Getting Rid of Dead Files in a Subversion Working Directory

Quick Tip:
I often find that I delete files before I remember that I should have deleted them using subversion. To help solve that problem I found/created the following command.

svn st |grep "^\\!" |cut -c8- | xargs svn rm --force

This takes all the files that are missing from the checked out version of the repository and forces their removal. Enjoy!

A Valentine Example for Blinking Lights

For Valentine\’s Day my son needed to make a \”mailbox\” for his kindergarten class. He & his mother made a rocket out of an old oat container. Since this was a family project, I decided that my contribution would be lighting it up. My son was quite excited when I told him that I was putting lights on it and it would have a computer to control them. Being sharp as a tack, he quickly asked, \”Daddy, where will the keyboard go?\” I had to explain that it would be a little computer without a keyboard, just a button. He was still excited.

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The Never Ending Conversion

When using the ADC10 in an MSP430 with multiple conversions, the ADC10BUSY bit will stay on even after the conversions are done. Trying to be a good little programmer and checking to make sure the ADC is done will leave you hanging… forever. The conversions must be done for the data transfer and the data transfer controller (DTC) will set the ADC10 interrupt after it is done, therefore, the conversions must be done if the interrupt is run.

MSP430, Entering and Exiting low Power Modes while Debugging

On a recent project I had one heck of a time trying to debug the program flow in CCS 4.2.  I thought the code wasn\’t going anywhere because when I would break the program, it would stop on a line before where it should have been executing.  After a couple days of troubleshooting with an oscilloscope, logic analyzer and TI, I got the bugs worked out of the program, but never did get a good answer as to why there was a debugging problem.  There are known issues with putting  a breakpoint right after an entry into a low power mode (LPM), but avoiding that didn\’t solve it.

My advice to you is to find some unused pins and use those attached to a logic analyzer or oscilloscope to see what is going on.  Hopefully this makes it into Google and saves someone a lot of time.

Preventing Accidental Shorts on Prototypes

Many of the boards that we make never end up in an enclosure.  Whether for prototyping at the office or projects for home, it is just extra work we don\’t want to mess with.  If the board ends up needing a little more protection due to lots of loose wires or it is given to someone that doesn\’t understand what magic smoke is, protection is required.  The three easy ways are:

  1. Through-hole standoffs – These are either ones that go through the PCB (putting the holes in there before fabrication or finding a place to drill them yourself later.  The standoffs used in a computer case between the motherboard and its mounting surface are an example of this.  These can be either conductive or non-conductive.
  2. Adhesive standoffs – There are usually some type of plastic with an adhesive that attaches to the board
  3. Encapsulation – The easiest way to do this is with a hot-melt glue gun.  It won\’t be hot enough to melt solder, but will allow you to protect just what you want.  This is also great if you need to put a few parts inline with a wire.  I\’ve used this to stiffen some diodes that were used to drop the voltage for a DC charging cable.

Debug adapter for eZ430

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For those of you who do prototyping with the eZ430 or eZ430-RF boards, this may be of interest.  It\’s a debug adapter that you can put inline to make use of  a logic analyzer or other test equipment easier.  It expands out to 0.1\” spacing posts from the 0.05\” spacing used in the eZ430 connectors.  Continue reading