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EZ430-F2013: What role does it fulfil?

Matt Jenkins
Prodigy 100 points

Part Number: EZ430-F2013

I am trying to work out what the actual point of the eZ430-F2013 dongle is.

I can understand the whole USB debugger + detachable target board thing, but this design seems pretty pointless to me (and yes, I do own one, but have never found a use for it).

The fact that the whole thing is encased in a plastic case that you can't open easily (needs a spudger to lever it open) means that you can't use it as a programmer for a board you want to detach and use elsewhere - you may as well just throw the case away.

There's not much point in the detachable board since you only have one. I estimate the cost of the detachable board is probably about 0.1% of the entire device. 

If the case only covered the debugger with a socket protruding out of it to plug target boards into I could understand it. And if you were provided with (or could buy) multiple target boards for it I could understand it. If the target board connector were of a standard 0.1" pitch so you could use standard "dupont" style jumper cables to program other boards I could understand it.

As it is it seems like it's a case of "Oh, we have these spare cases. Let's make a development board to fit it".

So has anyone actually used these things for a real project?

  • 0
    Guru 316240 points
    TI says that "the eZ430-F2013 is a complete MSP430 development tool including all the hardware and software to evaluate the MSP430F2013 and develop a complete project in a convenient USB stick form factor." Which implies that the G2 LaunchPad with a DIP-14 F2013 is not as convenient a form factor.

    The plastic case is useful if you don't want to detach the target board.

    A 0.1" header would not have fit. And if you want to use the 0.05" header in your own board, the manual tells you the part numbers.

    There is another target board you can buy, the EZ430-T2012. And the EZ430-RF2500 is a compatible USB debugger.

    If nobody bought it, TI would not bother to continue to support it.
  • 0 in reply to Clemens Ladisch
    Prodigy 100 points

    Yeah but my point is you can't do anything useful with it while it's in the case (you can't get to the pads to connect wires). The best you can do is blink an LED or maybe get the temperature inside the case from the on-die diode junction. And there's no room in the case to add more hardware. 

    The case is obviously designed for some other device (I am sure I saw the same case on some specific dongle, but I forget where) since there are openings that have nothing to do with what's inside. So it's obviously using up old stock of dongle cases with a different label printed on it. Maybe if there were openings in more convenient places, such as at the target board end of the case, so you could get some wires out of it I could see a vague purpose, but as it is, no.

    So the only real way of using it for anything even remotely useful is to remove it from the case, in which case the whole concept of it is null-and-void. 

    I guess 90% of TI's sales of it are based around "it's cheap" and "that looks groovy, at that price I'll grab one" - and then like mine it lies untouched at the bottom of a box of junk for months/years once you realise you can't really do anything with it of interest. 

    Oh, and a 0.1" header would fit fine. You only want 4 of the 6 pins there anyway, and they only had to keep the header so small so as to fit into the re-purposed case.

  • 0 in reply to Matt Jenkins
    Guru 74080 points

    Matt, I do agree with you - you cannot do something really useful when it is inside the case. I learned my first steps of microcontroller programming with this tool. I soldered some wires to the pins and fed them through the small slot on the side and on the other end there was a connector soldered to the wires. I never had to open the stick again. You can argue about the question if this tool makes sense or not, but I don't understand why you are so mad. If you don't like it you can use an even cheaper MSP-EXP430G2 LaunchPad that gives you access to all pins. I liked the eZ430-F2013, but as I said, I can also understand if (and why) you do not.

  • 0 in reply to Dennis Eichmann
    Prodigy 100 points
    I never said I didn't like it, and I'm not mad at it, I am just curious as to what drove TI to create it - what they thought it may possibly be used for. And whether anyone has actually used it for anything other than dismantling and using as a separate programmer/board pair (in which case why not just use an MSP430 in a DIP package).

    I do have a number of other MSP430 boards around, and they seem to fall into two categories:

    1. Boards that are trying to muscle in on Arduino's market share, but failing since they decided to use their own footprint (I guess to drive the sales of their own expansion boards), which seems a bit daft really since it's counter-productive, and
    2. Showcases for TI's own technologies.

    I am guessing that the eZ430 fits into the second category, but only just - after all, what is it really showcasing?

    I know the core reason for the creation of any development board like this is to lure new customers in to using TI's products - what is known as a "loss leader": something that costs more to produce and distribute than it's being sold for - and they have some great technologies that people should be tempted to use, and that's all well and good.

    I am just rather puzzled by some of the choices they have made, and the eZ430 is a prime example. It's like they have seen this market (the "maker" space) and decided they need to get in on it (which everyone should), but then the marketing department got involved in it and ballsed it all up - more interested in their own RoI and locking people in to their own specific set of products rather than actually becoming an active part of the community.
  • 0 in reply to Matt Jenkins
    Guru 46710 points

    More than ten years old development tool toy does not look useful today? Well... could be so, why not :)

    Back then it was good enough for purpose - as low-cost demonstrator of new msp430f2xxx series and development tools. Also TI used it as a giveaway gift in msp430 advertisement presentations.

    Note that daughter board have holes for 14 pin header - you can solder socket or just through-hole components here

  • 0 in reply to Ilmars
    Prodigy 100 points
    That's it! It was created by the marketing morons as a gimmick, and they had too many left over from whatever expo they were for, so they re-branded them as a "convenient" development board/stick to try and regain some of their losses.
  • 0 in reply to Matt Jenkins
    Guru 46710 points
    Investment into marketing campaign shall not be considered as loss, especially if it is succesful in the end.

    Anyway makers community shall pay enough respect to EZ430-F2013 - because it was first low cost FET debugger /w USB interface. Before that only low cost option was PC having centronics LPT port with #$%^&^% bit-banging programmer. Proper programmer/debugger had >= 50$ price tag. You got EZ430-F2013, desolder connector from target board, make your "converter cable" for 2.54mm pitch connector, buy DIP chips, plug them into breadboard and play as you wish.

    msp430f2013 is nice chip itself - low-cost, programmable 16-bit SD ADC :)
  • 0 in reply to Ilmars
    Guru 74080 points

    Ilmars said:
    16-bit SD ADC

    Loved the part for it's 16 bit differential ADC - but the flash size was so tiny. Was always hoping there would come another entry level MSP430 with a little bit more flash, let's say 8k...but there isn't one ;\

  • 0 in reply to Dennis Eichmann
    Prodigy 100 points
    I agree the MSP430s are great chips, especially the FRAM based ones - fantastic concept those. Unfortunately I don't use MSP430 - not because I don't like them or whatever, just purely because I don't know them well enough and am not geared up in my work to use them. I'd like to use them more, but the cost of switching from what I already know (the cost mainly in time, learning a new architecture, etc) would be too great right now. And the decisions that TI have made regarding their board designs don't really help me to move over either - I can't migrate any existing things over without a lot of work, and I can't afford to do it.
  • 0 in reply to Matt Jenkins
    Guru 74080 points

    Yeah, understandable - I could not imagine to quickly move over to a competitor's MCU as well.

  • 0 in reply to Matt Jenkins
    Guru 99045 points
    Back in the day (10 years ago) I got a lot of mileage out of the eZ430, since it was:
    1) Very small
    2) Cheap
    3) Already built.

    Yeah, I broke off the cover when it got in the way. Everything still worked fine.

    At one time I built a prototype using a number (8? it's been a while) of T2012 boards as "smart switches" in a ring controlled by a sort of broadcast-SPI. They easily fit into the box (the cabling was bigger than the board) and I was able to build it in a few days rather than the months it would have taken to design/build a custom board.

    Over the next few years, I designed a number of F2-based thingies, and always used the eZ430 for programming since the connector was so small (albeit fragile) and the programmer was so cheap I could keep a few of them. (The eZ430 knew about all of the extant F2s, even though TI said it didn't.)

    Now of course the Launchpads have absorbed much of that market (though the T2012/3 are still much smaller than any Launchpad), and I don't work with F2s much, but I suppose that if TI still makes the eZ430 that suggests that someone still values (1)-(3) above.

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