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Blinky LED for MSP430

Overview

This tutorial contains three parts:

1. Installing the YAKINDU Statechart Tool as a Plugin into Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio

2. Adding state machines to the project

3. Creating the Blinky example with the Standard Edition

The whole tutorial gives you step-by-step instructions to enable you to upload the project.

Installing the YAKINDU Statechart Tool as a Plugin into Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio

First, you need to install TIs Code Composer Studio, which you can find here:

Click for download

Ensure you have at least chosen the MSP430 ultra-low power MCUs.

Open your CCS after installation. You can choose a test example of TI to ensure that you are connected to the launchpad and that you can compile and upload Code. After this little test, you can install the plugin. Therefore, open the Help tab and click on Install New Software...

There you can install Yakindu. You need two update sites for this.

First you need to add the update site of Eclipse Neon to allow Yakindu Statechart Tools to find Xtext plugins. Click on Add and paste to add Eclipse Neon to your repository. You do not need to install anything, the update site just needs to be set.

After this, you need to get the download site of YAKINDU Statechart Tools. Go to our download site and complete the free registration, in case you have not done this already. Then you will get a number of different installation options.

Choose the black button with install from update site

Once again, go over to install new software. There you add the URL you copied from our site. Choose YAKINDU Statechart Tools Standard Edition. You also can install a Professional Edition, which includes a trial version for 30 days. You can still use the Standard Edition features after the trial version has expired.

Start the installation by clicking on Next and follow the instructions. After a successful installation CCS needs to be restarted. Afterwards the installation is finished.

Working with YAKINDU Statecharts Tool in CCS

To use state machines proceed as normal and create a new CCS Project. Open the File tab, open New, click on Other and search for Code Composer Studio. There you can choose a CCS Project. Define a project name, choose your microcontroller and create a empty project, which contains an empty main.c file. I used the MSP430G2553 .

Now you can start working with state machines!

Working with YAKINDU Statecharts Tool Standard Edition

Right click the project, open New and choose a Statechart Model. A Wizard will be opened in which you can select your project and name your statechart. For example, call it “blinkyStateMachine.sct”.

The Statechart model will appear in the project folder after clicking on Finish. Click on Yes if you are asked to change the perspective.

Afterwards add the three states, name them and add the transitions, like shown on the following picture.

In the Standard Edition you cannot include header files, but it is possible to create operations, in which the MSP430 specific C-Code can be called. Open the textual notifications and add three internal operations:

You can copy them here:

internal:
    operation init()
    operation redOn()
    operation redOff()

Within these operations we can call the specific C code to interact with the hardware.

The last step in the design of the statechart is to add the operations you just defined.

Generate the C-Code

Now it is time to generate the C-Code. Therefore, a generator model (.sgen) must be added. Right click the project once again and open New and click on Code Generator Model. Choose a name for the sgen file. It is good practice to stay with the state machine name. Call it "blinkyStateMachine.sgen" for example and click on Next. Choose the desired state machine by clicking on the checkbox. Ensure that you have chosen the YAKINDU SCT C Code Generator and click on Finish.

Build the project. The folders src and src-gen should appear in your project. They include the generated C-Code, which will be automatically be updated when you edit and save the statechart.

Because this statechart uses time based events, a timer service needs to be implemented. To prepare this, you need these two files:

sc_timer_service.c

sc_timer_service.h

You can get them from GitHub, but they are already included in this example.

Your project folder now should look like this:

Change Compiler to C99

Now you need to set the compiler. Therefore, right click your Project and open the Properties view. Then go to Build -> Advanced Options -> Language Options and choose Compile program in ANSI C99 mode. (--c99) as the C Dialect.

Calling the State Machine from your code

Finally the state machine can be used in your main function. First you have to include the state machine and the timer service. Then the state machine, the timer service and the required functions for the timer service must be declared and defined. The main function contains two parts. The initialization and enter function of the state machine and the initialization of the timer. The second part is an endless loop - the while(1) loop. Within this loop the run cycle function of the state machine is called. Afterwards the MSP430 will be set into the Low Power Mode 0 and the General Interrupt Enable bit gets set. Now the microcontroller is sleeping and waits for an interrupt. After the interrupt of the WDT, the timer will proceed. This means that every timer gets updated and the elapsed time gets incremented by 32 - the time in milliseconds, which is proceed after every interrupt of the WDT.

The main.c file is included in the example.

That’s it - Now you can build and upload the program to your MSP430!

Hopefully this tutorial helped you to successfully create a project for your MSP430. Now it's time to implement your own ideas!

System and Version Information

The following tools were used in the creation of this tutorial:

System: Windows 10

YAKINDU Statechart Tool Version: 2.9.3

Code Composer Version: 7.0.0.00043

Note: The MSP430G2 Launchpad does not support Linux.

Support for Code Composer Studio Version 6

Code Composer Studio V6 is based Eclipse Mars (4.5.) and Java 7. Installing and running YAKINDU Statechart Tools within CCSV6 requires two steps:

1st: Use the Mars update site instead of the Neon update site, which you can find here. As I mentioned before, you do not need to install anything of the Mars update site. Just add the update site. After this you are able to install YAKINDU Statechart Tools within CCS V6 as described before. You need to get the download site of YAKINDU Statechart Tools. Go to our download site and complete the free registration, in case you have not done this already. Then you will get a number of different installation options. Choose the black button with install from update site.

2nd: YAKINDU Statechart Tools has been added, but it won't be executed, because Java 8 is missing. Therefore, if you don't already have, install a 32 bit version of Java 8. Afterwards, right click your CCS V6 shortcut and add the path of the 32 bit Java 8. For my machine it looks like this:

C:ti2ccsv6eclipseccstudio.exe -vm "C:Program Files (x86)Javajre1.8.0_141bin"

Download examples

Drag to install

Drag to your running itemis CREATE (min. version 2.8.0) workspace.

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