CCS/MSP430F5438A: Run MSP430 User Experience Demo Code on MSP-EXP430F5438 Experimenter Board

Hi Alex,

In the user's guide for this experimenter's board, there is a checklist for this particular issue: www.ti.com/.../slau263 see FAQ #8 on p. 22. Have you tried these suggestions?

Can you also try pausing the debugger after you run the program (there is a "pause" icon in CCS) - if you do this, or if you single-step through the code, you should be able to tell what part of the code was executing - was it trapped somewhere or does it appear to be waiting in the main menu for you to select something? (This is to try to determine if there is simply an issue with the LCD hardware).

Regards,
Katie

Hi Katie,

Thank you for your quick reply. The demo code seemed running. If I set a breakpoint on the beginning of ISR, it stopped when I pressed S2 button. But I could not see the main menu, maybe the LCD back light was too strong or contrast was too weak. There is no way to adjust them to appropriate level unless I can see the menu and navigate to the sub menu of Settings.

Alex

Hi Alex,

That sounds like either there is something off about the contrast like you mentioned, or the LCD hardware has a problem.

The main menu text is like this:

static const char menuText[] = {
    "MSP-EXP430F5438\0"
    " 1. Clock     \0"
    " 2. UniBall   \0"
    " 3. USB-UART  \0"
    " 4. Audio Apps\0"
    " 5. Power Test\0"
    " 6. ADC Temp  \0"
    " 7. Settings  \0"
};

Looking at the code, I think you may be able to put a breakpoint in the function UserExperience() and then view the menuPos variable to figure out what position on the menu you are at. You can see that the switch(menuPos) decides what mode you are in that it needs to call. From there, if you can enter the settings menu, you can have a second breakpoint under case MENU_SETTING: to see that you got there, and check the settingMenuPos and repeat the process to get into SET_CONTRAST. Once you are in Set Contrast I think you simply use up and down to adjust the contrast.

Give this a shot. If this doesn't work, however, you may simply have a bad LCD connection somewhere - check that the ribbon cable going to the LCD is well-seated in its receptacle on the board as well.

Regards,

Katie

Hi Alex,

Did this help? Are you still having the issue?

Regards,
Katie