I try to delete one of them, both get deleted. Anyway, my question is: with this process I went thru, do I now have all the files that I need from the firmware zip file that I downloaded and subsequently uploaded into CCS, to 'build' an executable file and download to the AFE4300EVM?
  • 0 in reply to Bob Bellagh
    TI__Genius 12575 points
    Hi Bob,

    Yes, you have the required files to build and execute the firmware files locally .

    Regards,
    Prabin
  • 0 in reply to Prabin Yadav
    Prodigy 80 points
    Prabin,

    In CCS I started a 'new' CCS project and selected the MSP430F449 device, since this is the one on the AFE4300EVM board. This automatically set up my project directory with a targetConfigs directory with the ccxml file for that processor, the lnk_msp430f449.cmd file, and a bare bones main.c file. I deleted the main.c file and copied the files from the main directory of the AFE4300EVM firmware (9 files: AFE4300EVM.dep, .ewd, .ewp, .eww, AFE4300EVMCustomSfr.sfr, MSP430F449_AFE4300Controller.c, common.h, lcd.c, lcd.h) into my new CCS project file. I did not copy the 'settings' directory or the 'debug' directory from the EVM firmware into my new project. When I did a 'build', CCS created a 'Debug' directory with a .hex and an .out file. Up to this point, I believe everything is working successfully.
    However when I tried to debug, I ran into a problem. First, I was prompted to install a few things from TI on to my computer which I did. I had my AFE4300EVM board connected to my computer via its USB cable (The AFE4300 device GUI works fine so I know it’s connected and communicating). The debugger then gave me the following error:
    Unable to connect to MSP430F449.
    Please unplug and re-plug the USB connection and try again.
    TI MSP430 USB1/MSP430
    Error initializing emulator: No USB FET was found
    That led me to figure out that I need a MSP430 USB Debugging interface (is that correct?) I looked into it thru your web site and it looks like I need MSP-FET430UID is that correct? When I looked to order it I could only find a product with the part number MSP-FET where do I specify the UID?
    Any other comments you might have on my process are welcome.

    Regards,

    Bob
  • 0 in reply to Bob Bellagh
    TI__Genius 12575 points
    Hi Bob,

    Do you see the USB FET programmer in the device manger of your PC?

    Regards,
    Prabin