PIC18F Based 6 Channel DMX Transmitter

It is written in Assembly and utilizes a PIC18F24J10. A bit odd as it’s voltage input is 3.3v and it requires a low ESR capacitor to ground on one of its pins. I am sure the code could be modified to work on any 18F PIC with a EUSART.

There is no PCB layout, it is easy enough to construct point to point on perfboard.

Please Take a look at AN1076  From Microchip and the PIC18F24J10 Datasheet.

I apologize about my images as my camera decided to crap out with this and another project worth of images on it, so I did my best to recover and recreate them.

*UPDATE:
V2 – Updated the schematic to show the potentiometer hookup.
V3 – PIC Transmit pin was hooked up to the wrong pin on the SN75176, fixed, should be pin 16 on the PIC connected to pin 4 on the transceiver. A pretty big mistake, sorry to anyone that got screwed up by it.

DISCLAIMER: Not responsible for any damage or injuries resulting from this instructable. Damage to DMX Devices is possible if this transmitter is not built correctly.

Supplies

Layout the Board

Perhaps the hardest part is laying out the circuit board. You have to consider where some things have to be, like the slide potentiometer, DMX receptacles, power jack, DIP switch ect. The RJ45 jack is for ICSP and is not necessary.My slide pots had a 1.75″ track and I spaced them 0.75″ apart. Overall it is 4.5″ x 4″ x 1.5″ high in the back and 0.5″ high in the front. I chose the odd shape because I did not want to panel mount anything, I wanted all the components attached to the PCB.

I don’t think my layout is optimal. The DIP switch is in an awkward spot which caused a bit of problems when building the enclosure. But overall it is quite small, which was the idea.

Start Point to Point

There are many ways to go about this, which I am not covering here but with the board laid out in a reasonable fashion it shouldn’t be to difficult. I usually start with the power traces and work my way out from there. I always avoid crossing to jumper wires over eachother, even though they should be insulated, but it is unavoidable sometimes. Just make sure that both wires insulation is fully intact.

Make sure that the potentiometer have their voltage hooked up right so the correct direction is value up or down. In my case the pot’s contacts on the bottom of the board was hooked to negative and other end to positive, so when the pots were slid upwards towards the PIC, it increased the DMX value. I did it wrong first and had to go back and fix it. The pot’s center should be connected to the PIC pin, the other to 3.3v(not 5v) and ground.- The Oscillator and the SN75176 require a 5v input and the PIC requires 3.3v.

– Most 3.3v regulators have a different pinout than a 7805, so make sure and find out.

– The male XLR receptacle is not required or is the ICSP jack.