OEM Offer-MSP430FR2433 MCU LaunchPad™ kit for $4.30

[s8548a]

Hi,

I just came across this offer on the web, thought might be useful for someone.

http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430fr2433#buy

Use the coupon code NewMSP430LP

https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/msp430blog/archive/2017/11/08/introductory-price-of-4-30-for-msp430fr2433-mcu-launchpad-kit

[ebclr]

Coupon does not work

[kaz911]

coupon works fine but you need to be logged in to apply it.

[ebclr]

Doest not work even logged

[kaz911]

Doest not work even logged

hmm - works fine for  me - but i grabbed the code from the blogpost.

[ebclr]

Did you aplyed on the cart ? They don't apply they show on page 4.33 but on cart 9.99

[s8548a]

It works, I did't faced any issues.

[RoGeorge]

Worked for me, too, thank you.

[ebclr]

Finally worked for me, after I added another item

[edavid]

So what do people think about the board itself?  Any reason to order it?

Has anyone used the "eZ-FET" debugger?  How do you use it, exactly?  Can you drive it from the cloud IDE?

[ez24]

Ordered two and no shipping charges which surprised me (I am in the US).  I paid $6.99 shipping on the last board I ordered (no specials on it).  It is not easy to buy from TI, there are a lot of questions to fill out.  Not like Amazon.

thanks s8548a

[RoGeorge]

Ordered two, total $8.60 USD, zero shipping and handling for Europe/Romania, too.

[ez24]

I would like to know how the OP found this?  After I ordered two, I could not find them by looking around.  ie how to find the TI specials ?

Also a thanks to the OP 

[s8548a]

I found it from facebook since I follow TI on facebook.

and that promo code works only one time for a user.

[Fsck]

sigh. I ordered it.

[Dave]

Well, I suppose one more can't hurt, especially for the price.

[rhb]

Sigh.. "Coupon code is invalid"

[ez24]

Sigh.. "Coupon code is invalid"

TI's site is confusing. The original link did not work.  Following a link from the home page (one of the banners):

https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/msp430blog/archive/2017/11/08/introductory-price-of-4-30-for-msp430fr2433-mcu-launchpad-kit?HQS=epd-mcu-msp-vline-bhp-blog-pricepromo-wwe

This says the offer is good to the end of the year but free shipping is good only to Nov 17. 

[edavid]

Anyone else get "In Work at Fulfillment" as a status on your order? How long did it stay that way?

Also ordered on the 9th, still "In Work".

Sigh.. "Coupon code is invalid"

Did you login before applying the coupon?

[ez24]

Woops  tried to order another one and did everything correct, follow correct links, copied code, signed in, etc.   One web page says here is the code and the next one says sorry that is a bad code.

[s8548a]

Mine is arrived at customs, and a Fedex authorized third party is asking for a whole bunch of personal documents. 

would like to know how Fedex/UPS is doing customs clearance in other countries?

[gmb42]

Ordered on the 12th, dispatched on the 13th, via FedEx.  Note that I have purchased from TI before so already had an account, even so they asked for more than seemed necessary for a simple order.

For my previous orders they were shipped ex-EU to the UK, so no customs work involved.

[BBBbbb]

Mine is arrived at customs, and a Fedex authorized third party is asking for a whole bunch of personal documents. 

would like to know how Fedex/UPS is doing customs clearance in other countries?

Ordered it on Friday, still in processing. On Sunday ordered CC2650 launchpad (I just love TI's free shipping), also still in processing.
From my previous orders they take a few working days to ship. They used to send it by USPS, and I loved it, usually took 2-3 days once they ship it, no customs, no hustle, just a ring on the door from the delivery guy. If they switched to FedEx not sure what to expect, since I never had any personal dealings with them.
I'll update once I get my board.

We had a discussion on the forum regarding the delivery services and customs, and bottom line was it's quite country dependent, local reps of the couriers vary in service quality.

[Kalin]

Mine is arrived at customs, and a Fedex authorized third party is asking for a whole bunch of personal documents. 

would like to know how Fedex/UPS is doing customs clearance in other countries?

I'm in Canada and my status says out for delivery today. No issues with customs or imports.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

[rsjsouza]

I just ordered two... 

There is a sort of an e-book with lots of example codes for this board: 25 functions for 25 cents

[ez24]

I just ordered two... 

Did you pay the regular price?  I still cannot get the $4.30 price and they are in stock and are still advertised for $4.30.  The contact form is a beat down form, they want so much info it beats me down.

[s8548a]

I just ordered two... 

Did you pay the regular price?  I still cannot get the $4.30 price and they are in stock and are still advertised for $4.30.  The contact form is a beat down form, they want so much info it beats me down.

It did't worked second time for me too, I think another email id and login will work.

[Brumby]

I've taken the plunge as well.  Discount worked and free shipping to Oz.

Now I wait.

[rsjsouza]

I just ordered two... 

Did you pay the regular price?  I still cannot get the $4.30 price and they are in stock and are still advertised for $4.30.  The contact form is a beat down form, they want so much info it beats me down.

The info they collect is a mix between US goverment regulation and marketing. You can decide which you find more irritating. But you don't have to fill it in every time if you save it.

Mine are still stuck in fulfillment.

The trouble is, with my past experience a year ago with problems approving payment, I can't be sure if they are waiting payment authorisation or new stock or they just want to make me wait to teach me a lesson from last time.

Precisely. The stuff about militar or civil use is US govt. The stuff about the project is TI. However, once you create your account the whole thing gets streamlined.

Regarding payment, I have used Paypal the last two times and it went quite well - they already shipped. Obviously this may be because I am in the US, but sometime in the past they sorta messed up my orders a bit as well (the whole US$0.01 charge to the credit card).

If the coupon is not going through, did you sign up before adding things to the cart?  I recall this was something that threw me for a loop in the past.

[ez24]

It did't worked second time for me too, I think another email id and login will work.

Just tried and failed again.  I bet another email and login would work.  I just do not have the energy to go through their Sign Up again.

But they say limit is 5 and I ordered 2 (a few days ago).  My regret now is that I did not order 5 the first time.  I think it was the free shipping that surprised me.

thanks again to the OP for this 

[RoGeorge]

...On Sunday ordered CC2650 launchpad (I just love TI's free shipping)...

Is there a free shipping for everything, or just for the MSP430FR devboards?

[BBBbbb]

...On Sunday ordered CC2650 launchpad (I just love TI's free shipping)...

Is there a free shipping for everything, or just for the MSP430FR devboards?

Everything you can order from TI shop, that’s the beauty. Order something for 10-20usd and get it from US with free shipping. They have those offers few times a year.

Some stuff they restrict from export for some government safety regulations reasons, although Digi-Key or Mouser don’t have those problems.

Definitely TI switched to FedEx, got the shipping notice this morning.

[gmb42]

Ordered on the 12th, dispatched on the 13th, via FedEx.  Note that I have purchased from TI before so already had an account, even so they asked for more than seemed necessary for a simple order.

For my previous orders they were shipped ex-EU to the UK, so no customs work involved.

Delivered just now.  According to the FedEx timeline it came from Fort Worth, US via Indianapolis to the UK (Stansted) where it waited for 3 whole hours for customs clearance then on to me.  Excellent work for free shipping.

[rsjsouza]

...On Sunday ordered CC2650 launchpad (I just love TI's free shipping)...

Is there a free shipping for everything, or just for the MSP430FR devboards?

Everything you can order from TI shop, that’s the beauty. Order something for 10-20usd and get it from US with free shipping. They have those offers few times a year.

Free shipping on everything. In a separate order I also ordered two of their bare PCBs for opamp development. I had to do it separately as one of their boards has a coupon for 11% discount and you can't combine coupons in the same order.

[Towger]

Just hope I don't have the same problem with customs as last time I ordered boards from TI...

[Monkeh]

Just hope I don't have the same problem with customs as last time I ordered boards from TI...

Well stop saying they're for nuclear weapons guidance!

[Towger]

Just hope I don't have the same problem with customs as last time I ordered boards from TI...

Well stop saying they're for nuclear weapons guidance!

They wanted lots of paper work for about $50 of boards.  I think they missread the invoice and thought they were worth 50K.  Meanwhile I was in Melbourne and missed out on a couple of weeks of emails and final reminders.  Though f that... let them return them.  I arrived back to Dublin and found them sitting on my desk at work.

[RoGeorge]

Everything you can order from TI shop, that’s the beauty. Order something for 10-20usd and get it from US with free shipping. They have those offers few times a year.

That's great, thanks for the confirmation.

Maybe I'll start using TI parts again. I stopped working with them a few ears ago, when first they wrote me an e-mail that National Instruments is fake, as in not a company , then they cancelled a sample order, which I didn't mind, but then they wrote me an e-mail explaining that their samples are not for resale, which was totally rude, so since then I stopped ordering or using any of their parts.

In a separate order I also ordered two of their bare PCBs for opamp development. I had to do it separately as one of their boards has a coupon for 11% discount and you can't combine coupons in the same order.

- I need a few of those opamp PCBs, too. Where did you find a coupon for them, please? LATER EDIT: Found the 11% coupon, but it doesn't seem to have free shipping. Will try to order again.
- Is there any way of accessing a table with products and prices for TI store, like it was possible a few years ago? I can find some lists of products, but without prices.

TI store website is almost unusable to me now, I cannot follow their logic of listing products, it just looks like total marketing bullshit pages. Tiny pics, some of them don't even have links to the docs/datasheets. That's sad. What, when and why was this starting to happen?

[BBBbbb]

TI store website is almost unusable to me now, I cannot follow their logic of listing products, it just looks like total marketing bullshit pages. Tiny pics, some of them don't even have links to the docs/datasheets. That's sad. What, when and why was this starting to happen?

They suck big time at usability when it comes to their shop, basically you browse their products and see if it is available at the shop and how much it costs. For just parts I think you almost exclusively have to go through distributors unless you're a business and ordering huge quantities, but that means asking for quote...
I just like those free shipping offers that come from time to time and you can get a single dev board with free shipping. Code Composer licenses are also given away often with purchases. 


P.S.
Just signed up for their newsletter and got this:

Thank you for opting in to receive emails from TI, including the latest TI store offers and promotions.

Your code OPT4FREE is now active and can be used right away to receive free shipping on your orders until Dec. 31, 2017.

With more than 30,000 products in stock, express shipping options, no minimum orders, and convenient payment choices, the TI store is your one-stop shop.

[rsjsouza]

They suck big time at usability when it comes to their shop, basically you browse their products and see if it is available at the shop and how much it costs. For just parts I think you almost exclusively have to go through distributors unless you're a business and ordering huge quantities, but that means asking for quote...

Yes. The boards' product pages are very spotty in terms of pictures/quality. Usually the pages outside of the store are furnished with much better pictures.
I had the impression you could buy (at least some) parts directly from them, can't you?

I just like those free shipping offers that come from time to time and you can get a single dev board with free shipping. Code Composer licenses are also given away often with purchases.

CCS is free after v7 was released.

[BBBbbb]

They suck big time at usability when it comes to their shop, basically you browse their products and see if it is available at the shop and how much it costs. For just parts I think you almost exclusively have to go through distributors unless you're a business and ordering huge quantities, but that means asking for quote...

Yes. The boards' product pages are very spotty in terms of pictures/quality. Usually the pages outside of the store are furnished with much better pictures.
I had the impression you could buy (at least some) parts directly from them, can't you?

I just like those free shipping offers that come from time to time and you can get a single dev board with free shipping. Code Composer licenses are also given away often with purchases.

CCS is free after v7 was released.

Didn't follow about CCS, it could have easily changed and I missed it.
It seams you're right about small parts, they are available for order, but quite limited in packages and some are not available at their store.
Looks like it's better to search TI parts based on specs on Digikey and then check @TI if it is available from their store. I've just now tried LM338 and only TO-3 package is available, not TO-220.

[Brumby]

I have FedEx tracking that seems to say my package was picked up about 2 hours ago....

Date/Time	Activity	Location
11/16/2017 -	Thursday
8:13 am	Shipment information sent to FedEx
7:59 am	Picked up	GRAND FORKS, ND
7:59 am	Left FedEx origin facility	GRAND FORKS, ND

Date/time is for Destination (Sydney, AU)

[Brumby]

... and the marketing emails have begun:

MSP432™ MCUs + Dual-mode Bluetooth® = Easy!

I hope they don't go overboard.  My tolerance tops out at 1 email per day per supplier.

[rob-from-perth]

we are a professional igbt supplier and exporter

Need new glasses. misread it as lgbt supplier.. not that there's anything wrong with that.

[gnif]

we are a professional igbt supplier and exporter

Need new glasses. misread it as lgbt supplier.. not that there's anything wrong with that.

You'll have plenty of chances to re-read it now that it is a permanent fixture and with a big red BANNED neon sign.

I think I preferred it when this stuff was deleted.

It still does get deleted, I missed this post.

[RoGeorge]

gnif, please delete the last 4 offtopic post, two.


First!? 
They are blinking, both of them! 

Ordered 2 devboards last Friday, $8.60 in total, delivered this Fryday at the door by TNT. No questions, no extra taxes and no papers required, except an ID and signature for the delivery guy. Outstanding!
The order was placed giving a gmail address, and "Independent developer" written in the company/university field, but the TI account/login was made with an office address.

The smaller devboard in the pics is an old MSP430G, also $4.30 many years ago. For the new boards, pin headers are double sided and already soldered, one side mother type, the other father. USB cable is about 35cm/13'' in total. Win10 sees the new boards as two com ports each, one 'MSP Application UART1", and the other COM port is 'MSP Debug Interface'.

One more thing, for whatever reason, the very old MSP430G permanently hangs any application that is trying to use the USB COM port, but the new FR2433 COM ports are working just fine.

[BBBbbb]

Got mine too, along with cc2650 dev board. Took FedEx 3 days, no customs, just a knock on the door.
They downsized the packing compared to the previous ones they used to ship out by USPS, which is a good thing, since it used to be a small box inside a huge box filled with big air cushions. Now it's just right.

[rsjsouza]

I don't use an .edu email address. So that is not a prerequisite. If anyone else here can report using a Gmail address and received their order then we can eliminate that as preventing acceptance of your order. Lots of people must use Gmail.

Did they actually say you had to use a .edu email address? I can only imagine a Gmail address raising a flag if you otherwise appeared to be ordering for educational use at a university and then didn't use the email system of the university. The inconsistency might look odd to companies who have to adhere to US government regulations.

In company field I entered my university, and my PayPal address which is used to pay this order is my university email, but my TI account is still using my gmail account.
They left a message instructing me to change my address to university address and reorder, but of course then the coupon will not be usable anymore. It can be applied only once per account.
I sent them a message and let's see how they respond.

I bought mine with my gmail address. No problems. 

[rsjsouza]

One more thing, for whatever reason, the very old MSP430G permanently hangs any application that is trying to use the USB COM port, but the new FR2433 COM ports are working just fine.

The old MSP430G2 Launchpad UART is really not great. There are a few discussions on e2e and 43oh that talk about that (one is here).

[ez24]

Just got my two boards - 9 days after I ordered them (2 day shipping) from Texas to Calif.

[sokoloff]

Got mine in two deliveries. Ordered last Thursday. One USB dev board arrived 2-day FedEx from the Netherlands on Monday. Two plain dev boards from TX arrived yesterday.

I suspect TI spent more on shipping than I spent on the order this time.

[Brumby]

My shipment was scanned at Mascot (Sydney airport) an hour ago 

It had an overnight stay in Honolulu and headed on to Australia after morning tea.

[rhb]

I tried to order again today.  The TI website says the promo is good to 31 Dec 2017.  But when I entered the coupon code from TI's website, first it wanted me to login to apply the code and then when  it accepted the coupon, wanted to charge me $6.20 each.

I cancelled and sent TI a grumble.

[sokoloff]

I tried to order again today.  The TI website says the promo is good to 31 Dec 2017.  But when I entered the coupon code from TI's website, first it wanted me to login to apply the code and then when  it accepted the coupon, wanted to charge me $6.20 each.

I cancelled and sent TI a grumble.

If you were trying to buy 3, that's what was supposed to happen. The coupon is good for $4.30/unit for max of 2 units. If you tried to buy 3, they were going to charge you $4.30, $4.30, and $9.99, or $18.59 total, or, dun dun dun, $6.20/unit.

[rhb]

Thanks for the explanation.  I usually just buy two of a dev board, one extra to cover user error.  This was interesting enough to make me want a third.

I *do* wish TI would have been more clear.  The human time cost exceeds the price difference.

[sokoloff]

I *do* wish TI would have been more clear.  The human time cost exceeds the price difference.

I hear you on that, because I ran into the same thing and was annoyed/confused as well.

If they'd split the line in the cart into 2@$4.30 and X@$9.99, it would have been clear to everyone immediately what was going on.

[Brumby]

Mine has arrived.

GRAND FORKS, ND  to  SYDNEY, NSW  in 103 hours and 25 minutes.  Add to that about 18 hours for order processing.

No complaints.

[Kalin]

Mine arrived and unplugged it in and went to the TI web app but it doesn't seem to be working. The light on the device is flashing continually and not changing based on button pushes. Does it require me to program it or is it possibly defective?

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

[s8548a]

Mine has arrived at local fedex facility finally, will collect this weekend.

[rsjsouza]

Mine arrived and unplugged it in and went to the TI web app but it doesn't seem to be working. The light on the device is flashing continually and not changing based on button pushes. Does it require me to program it or is it possibly defective?

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

I didn't run my boards yet but, by the looks of it, it may well be running a blink LED app. I would try to re-flash the board.

[Mr. Scram]

I just bought two before the end of the year, but man the purchasing procedure is painful. I'm not even talking about the ITAR stuff, but things like repeatedly filling in your credentials and then changing the shipping country at the bottom of the page to find out you can start over filling things in again. Or having to confirm your email address to get the coupon discount, to be sent to a login page from your confirmation email, only to be asked to confirm your address from the email again.

Regardless, two LaunchPads should be on the way. I'd be fun to see how the fabled low energy consumption stacks up against other MC families.

[RoGeorge]

Anybody used their FR2433s in a project yet (other than just collecting devboards)?
Any plans for the near future?

[Mr. Scram]

Because I didn't receive anything yet and haven't received any status updates on the order by mail, I logged into my Ti account to find that the order has apparently been cancelled for reasons unknown. This is very surprising and not at all what I've experienced dealing with other suppliers like Cypress and Microchip. Is Ti typically such a pain to deal with? This whole thing has been so much more complicated than it has to be.

[Monkeh]

Honestly.. yes. TI are very big and bureaucratic, and their web store is an absolute mess (also seems to change every time I use it). Good chips, generally fairly well thought out boards, horrible customer experience.

[kaz911]

Because I didn't receive anything yet and haven't received any status updates on the order by mail, I logged into my Ti account to find that the order has apparently been cancelled for reasons unknown. This is very surprising and not at all what I've experienced dealing with other suppliers like Cypress and Microchip. Is Ti typically such a pain to deal with? This whole thing has been so much more complicated than it has to be.

TI Store has issues with payments if TI can't ship right away. Again and again I have to re-validate payments. Most times they do ship before re-validating - but a few times my orders has just been put on hold because TI's store time-out on payments.

[Mr. Scram]

TI Store has issues with payments if TI can't ship right away. Again and again I have to re-validate payments. Most times they do ship before re-validating - but a few times my orders has just been put on hold because TI's store time-out on payments.

I don't think there were any issues with stock. What caught me out was that the order was cancelled without any reason given, and that the order was cancelled without informing me by email. Neither are what I've come to expect from various large silicon suppliers.

I've sent them an email requesting to process the order, but it's good to know Ti can be a bit fickle.