Tag Archives: bootloader


HootLoader2 allows you to customize the ATMega16u2 USB-Serial bridge on Arduino Uno

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We know that the newer Arduino Uno boards have two programmable microcontrollers: one is Atmega328, which is an actual Arduino processor, and the second one is Atmega16U2, which is flashed to operate as an USB-Serial converter. Nico’s HootLoader2 allows you to reprogram the Atmega16U2 with your custom sketches to add more functionalities. HoodLoader2 replaces the DFU bootloader with a CDC bootloader and comes with full Arduino compatible USB-HID core, and CDC Serial. You can also use the 7 i/o pins of the Atmega16u2 on board.

HootLoader 2 to customize the Atmega16U2 on Arduino board

HootLoader 2 to customize the Atmega16U2 on Arduino board

Getting started with PIC18F Microcontrollers

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After writing quite a bit of experimental tutorials on PIC16F series of microcontrollers, I thought of moving forward to the enhanced-range family of PIC microcontrollers, the PIC18F, which was introduced by Microchip in late 90s. Although PIC16F series are excellent general purpose microcontrollers, certain limitations have emerged, such as, they have limited program and data memory, their stack size is small, and all the interrupt sources have to share a single interrupt vector. Their limited instruction set also doesn’t provide direct support for more advanced peripherals interfaces like USB and CAN. The basis of the PIC18F Series is to address the issues that limit the PIC16F series. The PIC18F series of microcontrollers has larger instruction set, more memory, bigger stack, more external interrupts, higher speed, enhanced I/O port architecture, and many more features that we will be exploring in upcoming tutorials. I have decided that I am not going to spend much time on soldering and making my own prototyping board for PIC18F microcontroller as I did for PIC16F. I am going to use StartUSB for PIC board from mikroElektronika for writing these tutorials.

StartUSB for PIC board from mikroElektronika

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