Wiring TI Launchpad

[RaMoore]

Richard,

Sorry you weren't able to get better answers via our general support methods. TI is a huge company which supports a large number of customer requests every day, and unfortunately not everyone at TI is aware of our support of FIRST.

If you look on the application wiki (http://www.ti.com/robotics-FRClaunchpad) we have a special email list set-up to directly address questions from FRC teams: FRCSupport@list.ti.com. Please use this email for the most accurate and timely answers.

Regarding a screw terminal breakout board, while the silkscreen will not be correct, you can still use the BOOSTXL-IOBKOUT breakout board on the MSP430F5529 LaunchPad from your kit.

As one of the TI engineers which worked on this solution and a fellow FIRST mentor, I have some concerns about whether the screw terminals are really robust enough for the rigors of competition. I think it's a good solution for prototyping, but in the long term we want to ensure TI only provides battle tested hardware to teams. We are considering producing an updated breakout board for future years, but at this point the most robust and approachable solution we can suggest is the ribbon cable breakout.