PlatformIO is a very interesting project that aims to solve a very important problem of configuring deployment environment for embedded systems. IMHO good approach is to focus on modularity (various IDE can be used, even Vim) and simplicity (in best case 2 commands should be enough to deploy first code).
Recent years we have an explosion of bootstraping applications (ie.vagrant, puppet). Most of them seem to follow git-like command line interface and getting a lot of attention from programmers community. PlatformIO is a promising project for all Embedded Software developers who in the era of IoT came from Linux systems.
It takes some time to try PlatformIO using real hardware. Luckily on my desk there are 2 supported boards gathering dust, which I would like to try in this post.
MSP-EXP430F5529LP on the left and MSP-EXP430FR5969 on the right.
Installation on Debian
I highly recommend using virtualenv for any custom python application.
At the beginning I simply follow Getting Started page.
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pip install -U pip setuptools pip install -U platformio |
What configuration should I use for my boards ?
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[13:38:34] pietrushnic:msp430 $ platformio boards|grep 5969 lpmsp430fr5969 msp430fr5969 8Mhz 64Kb 1Kb TI LaunchPad w/ msp430fr5969 [13:38:41] pietrushnic:msp430 $ platformio boards|grep 5529 lpmsp430f5529 msp430f5529 16Mhz 128Kb 1Kb TI LaunchPad w/ msp430f5529 (16MHz) lpmsp430f5529_25 msp430f5529 25Mhz 128Kb 1Kb TI LaunchPad w/ msp430f5529 (25MHz) |
So it looks like 5529 have 2 flavours. According to Energia 16MHz option is
for backward compatibility. Let’s use recent 25MHz config.
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mkdir msp430 cd msp430 platformio init --board=lpmsp430fr5969 --board=lpmsp430f5529_25 |
PlatformIO first asks if we want auto-uploading successfully built project, so I
answered y. Then inform about creating some directories and
platformio.ini file. After confirming toolchain, downloading starts.
Problems with MSP430F5529LP
Lack of main.cpp
If you run PlatformIO without any source code in src directory you will get error message like this:
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.pioenvs/lpmsp430f5529_25/libFrameworkEnergia.a(main.o): In function `main': /home/pietrushnic/projects/3mdeb/msp430/.pioenvs/lpmsp430f5529_25/FrameworkEnergia/main.cpp:7: undefined reference to `setup' /home/pietrushnic/projects/3mdeb/msp430/.pioenvs/lpmsp430f5529_25/FrameworkEnergia/main.cpp:10: undefined reference to `loop' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status scons: *** [.pioenvs/lpmsp430f5529_25/firmware.elf] Error 1 |
Of course adding main.cpp to src directory fix this issue. As sample code you may use MSP430F55xx_1.c
libmsp430.so: cannot open shared object file
Next problem is with libmsp430.so which is not visible by mspdebug, but was
installed by PlatformIO in
$HOME/.platformio/packages/toolchain-timsp430/bin/libmsp430.so.
Running:
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export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/.platformio/packages/toolchain-timsp430/bin/ |
before calling platformio fix problem. For some users even better would be to
make libmsp430.so accessible system wide:
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sudo cp $HOME/.platformio/packages/toolchain-timsp430/bin/libmsp430.so /usr/lib |
tilib: device initialization failed
If you didn’t use your MSP430 for a while there can be problem like this:
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$HOME/.platformio/packages/tool-mspdebug/mspdebug tilib --force-reset "prog .pioenvs/lpmsp430f5529_25/firmware.hex" MSPDebug version 0.20 - debugging tool for MSP430 MCUs Copyright (C) 2009-2012 Daniel Beer <dlbeer@gmail.com> This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. MSP430_GetNumberOfUsbIfs MSP430_GetNameOfUsbIf Found FET: ttyACM0 MSP430_Initialize: ttyACM0 FET firmware update is required. Re-run with --allow-fw-update to perform a firmware update. tilib: device initialization failed scons: *** [upload] Error 255 |
Fix for that according to error log should be like this:
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$HOME/.platformio/packages/tool-mspdebug/mspdebug tilib --allow-fw-update |
But this can cause additional problems that I reported here. I finally managed to fix the problem using hints from Agla Blog.
Because gcc-msp430 was removed from Debian Sid we have to use compiler
delivered by platformio to test blinky example from Agla blog:
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$HOME/.platformio/packages/toolchain-timsp430/bin/msp430-gcc -mmcu=msp430f5529 -mdisable-watchdog blink.c |
Problems with MSP430FR5969
I experienced very similar problems with FR5969. Unfortunately, above procedure led me to:
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MSPDebug version 0.23 - debugging tool for MSP430 MCUs Copyright (C) 2009-2015 Daniel Beer <dlbeer@gmail.com> This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Chip info database from MSP430.dll v3.3.1.4 Copyright (C) 2013 TI, Inc. Using old API MSP430_GetNumberOfUsbIfs MSP430_GetNameOfUsbIf Found FET: ttyACM0 MSP430_Initialize: ttyACM0 Firmware version is 30301004 MSP430_VCC: 3000 mV MSP430_OpenDevice tilib: MSP430_OpenDevice: Unknown device (error = 5) tilib: device initialization failed |
Building libmsp430.so
This probably means that default libmsp430.so, downloaded probably from
Energia project, doesn’t support FR5969. So I tried build libmsp430.so by
myself:
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sudo apt-get install libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev git clone https://github.com/pietrushnic/MSPDebugStack_OS_Package.git -b libmsp430-fr5969 git clone https://github.com/signal11/hidapi.git cd hidapi ./bootstrap ./configure --with-pic make cp ./libusb/hid.o ../MSPDebugStack_OS_Package/ThirdParty/lib64 cp ./hidapi/hidapi.h ../MSPDebugStack_OS_Package/ThirdParty/include cd ../MSPDebugStack_OS_Package make sudo cp libmsp430.so /usr/lib |
This improved situation, but given:
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MSPDebug version 0.23 - debugging tool for MSP430 MCUs Copyright (C) 2009-2015 Daniel Beer <dlbeer@gmail.com> This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Chip info database from MSP430.dll v3.3.1.4 Copyright (C) 2013 TI, Inc. Using new (SLAC460L+) API MSP430_GetNumberOfUsbIfs MSP430_GetNameOfUsbIf Found FET: ttyACM0 MSP430_Initialize: ttyACM0 FET firmware update is required. Starting firmware update (this may take some time)... Initializing bootloader... Programming new firmware... 75 percent done 84 percent done 84 percent done 91 percent done 96 percent done 99 percent done 100 percent done 100 percent done Initializing bootloader... Programming new firmware... 4 percent done 20 percent done 36 percent done 52 percent done 68 percent done 84 percent done 100 percent done Update complete Done, finishing... tilib: MSP430_FET_FwUppost_date: MSP-FET / eZ-FET legacy module update failed (error = 75) tilib: device initialization failed |
I’m not sure why this message appears, but when tried 2nd time I finally get
debugger prompt, what means that process finished correctly and we can access
FR5969.
Final test
MSP430F5529LP
Please download
MSP430F55xx_1.c
and save it as src/main.c. Then run:
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platformio run -e lpmsp430f5529_25 |
If you see blinking red P1.0 LED1 then everything works as expected.
MSP430FR5969
Please download
msp430fr59xx_1.c
and save it as src/main.c. Then run:
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platformio run -e lpmsp430fr5969 |
If you see blinking green LED2 then everything works as expected.
Summary
I hope that this post was useful for you and you learn some things. If you feel that this knowledge was valuable please share, if you experienced some other problems please let me know, so I can improve the content of this post.
