Newbie here needing some advice to get things started

Any pointers, guys?

Hi Upol,

Is it matters in what way you will be sending packets between two devices over the air?

The reason I'm asking this question is to understand what package of FW (projects)

might be of a help to you (to your understanding of how things work), unless you want

to implement the communication part from a scratch by yourself (in this case I really can't

help you much).

There are several solutions distributed by TI, for example:

1. SimpliciTI
2. TIMAC
3. Z-Stack

I suggest you to read descriptions of each package to get the first impression, it is

also a good start to understand what kind of solution you want for your project.

Along with every package comes a lot of documentation (hardware, protocols,

user guides, API, etc..)

Once you got the main idea of every package you can proceed with more specific

questions...

You can also refer to cc2530 user guide for the available peripherals in this SoC

(but am assuming you've already did that).

Br,

Igor

Hi Igor,

thanks for getting back to me. For this purpose, it really does not matter which protocol I use.

I have a Dev Kit CC2530 SDK. However, as I understand, this one is for SimpliciTI. the next question that I have for you is:

what is the essential difference between Zigbee and SimpliciTI in layman's terms? Is there a way I can use my CC2530SDK and work with Zigbee? Since there is a lot of material already out there written on Zigbee (I found this nice book), I was leaning towards that. But if my dev kit won't allow it, then I will stick with SimpliciTI.

Apologies in advance if I am getting this entirely wrong.

Also, while coding the MSP430, I found a library of code examples from TI, which proved to really useful. I tried to look for similar ones for the TI CC2530 but to no avail. Is there a way you can point me towards that? I would need something that implements PWM with the CC2350 and try to decipher it for my purpose.

Thanks!

Upol

Hi Upol,

As for the differences between Z-Stack an simpliciTI:

1. SimpliciTI - TI's proprietary solution (If I'm not mistaken) Several devices,
   simple network implementation, low rate, low power.
2. Z-stack - ZigBee compliant protocol stack, up to several hundreds (maybe
   even couple of thousands) of devices, requires more than 128Kbytes of flash
   memory ( to run on host device), low rate, low power, sometimes can be very
   complex to understand and implement functionalities.

Regarding cc2530SDK, may be you've meant cc2530ZDK? In case of cc2530ZDK, all the

devices in this kit comes with 256Kbytes of internal flash, thus you should have no any

issues to run one of the above mentioned solutions.

PWM issue, as a quick response, try DN115 (this is for another devices, however those devices,

such as cc2430, are somewhat similar to cc2530).

Br,

Igor

Looks like Igor has things pretty well under control with regards to the communications stacks.  As for programming the 8051, there are plenty of web resources available for programming them.  I would suggest taking a good look at the programming model of the processor as there are some rather unique features of the processor such as bit addressable memory, etc.  The section in the users guide of the CC2530 describes some as well as the documentation available under the IAR IDE help menu.  I would suggest digesting some of that to start with.  Depending on how deep you want to get and how constrained your application is will dictate how well you need to understand the processor architecture.

If you have any direct questions regarding SimpliciTI or the 8051 processor I'll be happy to respond.  I'm not a Zigbee expert so I'll defer those questions to better qualified individuals.

Jim Noxon

HI Igor,

Thanks a lot for the info. Just a quick question, how did you find the DN115 file? I have been searching the TI's website for something like this for a while but could not get it. Am I using the wrong keywords? Also, one other problem that I have been encountering is the examples of code on cc2530. Whenever I google anything with "cc2530 code examples PWM", I rarely get anything useful. Is there a website/book you can refer to that utilizes a hands on approach for anyone who wants to teach themselves/has little or no guidance on this?

Thanks a lot for the file again. Really appreciate it.

UE

Hi Upol,

Regarding  Design Notes, open this link (surprised?), now scroll to the bottom of the page,

there you'll see 3 red lines:

• Design notes
• Application notes
• FAQs

Click on "design notes", and here you go, a list all design notes related to low power RF

devices... and more (the same is for application notes).

Actually to make it even more comfy, you can download the DN000, which listing all the other

design notes.

About examples... The thing is, and it's a tricky part here, you are actually have to know what

you are looking for before you have found it (I know, sounds terrible) and that is the reason

why it is so hard to find (googling) code examples for TI's Chipcon SoCs, that is a bad thing.

On the other hand, this community helps you to find what you are looking for (and as you stated

in your first post in this very thread, the MSP forums did great).

So here is what i'm suggesting to you, for from-a-scratch code examples you can always look at

the design notes (great source of information). For more complex examples you can download

packages like SimpliciTI, TIMAC, Z-Stack, sensorDemo, USB library, etc... well, I call these things

"packages".

It took me quite long time to get used to TI's website and improve my ways to get all the

information I need directly from here. Actually one of the reasons I joined to this community

is to mail subscribe for "interesting" threads and posts here. Later I was searching through my

E-mail for that piece of information I needed. So I'm afraid, no books here, well, at least not on

CCxxxx devices, nor TI's "packages". There are several great books on ZigBee though.

Br,

Igor

If you are using the CC2530, instead of searching for CC and PWM, search for 8051 and PWM.  The 8051 controller is a very old part with plenty of user community experience out there.  Frankly, there are better public forums than this for generalized 8051 programming.  However, if you have specific questions about the part itself then here is where you want to be.

Jim Noxon