Electronics - MSP430 - Using the temperature demo GUI

Without changing anything, it's possible to check the current temperature with the MSP430 board and the default software.

Indeed, Texas Instruments provides a tool to display the temperature on your computer's screen.

So, let's go and display temperature with the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Installation

First of all, we need the Temperature Demo GUI.

Two ways are possible.

From the TI's official website

You could download it directly from the TI's website:

http://software-dl.ti.com/trainingTTO/trainingTTO_public_sw/MSP430_LaunchPad_Workshop/LaunchPad_Temp_GUI.zip

With the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE

Or if you use the IAR Embedded Workbench, you could find it in the installation directory.

For example, if you installed it in D:\soft\mcu\iar\ewmsp430, you could find it in:

• D:\soft\mcu\iar\ewmsp430\430\examples\examples\Hardware boards\MSP-EXP430G2\MSP-EXP430G2\LaunchPad_Temp_GUI\bin\LaunchPad_Temp_GUI.exe

Let's play with the Temperature Demo GUI

We have now to plug the board with the USB cable to our computer.

Instantaneously LED1 (the red light) and LED2 (the green one) are blinking successively.

Now an important step (otherwise it won't work): click the User button, just at the left corner of the board.

LEDs stop blinking.

This is the moment to open your Temperature Demo GUI by double clicking it.

A window appears with a LaunchPad_Temp_GUI title and the following text:

Please, select the COM port that your Launchpad is connected to.
                          [0] COM3

Just under you have to select the appropriate COM.

In my case, I have only the [0] COM3, so I just have to click the ENTER key to activate the software.
If you had several choices, click the correponding number, for example 0, 1 or 2 to make a choice and click ENTER.

And it works! I can see on my screen:

• Current Temperature: 78°

Temperature is of course in degrees Fahrenheit.
If you put four finger on the microcontroller, you could see that the temperature is increasing.

Conclusion

A great first toy to play with during the cold winter nights.
Good job, you've just displayed the temperature with your MSP430G2 board!