Free Launchpad boards from TI (Offer ended) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 05:44:40 am
content: Sorry for the repost of someone elses topic, but I didn't want anyone to miss it. You can pick up a couple of TI microcontroller launchpad boards for free with the $25 credit. The offer is good till Sept 30, see below.If you're into Arudino, the MSP430 and Stellaris launchpads can be programmed with Energia which is a port of the Arduino IDE to TI boards.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/texas-instruments-25$-coupon-code!/

author: Crazy Ape
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 07:18:24 am
content: Missed it the first time around.Thanks.Now, if only I had more room to put all these boxes from TI.

author: elcomtel
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 08:43:01 am
content: Quote from: Stonent on September 18, 2013, 05:44:40 amMan ... You Rock !!!I just scored myself a $24.00 MSP430 USB Stick Development Tool for free.See:http://www.ti.com/tool/ez430-f2013I can recommend anyone else to give it a go. Free for the taking.

author: TheDirty
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 01:19:35 pm
content: It works with quite a few things. I used it for the new LDC1000 EVM.

author: crispytato
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 04:54:24 pm
content: Thank you sir! just landed myself a new MSP430 launchpad (the dip one was the only one in stock sadly) and also a Tiva C TM4C123G based one. I'm very keen to give the MSP430 a go as I've been considering getting a launchpad for a while now. Energia looks like it's a pretty sweet deal for someone who learned to code on Arduino SDK. And best of all, it cost a resounding $0.00. I really do love TI as far as big companies go.It's seldom that I get to participate in these freebies because I live in NZ. TI are just too sweet, they happily send me sample products and now this deal, all for free, even the shipping is coveredI've really gotta hand it to them. This level of professionalism and generosity is unmatched, and it's made me consider TI parts over other manu's when there are multiple alternatives for what I need. A lot of businesses really could take a leaf out of their book, making a good impression on the people who are studying to be tomorrow's engineers has to be a good investment in building goodwill/brand loyalty.Just curious anyone else who ordered something: did they ship your orders via express mail or just regular post?peacechris

author: Crazy Ape
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 05:13:47 pm
content: Quote from: crispytato on September 18, 2013, 04:54:24 pmThey tend to use FedEx, or at least that's my experience in Australia.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 05:59:43 pm
content: Their hardware is top notch, so is their commitment to their products.I wish they could bring the stellaris / tiva ware to the 21st century, however. Drop that rom-based firmware (a gimmick in my view) and provide a more consistent interface with the hardware.A dream team would consist of the TI hardware team + management and ST software team.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 08:47:23 pm
content: Quote from: Crazy Ape on September 18, 2013, 05:13:47 pmThey used FedEx to my apartment even though I'm only 45 minutes away from the origin. The FedEx guy even gave me a jump-start on my car since the battery was dead and I was trying to go get it replaced.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2013, 09:07:44 pm
content: Couple of years ago TI was selling their TTL Logic Data Book for 10 cents (you know, the one with over a thousand pages) with "free shipping", so I bought a copy. They sent it FedEx.

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 02:50:41 am
content: The code doesn`t work anymore

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 04:05:19 am
content: Yeah that was mentioned in the original thread. It looks like maybe too many people used that code in a short period of time.

author: Crazy Ape
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 04:17:17 am
content: Quote from: Stonent on September 19, 2013, 04:05:19 amA quick search of the net shows that sites all around the world had it posted. It's seems that once hack-a-day posted it, everyone else reposted it.Hack a day:http://hackaday.com/2013/09/18/25-coupon-code-for-texas-instruments-store/elektronika.ba:http://www.elektronika.ba/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14611&p=138783

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 04:40:52 am
content: Quote from: Crazy Ape on September 19, 2013, 04:17:17 amHey ... that screen shot looks so familiar.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 11:17:38 am
content: QuoteI looked up Energia:QuoteI would say "no". If that Wiring framework has any resemblence with the Arduino wiring, it will be slow and bloated.For the LM3S chips, I use CoIDE and for the newer TI Stellaris chips, I use Tivaware within CCS.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 02:48:02 pm
content: CCS has limitations unless you pay for it.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 03:12:28 pm
content: Quote from: Stonent on September 19, 2013, 02:48:02 pmNope, as long you use the TI genuine LaunchPads either older Stellaris or newer Tiva C as target platform, all features at CCS + TI Arm "full featured" compiler are unlocked and no limitation what so ever, and totally free.Did you actually ever test or use the CCS with your various variants of TI launchpads ? I thought you have many of them ? ->as you mentioned hereEdit : The secret sauce actually resides at the ICDI mcu.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 03:43:58 pm
content: Those TI chips are nothing short of spectacular in terms of resources offered. The software is definitely a downer.As to the license, looking into some older linux versions of CCS.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 03:59:59 pm
content: I remember when installing it it said there was a limitation on the program size. So I just used energia instead.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 05:17:42 pm
content: No need to find for the linux version if you want windows version, its unlocked as I said when using TI launchpad, just make sure you follow the installation EGGGxactly each steps as the user guide says, dont skip or ignore any error. Done many ccs installations without any probelm at all, heck, that were even in virtual machines, how about that sounds ?Here, read it yourself, straight from TI CCS wiki page ->http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/CCS_for_LaunchPadQuoting from that site :Quoteor this, from TI official support forum, just read the 3rd reply by TI's official support staff, this should be crystal clear ->http://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/tiva_arm/f/908/t/270496.aspx

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 06:24:07 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 19, 2013, 03:43:58 pmDowner ? How ?Assuming we're still talking "ONLY" using TI Arm cortex launchpads, take a look here ->http://www.ti.com/tool/sw-ek-tm4c123gxl, and look at the price column.IAR Embedded WorkbenchKeil RVMDKMentor Sourcery CodeBenchCCSAll for free when used with TivaWare for C Series launchpad, although I don't know whether they're crippled or not for the 1st three in the list above since I don't use them.I use CCS only from the beginning when I started with TI's arm cortex mcus.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2013, 07:22:45 pm
content: QuoteThat's almost too easy.1) Take a look at TimerConfig(). The mistake there is fairly easy to spot, even for a junior programmer;2) If that doesn't work for you, try to configure Timer A for a time base; do something / anything; and then try to configure Timer B for a time base; Now what happened to your Timer A? That is just a boneheaded mistake, and very elementary too.3) Or try the ROM vs. FLASH version of TimerConfig().When you are done with that, take a look at TimerEnable() as well.Enjoy.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 02:19:47 am
content: Ok, I thought you were talking about the tool chain.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 03:54:27 am
content: Tool chain? That's not difficult either:1) try to use Saleae logic analyzer on the same hub with the launchpad;2) try to include device specific header files with those hw_xxx header files; No? why cannot you?3) why cannot they provide a generic header file that links to device specific header files automatically?4) why do you have to specify the class / part definitions for your target? wouldn't it be easier if the ide can trace that out by itself?5) download is fairly slow and without an led indicator;6) CMSIS?to name a few.Again, terrific hardware. Just a little bit investment on the software would have made it that much easier to use.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 04:05:31 am
content: LOL .. chill out, I'm not even in the same league to argue with you.

author: Harvs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 05:56:57 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 19, 2013, 03:43:58 pmOk. Well I haven't used anything in this market segment which one couldn't pull the software to shreds (I've used STM32, AVR32 and PIC32 so far.)So what would you suggest has got well written and well documented library support then in this 32bit uC market?I'm not having a go either, I would genuinely like to know if there's a competitor that you don't have to go through the endless process of chasing anomalies and quirks in the vendor libraries with piss poor documentation.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 11:29:28 am
content: On balance, I would think the ST library is good. Well documented, and good naming convention and easy to use as well. They don't have as many examples to get people started, however. ST's hardware also has a lot of resources but aren't as rich as TI's - rather than having identical well-featured peripherals, they have multiple timers each with slightly different twist.NXP, like TI, also has good hardware and a long history. Their chips, however, are not as feature rich as TI's.The luminary library was actually good for its time but it is becoming a baggage for TI now, in my view.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 11:39:23 am
content: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/free-st-discovery-board/

author: Harvs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 11:47:49 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 20, 2013, 11:29:28 amI guess we can agree to disagree on that one. Yes, they're a lot better than say the AVR32 software framework (or at least use to be.) But there's still too many things missing that aren't documented. E.g. grab any one of their example projects, build it with hard abi, declare a float and you'll be straight into the hard fault handler. They could have at least put a commented code section in there to enable the FPU.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 12:56:21 pm
content: Well, if you tell the code to use a hardware peripheral and you don't enable that peripheral, bad things are bound to happen.It is probably not reasonable to expect the people who wrote the library to be responsible for that.

author: Harvs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2013, 11:50:32 pm
content: No that's not the point. The solution to the problem is to open the provided startup file and put the following code segment at the start of the systeminit function.Code:/* FPU settings ------------------------------------------------------------*/#if (__FPU_PRESENT == 1) && (__FPU_USED == 1)SCB->CPACR |= ((3UL << 10*2)|(3UL << 11*2)); /* set CP10 and CP11 Full Access */#endifThen you can just forget about it. That would have saved multiple dozens of posts on the ST forum of people trying to track down a seemingly unrelated hard fault.Anyway, there's many other examples. Not the least of which is their libraries to "allow easy portability across the device range," so they thought it would be a good idea to randomly change some of the naming conventions between the M0 and M4 libraries, awesome idea.End story is it seems none have taken the library issue that seriously. It's a shame, since all they'd have to do is have the developers monitor their own forum and make changes through the revisions to reduce the common problems people are having, like the FPU.

author: elcomtel
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2013, 03:33:33 pm
content: Quote from: elcomtel on September 18, 2013, 08:43:01 amFive days later a FedEx shipment arrives from Texas Instruments.Very fine outcome indeed.

author: Crazy Ape
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2013, 03:47:07 pm
content: Indeed, my boards arrived today also (Melbourne / Aus).