MMWAVEICBOOST: mmwaveicboost: communication via UART with launchpad not possible?

Further info: there is no power on any of the pins of the launchpad boosterpack headery, the LEDs for 5v and 3v3 are on.

Hi Hopfi,

Please see section 2.7.1 in the 60GHz mmWave Sensor EVMs User's Guide.  This should answer your questions about connecting the MMWAVEICBOOST to a LaunchPad.

Regards,

Brennan

Hi Brennan,

everything is configured as described in this chapter, however I do not need the whole Launchpad connection but just the UART RX and TX of J5 / J6 . I have just verified everything and still get no signal at all on any of the pins on J5 / J6. Could I have missed some jumper / a specific DIP setting which is need to power the J5 & J6 headers?

Thanks and best regards

Hello,

Please ensure your S1 swtiches are set correctly.  To utilize the 40-pin launchPad connectors, the switches must be set as follows:

Always power cycle your device when changing switch settings.

See Page 11 in the User's Guide for reference.

Regards,

Brennan

Hi,

the S1 switches are set as described in your last post, yet there is no power at all on any of the ports. I just verified this with another ICBoost Board, same result. 

Best regards

Hi Hopfi, 

Please change S1.5 to ON, and keep the remainder of the switches set as the table shows above.  Power cycle and then you should receive power at the ports.

Regards,

Brennan

Hi Brennan,

I have just tried your approach (with a CC26XR2 and also just measuring the ports with an oscilloscope), yet no power seems to be transmitted to those ports. Have you set/changed any other jumpers while trying this out? Currently I a running the following jumper config:

SOP0 bridged
SOP1 open
SOP2 open

J27 2-3 bridged (5V)
J28 2-3 bridged (5V)
J13 fully open
P7 open (5V)
P3 bridged (5V)
J14 1-2 bridged (FTDI/60 pin(J10))
J15 2-3 bridged (XDS110)

S1: as described in your last post + S1.5 ON

Thanks a lot and best regards

Hi, 

Your switch and jumper settings seem correct.  Can you confirm for me that you have a common ground between the LaunchPad and the ICBOOST?  I only ask as when two controllers are 'talking' to each other serially in terms of signals, both micro-controllers should have a common reference point to 'understand' or 'agree upon' what the voltage level of the signal coming from the other micro-controller is.  I.e. If one sends 3.3V, the other one needs to read it as 3.3V itself.

Also, if possible, could you post an image of your setup and connections to this thread?

Regards,

Brennan

Hi Brennan,

this is weird. Currently I am not even testing the serial communication yet, I am just measuring the 3V3 and 5V pins (J5, J7, J8) against the corresponding GND pins (J5, J7, J8) on the ICBOOST board (completely without any launchpad) and am still getting 0V on all combinations. The setup thus is just the ICBoostBoard, 5V jack plugged in and multimeter / oscilloscope connected to those different pin combinations. An IWR6843ISK module is also mounted, I have tried to measure the pins with and without the IWR mounted on the ICBoost but without luck. There is also, of course, no LED on when connecting a launchpad to the ICBoost since there is no power. So the problem is that generally all pins on the headers J5-8 are not working, not just the serial ports.

Best regards

Hi Brennan,

thanks a lot for your patience and help - I finally got it working with the following config (in case someone needs it in the future):

SOP0 bridged
SOP1 open
SOP2 open

J27 2-3 bridged (5V)
J28 2-3 bridged (5V)
J13 fully open
P7 open (5V)
P3 bridged (5V)
J14 1-2 bridged (FTDI/60 pin(J10))
J15 2-3 bridged (XDS110)

S1.12 ON
S1.11 OFF
S1.10 OFF
S1.9 ON
S1.8 ON
S1.7 OFF
S1.6 OFF
S1.5 OFF
S1.4 ON
S1.3 OFF
S1.2 ON
S1.1 OFF

Thanks and best regards!

Concering the pin layout: there is a difference in the Quickstart User Guide and the EVM User Guide concering the boosterpack pin layout. According to the EVM Guide, J6 6 and 7 are for UART RX and RX (Figure 2-17. TI Standard LaunchPad) and according to the Quickstart Guide it should be J5 5 and 7. Further Figure 2-17. TI Standard LaunchPad and Table 2-4. J6 Connector Pinout dont correspond (J5 and J6 are switched up either in the table or the figure?)

Hopfi, 

Thanks for calling that out, I'll see that this is looked into.  I'm glad you were able to get your setup working!

The quickstart guide is correct, and the schematics at: https://www.ti.com/lit/zip/swrr164 confirm this.  

Closing this thread, if you have any additional questions please open a new thread.

Regards,

Brennan