Glow with *OUR* Show and MSP430G2553 discussion

[rjchu]

Ok, in the interest of putting a halt to budude's MSP430 thread (sorry budude) I've started this thread in which we can discuss the possibility of implementing a "Glow with the Show"-type of functionality for home/non-commercial use.

Thanks,

-joni-

[rjchu]

So mspdebug sounds interesting. If I'm understanding things correctly, it seems as though I could attach to the header pins on one of these hats and fire up mspdebug with "dis main" and iterate until I've captured all of the code in the address space starting at main. The other thing I was thinking was simply doing a dis 0 or dis 0x0 thinking that would start at the top of the addressable memory space and let me iterate through to the end.

Thoughts?

-joni-

[RobG]

Check out this thread.

FET-Pro430-Lite might be the best option for you (remove MSP chip from LP and connect Vcc, TEST, RST, and GND to J4 on your GwtS.)

FET-Pro430-Lite.jpg

[LabRat]

So is the goal to capture/interact with the Disney ears? Or is it to create your own "headsets", but using the MSP vs PIC offerings?
(trying to understand the context)

[timon]

IMHO the first would be making a transmitter that can communicate with the ears. Once that working the code is anywhere close should be widely distributed to it can never be pulled back. That way anyone can make their own even if Disney complains. Only then should someone try making ears.

[rjchu]

My goal, can't speak for others, is to capture and be able to interact with the Disney ears. I'm about 20-30 minutes from Disneyland and would like to be able to have folks come with their own ear hats that they've purchased at Disneyland and be able to glow with MY show! ;) I'm not too interested in building hats at this point though I have thought about it in the context of adding ears/lights to out stroller (think ground effects using some extra RGB Super Strips. But that's WAY secondary to being able to control hats sitting in front of my house.

Thanks,

-joni-

So is the goal to capture/interact with the Disney ears? Or is it to create your own "headsets", but using the MSP vs PIC offerings?
(trying to understand the context)

[timon]

My idea exactly. I'm trying to come up with a tool to capture the show. Nice thing is that you don't have to wait for World of color or Fantasmic to capture. Just got to Tea Party in CA.

[rjchu]

Tonight I took apart one of the hats and soldered wires to the header that appears to be used for programming. The good news is that the hat still works, when I connect these four wires from the hat to VCC, GND, TEST and RST I could do a reset from within FETPro430Lite and have the ears respond as if they'd just powered up again. The bad news is that FET reports in the Report window that JTAG communication initialization failed and, therefore I assume, Verification of the Security Fuse failed. I believe my solder points are good and that I'm hooking this up correctly to the MS430 LaunchPad but if there's anything I appear to be doing wrong, by all means, please point it out to me! ;)

Below is a picture of the leads I soldered onto the pads, I soldered power and ground to the 3v terminal and ground respectively instead of trying to crowd four wires into the small area that the pad has to offer.

Time for some sleep, I'll take another crack at this tomorrow if anyone has replied.

Thanks,

-joni-

[RobG]

Green is TEST and blue RST?
Is your LP listed in COM ports? Sounds like it's not, see the pic.
Also, remove batteries from your ears... well, GwtS ears. LP's Vcc is 3.6V, GwtS Vcc is 3V, so that could be a factor.

fet.jpg

[rjchu]

Yes, the LaunchPad is listed in COM ports and is configured correctly and I've also tried with and without batteries in the ears. I'm wondering if the surrounding circuitry in the ears is interfering with LP's ability to communicate with the microcontroller? When I plug the IC that came with the LP into the DIP socket, as an example, it's easily recognized, I can verify the security fuse, read code pages, etc. When I try plugging the four wires from the ears into the DIP socket pins, the software responds very differently.

Thanks,

-joni-

Green is TEST and blue RST?
Is your LP listed in COM ports? Sounds like it's not, see the pic.
Also, remove batteries from your ears... well, GwtS ears. LP's Vcc is 3.6V, GwtS Vcc is 3V, so that could be a factor.

fet.jpg