MSP430 Launchpad included chips

[brainwash]

Shame on me for starting to use the kit one year after I received it but I noticed the included MCUs are different than the ones shown on the TI site and Launchpad wiki.
Granted, it might have been updated in meantime and the price is also up from $4.30 to $9.99.

The wiki states:

MSP430G2553 - Up to 16MHz, 16kB Flash, 512B RAM, 8ch 10-bit ADC, integrated timers, serial communication module (USCI -- I2C, SPI, HW UART), comparator, interruptible GPIO & capacitive sense I/O ports.
MSP430G2452 - Up to 16MHz, 8kB Flash, 256B RAM, 8ch 10-bit ADC, integrated timers, serial communication module (USI -- I2C, SPI), comparator, interruptible GPIO & capacitive sense I/O ports.

While I've received:

MSP430G2231 - 2k flash, 128B RAM, 8ch 10-bit ADC, 1 timer, USCI (no HW UART), no comparators, no touch
MSP430G2211 - 2k flash, 128B RAM, no ADC, 1 timer, comparator, no touch

What's the deal? Was the package updated in the meantime or the $4.30 ones got lower-spec chips?
Just a question, I'm not pointing fingers or anything, I bought mine about 14 months ago.

[fretless]

I believe that those chips came with the older revisions of LaunchPad. The ones you listed come with 1.5. Check what revision you'v got by looking at the silkscreen above the IC socket but below the "MSP-EXP430G2" text.

[brainwash]

rev 1.4, unsoldered headers

[fretless]

The ones with the newer chips come with male headers pre-soldered. Also: where did you see the price rise? At farnell its still around 4.30$.

[brainwash]

Here it's listed at $4.30 http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2
Here $9.99 https://estore.ti.com/MSP-EXP430G2-MSP430-LaunchPad-Value-Line-Development-kit-P2031.aspx

[andersm]

$11.37 from Mouser.

[ve7xen]

And the M4 Launchpad is up to $15 now.

Too bad.

[Dongulus]

I've probably have had my MSP430 for 9 months and my Stellaris for 6 months and I've hardly done anything with either. 

[mrflibble]

$11.37 from Mouser.

O_o

I got several from Mouser for the "normal price" only a few weeks ago. Good thing too. I was thinking "aaaah, maybe I'll just get them the next order". Glad I decided to get them. $11.37 is not nearly as interesting a price.

[brainwash]

That's well into the territory of "StellarisPad".
It does make more sense though to just buy the Stellaris as a general purpose dev platform, I don't know of a lot of ARM dev boards with included ICD and USB client support at this price scale. And a well-implemented sleep could do wonders in power saving.

[krish2487]

Another point I would like to point out is that the newer revisions of the launchpad come with chips that support capacitive touch sensing.

The touchpad booster kit was released after the initial release of launchpad.

Someone in TI thought that it made sense to release the rev 1.5 board with the touch sense enabled MCUs.

Functionally , Rev 1.4 and 1.5 have very few differences(if any).


And at the time of the launchpad release, there were not so many chips in the G2 series.

[brainwash]

As some guys on the 43oh forum are speculating about a new board and some shields are about to come out of TI, so we may see some even nicer boards for throw-away prices.
At least in Europe it does not make much sense to order the 430 Launchpad since you can have the Stellaris directly from TI at the same price (or cheaper, including transport). Add that to the fact that the 430 chips alone cost a lot in <100 quantity: 1-3 Euro a piece when $4.30 is 3.3 Euro.

Oh, the reason for raising the price for the Launchpad was to "not step on the competitors/distributors' toes". It seems with the low price these carried the distributors were making no money at all (compared for example with everything *uino) so TI with no added charges were competing directly with the people that were actually selling their stuff.

I somehow think that with this response from the officials we would be very unlikely to see any boards at <5$, at least in the near future.

[westfw]

The older Launchpads had the smaller chips.
There seem to be a larger number of older launchpads stuck "in the supply chain."  I was nice and ordered some new launchpads (to get the new chips) shortly after the change, and got (more) old launchpads :-(

So I ordered samples of the "new" chips from TI to do the upgrade myself, without feeling very guilty about it.

[BravoV]

Revision 1.5 board picture and the included standard accessories, purchased in Jan before the price increased.