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DIY plug-in modules to make microcontroller breadboarding easier

Posted on September 26, 2011 by R-B 21 comments

Breadboards are a great tool for prototyping and testing electronics circuits. Here I am sharing with you some plug-in modules that I once made to make my breadboarding life easier. I have used these modules many times in the PIC experiments described in this blog. These modules serve very common functions that are required in most microcontroller circuits. Their use not only reduces the number of wire connections on breadboard, but also expedites prototyping and makes debugging of the circuit easier.

Plug-in modules for easy microcontroller breadboarding

Lab 1: Flashing an LED

Posted on October 11, 2010 by R-B 26 comments

Description

Today is our first session in PIC microcontroller lab, and we will begin with an experiment that flashes an LED on and off. While this looks very simple it is the best project to start because this makes sure that we successfully wrote the program, compiled it, loaded inside the PIC, and the circuit is correctly built on the breadboard.

In this lab session we will connect an LED to one of the port pin of PIC16F688 and flash it continuously with 1 sec duration.

Required Theory

You must be familiarized with,

digital I/O ports (PORTA and PORTC) of PIC16F688
direction control registers, TRISA and TRISC
special function registers CMCON0 and ANSEL

If you are not then please read this first: Digital I/O Ports in PIC16F688.

Circuit Diagram

To our basic setup on the breadboard (read Getting Ready for the First Lab), we will add a light-emitting-diode (LED) to port pin RC0 (10) with a current limiting resistor (470 Ohm) in series. The complete circuit diagram is shown below.

Getting ready for the first lab

Posted on October 9, 2010 by R-B 12 comments

This is to be followed after you have successfully completed the following steps:

Installed mikroC Pro for PIC on your PC.
Installed the programmer software that came with your PIC programmer. If you have got an iCP01 USB PIC programmer from iCircuit Technologies, you should install Microchip’s PICkit programming software.
Got a breadboard and a regulated +5V power source.

Basic setup on the breadboard

As mentioned before all the experimental circuits will be constructed on the breadboard because it is easy to modify the circuit and correct any wiring error. Figure 1 shows the pin diagrams of PIC16F688. It is a 14-pin microcontroller with a precision internal oscillator. It provides 12 I/O pins with individual direction control, and can drive LEDs directly. 8 out of 12 I/O pins also serve as ADC channels for the internal 10-bit ADC. The various features of PIC16F688 will be discussed later in more detail in following lab sessions. For now, we will look at a simple circuit setup for PIC16F688 on the breadboard that will be used in all the experiments.