At U$9.99 per LaunchPad board (plus shipping), this may “seem too good to be true.” Let me assure you that the offer is very real. It appears that TI is taking a loss on this deal (probably writing it off to advertising) , and hoping to make it up in higher units sold.

Now, you can build your own circuit to add to the LaunchPad. Insert the components just like you were using a regular solderless breadboard and then wire them to the LaunchPad signals present right on the board. Wah-laa, nice and simple. Create any kind of Booster Pack that you want, and with this soldered version, you have a nice quick prototype.

You may also add a simple 170-point solderless breadboard to allow a simple re-usable prototyping system. If you use 10-pin female-male pass-through headers you will have access to all of the 430's signals. Prototyping has never been simpler or quicker.

While designed for the original MSP-430 LaunchPad, this will work for the newer LaunchPads as well. The only issue is that the newer LaunchPads break out more signals, and so this protoboard (like any other MSP-430 Booster Pack) will only provide access to some of the pins.

Note: this kit does not include the LaunchPad, itself. You can purchase one of those directly from Texas Instruments, itself, at: http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp430g2.html