C2000 development hardware

Simon, The peripheral explorer kit is on hold. I believe there is a hardware change in the works. It should be back though as I know there are some very interesting labs based on this hardware.

I would suggest

http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/tmdsdock28335.html

instead. And as you noticed, you don't need an external emulator with any of these. You will only need one once you build your own board.  

CCSv4 (please update to 4.1.3 as soon as available in June - major improvement!) is free, with no limitations, when using the on-board emulation.

Yes - these devices just went to production in 2008. They are popular and will be around for a long time. We are still shipping the first C2000 devices from 1997.

Hi,

I had seen the experimenter kit but the peripheral explorer was more interesting because of how all peripheric were already routed on the board as accessible and testable out of the box. There are some available at Mouser but if you tell me something will be changed on the board I could wait. Do you have an ETA for the new peripheral kit?

For the jtag emulator, I know I don't need one while I develop, it's just that I want to be sure of the parts I need for the final board creation. So, would this one be ok for my needs? (xds100v2)

Last thing, CCS, you say there is a CCS4 for free with the peripheral kit or the experimenter kit if used with internal emulator. On their respective website, I read that it was CCS3.3 that was included. 

Experimenter Kit

Kit is complete with Code Composer Studio™ IDE v3.3 C28x™ Free 32K Byte Version.

Peripheral Kit

The kit includes a peripheral explorer EVM, an F28335 controlCARD, 32KB limited version of CCS V3.3 and full hardware and software documentation.

Can you confirm it's CSS4 or is it still CCS3.3

Thank you very much!

"There are some available at Mouser but if you tell me something will be changed on the board I could wait. Do you have an ETA for the new peripheral kit?"

- I'm going to ask Charlie to reply as I don't recall the details

"So, would this one be ok for my needs? (xds100v2)"

- Yes

"Can you confirm it's CSS4 or is it still CCS3.3"

- as of today all kits except the controlSTICK and the HVKit ship with the older CCSv3.3.  We've been waiting to transition older kits to CCSv4.x until we were happy with the stability and feature set.  We think we will be there with 4.1.3 that will be released in June (we are testing internally now).  CCSv3.3 is very good, and most customers are happy with it.  The transition to CCSv4 is a pretty big change for users of v3.3.  Partly because it is new and things are in a different place, partly because the first revisions had some bugs re: C2000 devices.  New users to CCS have given positive feedback.  So the conclusion is that CCSv3.3 will work fine for you (and is probably preferred at this point - all the resources for Delfino are supported with 3.3), but eventually you will need to move to 4 if you want to get any new updates or use new releases of anything.  Delfino devices will be supported in controlSUITE (which is CCSv4 only) in our end of June release.

Cool, looking forward to Charlie's answer !

- About CCS, I've worked with 3.3 in the past, it was cool. But, I also worked a lot with eclipse and since V4 is based on it I feel it will be a lot nicer than 3.3. Are the same features available in V4? Like, are we still able to plot some graphs in real time like in 3.3? 

- Since next week we're in june, do you know if CCS 4.1.3 will be release at the beginning of june or mid, or even later on?

- About ControlSuite, will it need special hardware to work with Delfino?

Thanks!

Hi Simon,

         We plan on releasing the new Peripheral Explorer in mid-June. The boards are very similar, however the new board has more LEDs and a few GPIO changes. Most of the software should be compatible. If you are very eager to do some F28335 training now, check out the workshop found here: http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/C2000_Delfino_Multi-Day_Workshop 

Also, you will not need any special hardware for controlSUITE to work with Delfino. It is just a software update.

Charlie

Excellent,

I'll wait till mid june before buying anything. Hope it won't be delayed that much :)

Thanks for the info about the workshop! 

Simon

 - About CCS, I've worked with 3.3 in the past, it was cool. But, I also worked a lot with eclipse and since V4 is based on it I feel it will be a lot nicer than 3.3. Are the same features available in V4? Like, are we still able to plot some graphs in real time like in 3.3? 

*Yes, all of the features are there (and all will be functioning in 4.1.3)

- Since next week we're in june, do you know if CCS 4.1.3 will be release at the beginning of june or mid, or even later on?

*Looking like the mid-end.

- About ControlSuite, will it need special hardware to work with Delfino?

*controlSUITE is just a content management system that will support Delfino, Piccolo, and all new devices and kits going forward.  All SW projects are CCSv4 based.

Any news on the release date of the new C2000 peripheral kit and CCS 4.1.3??

Thanks :) 

Hi Simon,

       We will be releasing the Peripheral Explorer in early July. 

Charlie

"For the jtag emulator, I know I don't need one while I develop, it's just that I want to be sure of the parts I need for the final board creation."

Is this true or not?  I ordered one of the peripheral explorer kits from Mouser.  I seem to be having a lot of trouble connecting to it using CCS 3.3.  I checked the quick start guide that came with it, and it says:

"All the hardware needed to get started (except the emulator) is included in this package (suggested emulators are listed near the end of this document)." 

This leads me to believe that I will be required to buy an external emulator to be able to connect through CCS 3.3.  Is this correct?  I also checked for any supporting documentation and software available online and am coming up empty.  The product info page for TMDSPREX28335 says the following:

Features

• F28335 Peripheral Explorer board with onboard XDS100

Is this correct?  This doesn't really jive with what I was just reading in the quick start guide.

Also listed in the quick start guide are reference files including, QSG-PeripheralExplorer-GUI.pdf, which does not seem to exist anywhere online or on the CD that came with the kit (which contained CCS 3.3).  Any ideas where I can find this PDF?  There is supposed to be a Test Drive GUI specifically for the peripheral explorer kit, and just like the pdf, it is nowhere to be found.  Am I missing a disc?  Am I missing something I should have downloaded online?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

Bret,

Well, this is kind of a mess. Let me explain.

You purchased REV-1 of this kit.

We just released REV-2, which DOES have on-board XDS100 emulation and CCSv4 (as the product folder here states) 

REV1 software install apparently was pulled from the web (I don't think it should have been), but I zipped up a version and put it here

http://drop.io/OLDperipheralexp

you'll want to extract to C:\TI_F28xxx_SysSW , which you should already have installed, right? If not, install that from here.

Neither REV1 nor REV2 are showing on our tools page (this needs to be corrected also) here.

Peripheral Explorer Rev 2 (with XDS100 and CCSv4) will be supported through http://www.ti.com/controlsuite with the new update going out early next week.

Sorry about the confusion, that's a pretty poor user experience.  If you would like to trade this in for REV2 let me know.

I also should mention that the Peripheral Explorer Kit is our main tool for educational platforms and is supported by a  FREE Teaching ROM, i.e. coursework and labs.  It's also REALLY useful for new users in general.  It takes a more simplified approach to learning the MCU and SW tools.

http://www.ti.com/ww/eu/university/roms.html

We are using this as our "SW download / examples" for this kit.

Thanks for your prompt responses and helpful links, Chris.  The software zip file you linked me to was a great help.  I was able to get connected to the MCU and played around with some of the functionality of the GUI.   I still really wish the XDS100 was included so I would be able to connect through CCS.  I would definitely be interested in trading in for REV2.  I'm thinking the JTAG connection may eliminate some of the problems I am still having given below.

I am still having some intermittent issues with connection, which I think are related to the USB dongle I am using to connect to the RS-232 on the peripheral explorer board.  Every once in awhile when running the GUI and connected, the system will crash and give me a blue screen.  Restarting usually takes care of this, but it's only a matter of time before it happens again.

The other issue I am having is connecting to the F280xx controlCARD through the peripheral explorer card and the GUI.  I am able to set up the connection and detect the COM port (SCI boot jumper moved to 84 in the case of the F280xx), but when I push the "connect" button on the GUI the GUI says "connection Failed" (can't remember the entire message) right after going through the "loading program" sequence.  The F280xx is compatible with the peripheral explorer card, isn't it?  I'm not really sure why it would not work when the F2833x works fine.

One more thing I would like to ask is if the REV2 version of the peripheral explorer kit will have USB direct to the board rather than having to rely on a serial port connection.

Chris,

Along with the help of tech support and the resources you provided, I've made some progress with the peripheral explorer kit.  I am able to utilize all functions with the GUI.  However, now I am needing to start using the TMS320F28044 controlCARD to explore HRPWM functionality.  Tech support helped me determine that CCS and the JTAG emulator will be needed for this.  I will either need to get an external JTAG emulator or upgrade to peripheral explorer Rev 2 to accomplish this.  When will Rev 2 be available?  Will it be possible to trade Rev 1 in for Rev 2?

Thanks for your help.

Bret,

A couple of comments here: 

1) The F28335 controlCARD that is included with the Peripheral Explorer kit has an F28335 device on it which does have high resolution PWMs. In fact the Peripheral Explorer software shows how to use them. Can you clarify why you want to use the F28044?

2) The legacy software for the Peripheral Explorer runs under CCS V3.3, which is included with the kit or can be downloaded here http://software-dl.ti.com/dsps/dsps_registered_sw/sdo_ccstudio/CCSv3/Free/C2000_Code_Composer_Studio_v3.3.83.19_limited.zip 

3) In terms of a JTAG emulator I would use the XDS100 emulator from TI at www.ti.com/c2000tools 

4) Aside from the emulator and a few LEDs, the Rev 1 and Rev 2 boards are very similar. I would recommend sticking with Rev1 and getting an emulator.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or need more help.

Charlie

Bret,

A couple of comments here: 

1) The F28335 controlCARD that is included with the Peripheral Explorer kit has an F28335 device on it which does have high resolution PWMs. In fact the Peripheral Explorer software shows how to use them. Can you clarify why you want to use the F28044?

2) The legacy software for the Peripheral Explorer runs under CCS V3.3, which is included with the kit or can be downloaded here http://software-dl.ti.com/dsps/dsps_registered_sw/sdo_ccstudio/CCSv3/Free/C2000_Code_Composer_Studio_v3.3.83.19_limited.zip 

3) In terms of a JTAG emulator I would use the XDS100 emulator from TI at www.ti.com/c2000tools 

4) Aside from the emulator and a few LEDs, the Rev 1 and Rev 2 boards are very similar. I would recommend sticking with Rev1 and getting an emulator.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or need more help.

Charlie