My first PCB - MSP430 - Will it explode?

[Josh]

Good!

Ordered all the parts and PCB  ! Will post an update when they're put together. Now time to figure out how to code the midi descriptors...

[codeboy2k]

nice! keep us posted, then.

I'm in Vancouver, I would love to see the finished product if we're in the same city

Cheers!

[MarkF]

Another Gerber Viewer mentioned in another thread.  The demo video looks nice.  Haven't had time to try it out yet.

[Josh]

I'm in Vancouver, I would love to see the finished product if we're in the same city

I went to school at UBC but live in Calgary now - Vancouver is a great city!

Another Gerber Viewer mentioned in another thread.  The demo video looks nice.  Haven't had time to try it out yet.

Nice! Codeboy mentioned this one too - my opinion is that the 3D and features around it are awesome but it's not as smooth to control the camera so it's more difficult/frustrating to fly around and check things fast.

[codeboy2k]

I live on the UBC Campus   I love it here.

Yes, gerbv is fast and easy to use. The navigation in zofz has some kind of physics applied to it, inertia and momentum so it's weird flying around in there.. I just want to navigate, zoom, pan, tilt, etc.... and not have it zoom away with all that physics applied.  Maybe it can be turned off? Zofz is nice with multi-layer boards and you can peel away layers and expand the rest to zoom in and see, plus I found the x-ray feature to be helpful too. But I think it doesn't render correctly, as I've noticed zofz gets some layers offset a bit, but gerbv and kicad's gerberview does not.

However, even more interesting is this, which I just discovered:

Kicad wants to draw all your thieving pads in a different color than the layer color.. why?  What's different about them, and will that cause a problem at the manufacturer?

Below is a screenshot of your board, with just the board outline and the top copper. Everything else is turned off.  First one is gerbv, second one is kicad's viewer.  Furthermore, zofz did not show the thieving copper in a different color, nor does an online viewer. Just kicad...

[codeboy2k]

It could be a bug in kicad's viewer.  When I turn on "show D codes" Kicad gerber viewer says the objects that make up the thieving pads have no aperture data (no D-codes)

However, gerbv says it does have D codes:

---------------------------------------
Object type: Flashed aperture
    Aperture used: D10
    Aperture type: RECTANGLE
    Location: (0.15, 1.744)
    Layer name: <unnamed layer>
    Net label: <unlabeled net>
    In file: 2 Layer PCB template.GTL
---------------------------------------

kicad viewer showing d-codes below:

[Josh]

The issues with thieving pads you found seem odd - I sure hope it doesn't cause any issues with the manufacturer! Not exactly sure what I'd do anyway since it's submitted and Seeed doesn't have much in place for methods of communication.

Although, looking at my Seeed Studio order, it says that the board passed "file examination".

UBC campus was great! Wondering why did you decide to live there?

[codeboy2k]

I've never used Seeed before so I don't know what file examination actually means. It might be as simple as "all the needed files are there" or it might mean automatic checks, or that too and also someone actually opened it up and looked with a gerber viewer. It's too vague

UBC Campus is a great place to live, actually.  It's a bus loop so 15 or so bus routes come here, it's in the middle of a forest and has very clean air, it's relatively safe here as the streets are generally filled with students even late at night, there's a fire dept, ambulance, hospital and police on campus too. There is also sports centers, performing arts centers, the student union building to just relax in, it has free campus wide wifi, the supermarket is within walking distance,  and anything else is just a bus ride away.

[Josh]

Hi all, I wanted to post an update on this project.

I apologize for not doing it sooner, my first MIDI controller with this board has been working for a while now!

Coding the MSP didn't end up being too hard. The only tricky bit was dissecting TI's USB API (which does not support midi) to figure out what needed to be changed -- as it turns out Midi USB communications are quiet similar to CDC ones.

Here is a picture of the board and a short video of some music played with Ableton and a soundpack from Mad Zach.

Note that I've only used the digital inputs for this one - no analogs or LED drivers, which I didn't bother to solder on.

Cheers!