Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP430F5438, CC1101, CC2500, MSP430F2274, MSP430F5529, MSP430F6633, MSP430F5515, TUSB3410, MSP430F5438A
Hi all,
I am trying to figure out the best option in creating a USB dongle with RF capability. I plan on using one of the MSP430 5xx/6xx MCU's but I am having trouble finding the best development tool for a person that is new to the world of micro-controllers. Following are the main questions that I have:
1. Is the MSP430F5438 Experimenter Board (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430f5438) able to to program any of the 5xx/6xx devices (I assume they must be the 100-pin LQFP package)and utilize their USB capability? Also, is this the best option for a person that is just getting started with micro-controllers?
2. Or am I better off purchasing one of the Target Board and USB Programmer combinations like the MSP-TS430PZ100USB 100-Pin Socket Target Board and USB Programmer (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-fet430u100usb)?
3. Which brings me to my next question. If option 2 is the best, is it better to go with the 100-pin, 80-pin, 64-pin or the 48-pin? I am fairly certain that the only reason to go with more pins is to have more GPIO's. I have to wonder if there is more to it than this because I have noticed that the 64-pin target board with FET tool (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-fet430u64usb) costs $175.00 and the 100-pin, 80-pin (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-fet430u80usb) and the 48-pin (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-fet430u48b) target board with FET tool each cost $149.00. Are the 64-pin chips better in any way or are they just more popular for some other reason?
I am very lost in trying to figure out the best place to start. What I would like to be able to do is make a USB dongle that has a CC1101 transceiver on it so that it can connect to other wireless nodes that I program and communicate to the PC. I currently have a MSP-EXP430G2 (http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2) and I have purchased some EZ430-RF2500T target boards (http://www.ti.com/tool/ez430-rf2500t) and I programmed these using the MSP-EXP430G2. I have one that acts as an access point and the others act as wireless nodes. Currently the access point has to be plugged into the MSP-EXP430G2 to communicate to the PC using the UART module on the MSP430F2274 MCU. Note: I did have to remove the jumpers on J3 for RXD and TXD and then cross connect them to get the communication to work. As you can imagine this is not the ideal setup, thus I would like to create a USB dongle that can serve as my access point. I do realize that I am currently using the 2.4GHz frequency spectrum but as far as I can tell all I have to do is make new boards and instead of using the CC2500 transceiver I will just use a CC1101 transceiver, with maybe some additional components.
I have seen the CC1111 USB Evaluation Module Kit (http://www.ti.com/tool/cc1111emk868-915), I would rather not go this route as it uses a 8051 MCU and I am only familiar with the MSP430 line and I would very much like to build as much of it as possible. Also, seeing as I am a college student with limited funds and from what I can tell there are not really any good tools for the 8051 MCU that are cost effective. Also, I have only been using CCS and would very much prefer to keep only using it - thus the 8051 MCU is a bad option for me. That said I am not opposed to spending money, I just need / want to ensure every dollar I spend is spent in the most efficient way possible. This is the reason I used the MSP-EXP430G2 to program my EZ430-RF2500T target boards instead of buying the EZ430-RF2500 Development Tool (http://www.ti.com/tool/ez430-rf2500), which saved me $10!
I very much apologize for the wall of text, but I just want to ensure my question is being asked / understood properly. Thank you all in advance for your time and if you have any questions please let me know and I will try to answer them as best as I can.
