MSP 430 + CC2560

A LaunchPad or experimenters board is for getting familiar with a device, not for including it into mass production. Once you learned how to use the device, you should build your own PCB anyway. But having a known good hardware makes first steps much easier.

Also, the schematics of a reference design like a LaunchPad give you all information you need to build your own PCB, without needing to rework it often before it works.

The FET430UIF can be used to program each and every MSP in-circuit. It has a 14 pin header of which 10 pins are used. However, when sacrificing some features, you can do 4-wire JTAG with 6 pins and (if supported by the specific MSP) SBW access with only 4 pins.

The FET does not, however, have a socket to place an MSP in. You'll need a socket board if you want to pre-program the chips outside their target PCB.

Btw: if not using the MindTree BT stack, there is no need to buy the BT5190. You can use the cheaper (and 100% identically except for the MindTree license) MSP430F5438A instead.

Also, the tag you entered for your post is a very long, very specific one.  Separate tags are comma separated (spaces are part of the tag name). As it is now, it makes no sense and serves no purpose.
Also use only those tags that are specific for your problem ("MSP430" isn't). Less is more. :)

I see,

That makes sense.

Would you be able to advise us which LounchPad to get??

We want to be able to send signals from a Sensor like a CCD chip to our Andriod Device and want to use Bluetooth CC2560 with the MPS.

There's the EZ540-RF256x evaluation module.

It comes with two target boards, USB emulator (which can be used for programming own PCBs later - as long as the BT5190 or the 5438A is used) and battery pack. For $99.

But beware, the MSP isn't the proper device for high data rates. With a top CPU speed of 25MHz, it might be difficult to gather and transmit all the data from the CCD sensor in time. It depends on your application.

So I'm assuming there is a way to connect the CCD to the MSP correct? It also says that the MSP has a Analog to Digital Convertor of 12 bits.

Also is it possible to connect external memory to the MSP for examples if we wanted to save the data coming back from the CCD for a period of time before sending it over Bluetooth??

And one last question, could you forward me to where I can find examples of Bluetooth Code for sending data over to an Android Device if you know??

Thank you for greatly for you help. 

Pavel Astakhov1 said:

CCD to the MSP correct?

Please tell which kind of CCD you plan to use in what kind of application, what kind of performance figures you are looking for (picture and color resolution, frame rate and so on).

Hello, thank you responding,

What we want to do is simply just split light based on Wavelength using a Prism and have that light shine onto the CCD making basically a Spectrum.

We then just want to send that spectrum over Bluetooth to an Android Phone.

The kind of CCD that we were thinking of using is this:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/857206164/1_3_inch_CCD_Image_Sensor.html

with specs here:

http://html.alldatasheet.com/html-pdf/282234/A1PROS/AI329CA/216/1/AI329CA.html

For our application both the Frame Rate and the Readout Rate is something we can minimize (by getting a slower CCD) since that speed isn't an issue. 

We were wondering the actual hardware way of attaching them and if need something in between in the voltage output of the CCD to the input in the MSP Analog-D-Convertor. Also if there is a way to save that signal in an External Memory like an SD card that is attached to the MSP.

Would this launch pad be able to help us with sending the CCDs output signal over Bluetooth to an Android Device. :

https://estore.ti.com/EZ430-RF256X-EZ430-RF2560x-Bluetooth-Evaluation-Tool-P2732.aspx

Great Datasheet. Whopping 8 pages, half of them about how the specs have been measured, nothing about how you access the data. It looks like there is a AI3xx family users guide missing. :)

Well, I don't know much about CCD sensors. Form the few information in the datasheet, it looks like you can do a shapshot of the current image, or at least of a single row of it, and then you have all time you need to read it out (and you actually only need one row for your application). If this is true, then yes, you can do it with an MSP and yes, the BT eval kit can be used to develop a prototype that reads the sensor and sends the results using BT.

Pavel Astakhov1 said:

What we want to do is simply just split light based on Wavelength using a Prism and have that light shine onto the CCD making basically a Spectrum.

We then just want to send that spectrum over Bluetooth to an Android Phone.

The kind of CCD that we were thinking of using is this:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/857206164/1_3_inch_CCD_Image_Sensor.html

To capture spectrum you don't need 2d sensor, Linear color CCD will be fine.

Ilmars said:

you don't need 2d sensor, Linear color CCD will be fine.

Did you look at the price?

FOB Price: US $0.1 - 2 / Piece

Jens-Michael Gross said:

you don't need 2d sensor, Linear color CCD will be fine.

Did you look at the price?

[/quote]

Well.. If low cost is main requirement then of course you can't beat particular sensor. But what's good cheap sensor if you can't use it for intended application? Charge of video sensors does not last long, you have to read them __fast__

Ilmars said:

you have to read them __fast__

This sensor seems to have a row buffer, that digitizes a whole row into a digital shift register for readout. For this application, you only need a single row, so it might work.

But as I said, the "datasheet" doesn't tell much of what you need to know for programming the device. It rather looks like an advertizing, presenting features and specifying the conditions under which the performance was tested. It doesn't tell how to actually use it.

Jens-Michael Gross said:

you have to read them __fast__

This sensor seems to have a row buffer, that digitizes a whole row into a digital shift register

[/quote]

Application circuit tells that this sensor does not digitize anything but have CCD _analog_ output instead.

Hello all,

Thank you for comments. Regarding the output.

I know that a CCD dumps out an analog signal out of it output pin (basically a set of Voltages 2v,2.5,3,1,0,5,etc).

I know that a Micro-Controller like an Arduino Uno has a built in ADC (Analog Digital Convertor) 10bit that can convert such an output into a digital signal that can saved, processed, etc.

I'm still really raw on this topic but how can you relate a CCD output rate with the ADC rate?? Like is it all measured in bits for sec. or is in the CCDs case it is voltages for sec. or how??

Pavel Astakhov said:

I'm still really raw on this topic but how can you relate a CCD output rate with the ADC rate?? Like is it all measured in bits for sec. or is in the CCDs case it is voltages for sec. or how??

Found this for you using google search:

http://www.if.ufrgs.br/~marcia/How%20A%20CCD%20Detector%20Works.html

Ilmars said:

Application circuit tells that this sensor does not digitize anything but have CCD _analog_ output instead.

I was reading something like 'register transfer clock' and for me, a register is a digital thing. You might be right, the application circuit has a 'Vout' signal. But then, the following transistor seems to be a digital inverter rather than an analog driver. I wouldn't expect much more precision than 'on/off' from this voltage output. Again, the datasheet is far from telling something useful.

Pavel, many MSPs indeed have an internal ADC (10 bit ADC10 or 8 to 12 bit ADC12). And you can get up to 300k samples per second.
As I said, you only need a single row (not all rows) and it shoudl be possible. However, you need to synchronize sampling and CCD output. You may use the timer for both, triggering the conversion and clocking the CCD output. And maybe DMA to get the results into memory.
Should be doable, but isn't a trivial task.

Jens-Michael Gross said:

I was reading something like 'register transfer clock' and for me, a register is a digital thing. You might be right, the application circuit has a 'Vout' signal. But then, the following transistor seems to be a digital inverter rather than an analog driver. I wouldn't expect much more precision than 'on/off' from this voltage output. Again, the datasheet is far from telling something useful.

CCD needs clock for __analog__ multiplexer.

This transistor is part of **typical** analog output circuit of CCD. For example Check this 

Yes, it's clear now what the datasheet means. As I said, the term 'register' isn't connected to the analog world for me. A shift register shifts digital values, not charges (for these, the term I know is a "bucket brigade memory")

Nevertheless, the simple bipolar transistor on the output makes me shudder, regarding signal precision and linearity.