Category Archives: PIC Tutorials


How to use mikroElektronika’s GLCD bitmap editor tool to convert a BMP image in to a data array

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This tutorial describes how to use the mikroElektronika’s GLCD bitmap editor tool to convert a monochromatic bit map (BMP) image file into a data array so that it could be displayed on a graphics LCD using a microcontroller. The GLCD bitmap editor tool is embedded into mikroElektronika’s compilers. It can generate a code equivalent of a BMP image, which can be easily inserted into the microcontroller’s source program.

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

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“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 using an USB cable. It has also got a reasonable size prototyping area to add more functionalities to the board as required. These features make this board an ideal candidate for doing embedded projects that require PC interfacing. This article first reviews the basic features

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Wireless data transmission between two PIC microcontrollers using low-cost RF modules

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A lot of times we need to keep track of data from a device or a sensor located in a remote location from the point where it is processed. In other situations we desire wireless solutions for ease.  Using long cables, infrared (IR) or other means are often tedious and not loss-less. Imagine collecting pH level data from a chemically lethal or toxic treatment plant where human presence is highly health hazardous. Running long cables from the pH sensor to the control or monitor station will surely introduce noisy signals and signal-to-noise ratio will thus drastically decrease. The result is

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Lab 18: Matrix keypad interfacing

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Matrix keypads are very common input devices in embedded systems. They have simple architecture and are easy to interface. One good thing about them is that they allow you to interface a large number of input keys to a microcontroller with minimum usage of  I/O resources. This tutorial describes two different approaches of reading input data from a 4×4 (16 keys) matrix keypad interfaced to a PIC microcontroller. The pressed key information is displayed on a character LCD. The microcontroller used in this experiment is PIC16F1827.

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Lab 17: Sleep and Wake PIC microcontrollers

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PIC microcontrollers’ Sleep feature is an extremely useful mechanism to minimize power consumption in battery-powered applications. In Sleep mode, the normal operation of a PIC microcontroller is suspended and the clock oscillator is switched off. The power consumption is lowest in this state. The device can be woken up by an external reset, a watch-dog timer reset, an interrupt on INT0 pin, or port-on-change interrupt. In this experiment, we will discuss how to put a PIC microcontroller into Sleep mode and compare the current consumption during Sleep mode and the normal operation mode.

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