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A Microcontroller-Based Phase-Locked Loop

“So here is the strategy: for a Softrock-class radio, we will use a phase-locked loop (PLL) that tunes using a resolution of 8kHz, say, and which might lock onto the frequency a little slowly. We will do this by dividing a crystal oscillator down to 8kHz, dividing a variable frequency oscillator by some integer so that it produces 8kHz when tuned to a desired frequency, and lock them.”

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Interfacing TI Launchpad to Digital Caliper

“MSP430 Launchpad from TI is a new, very affordable (4.35$), value line development platform. It uses MSP430G2231 - msp430 series mcu and includes everything you'll need to start programming the msp microcontroller. In this article I'll show how to use this development platform to read data from digital calipers and send it to a PC RS232 serial port.”

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Wall-Climbing Ceiling-Walking Robot

“The goal of this project is to construct a digital controller for a w all climbing micro-robot. There are two kind of wall-climbing micro-robots in the lab. One is called 'Flipper', the other is called 'Crawler'. The restrictions such as small size, light weight and low power consumption must be complied when designing the miniature robot.”

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Pythagoras: A Drawing Delta Robot

This article introduces a gigantic etch-a-sketch in the form of a triple hinged robot. To control the system, either a capacitive touch sensor is used or pre-programed drawing movements. 3 Large servos control the 3 arms of the robot and an MSP430 launchpad is used for the control system for the core I/O.

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RGB LED Coffee Table

In a demo of what the MSP430 can do, here's an LED Coffee Table that groves with your music. The MSP430 is used as a controller and external software catches the FFT of your music telling the controller how everything should light up to flow with the music. If you like this project give it a Vote at TI's website.

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MSP430: Automatic Blood Pressure Meter

Straight from an MSP430 design contest, here is an article that describes how a blood pressure meter was created. A block diagram is included in the article which gives great insight into how the system was put together and how it works. If you're interested in Bio-Med, this one is for you!

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Low Power LCD Clock

There's nothing too complex about this LCD clock circuit, so its a great project to build if you want to get started with the MSP line of microcontrollers from TI. The article describes how things work, includes schematics and firmware for the MSP. The system runs off of the single battery coin cell, as all the ICs are low voltage.

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