Other Projects

Using Transistor as a Switch

Using Transistor as a Switch

Most of microcontrollers work within 5 volt environment and the I/O port can only handle current up to 20mA; therefore if we want to attach the microcontroller’s I/O port to different voltage level circuit or to drive devices with more than 20mA; we need to use the interface circuit. One of the popular method is

Using Transistor as a Switch Read More »

PIC Bot II

PIC-Bot II

On this page I hope to provide more details than I usually provide for those who wish to construct their own PIC-bot, realising that people actually try to make this stuff. Traditionally, my ‘bot pages are for documenting the essentials, not in the kind of detail needed to make as if it were a kit.

PIC-Bot II Read More »

PCB layouts using CAD schematic

PCB layouts using CAD

Now the PCB kit I used described how I could draw my circuit layouts directly unto the copper clad board using an special pen with etch-resistant ink, however lacking the dexterity of an artist I chose to get myself some CAD software for generating PCB layouts. After a bit of research I decided to go

PCB layouts using CAD Read More »

Solar Recorder

Solar Recorder

The device used for measuring daily insolation has been developed. The device was built with a PIC18F458 and the 128MB Multimedia Memory Card, MMC. The solar radiation is measured by a calculator solar cell. The PIC chip interfaces the MMC using SPI mode. The interval between samples is set to one minute. The firmware detects

Solar Recorder Read More »

Serial Clock

MikroElektronika’s “Ready for PIC” board talks to “Processing” using PIC16F887

“Ready for PIC“ is one of MikroElektronika‘s compact prototyping boards for 28 and 40 pin PIC microcontrollers. The board comes with PIC16F887 microcontroller which is preprogrammed with an UART bootloader firmware and thus eliminates the need of an external programmer. The on-board USB-UART module allows the serial data transfer between the PIC and a PC

MikroElektronika’s “Ready for PIC” board talks to “Processing” using PIC16F887 Read More »