Making a Simple PIC Programmer.

In this tutorial we will make a simple serial port based programmer for PIC microcontrollers. I have tried several easy to make programmers and software, and here I a presenting the programmer that worked the best. The design is based on JDM. The software we will use is PICPgm by Christian Stadler. I liked the performance of the software, its fast and easy to use. The programmer will make uses the COM port of Computer for communication. Components required. S.No Item Value/Part No Qty 01 Transistor BC337-40 or BC337-25 2 02 Capacitor Electrolytic 100uF 16VDC 2 03 Zener Diode 5.1v 0.5Watt 1 04 Zener Diode 6.2v 0.5Watt 1 05 Diode 1N4148 4 06 Resistor 1.5K 1 07 Resistor 10K 1 08 LED RED Colour 1 09 DB9 Female Connector with Cover – 1 10 6 PIN Female Connector with Wire – 1 11 Veroboard, Wires etc – – Circuit Diagram Now assemble the circuit as shown below in a piece of veroboard. Fig. : Simple Serial Port Based PIC Programmer. So our PIC programmer will have two interface A Serial Interface for Connecting it with PC A 6 PIN ICSP Connecter – This will be connected to our PIC which will sit in our project (say in a Breadboard). Fig. : Simple Serial Port Based PIC Programmer.   The technique […]

Easy 24C I2C Serial EEPROM Interfacing with AVR Microcontrollers

In this turorial we will see how we can easily interface a 24C series serial EEPROM with AVR microcontrollers. What is an EEPROM? An EEPROM is kinds of novalatile memory, that means it is used for storing digital data permanently without any power suply. EEPROM stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. The advantage of these kind of ROMs is that they can be erased Electrically to make them ready for storing new data. Compare this with a CD R disks they can be recorded only once. A small amount of EEPROM is also available internally on the AVR chips. So if the volume of data you want to store is small (say few user names and password) then you can use it. The internal eeprom makes design small and simple. But if the amount of data you want to store is large, say in order of few tens of kilobytes then you have to interface a External EEPROM chip with your AVR MCU. You can store pictures, sound and long texts in these eeproms. Their are many kinds of EEPROM chip available from many manufactures. One very common family is 24C series serial EEPROMs. They are available upto 128KB in size. They uses I2C interface with host controller (MCU) which is a very popular serial communication standard. I […]

Tutorial 0 – Getting Started with Microchip PIC Microcontrollers.

After my tutorial series on Atmel AVR Microcontrollers and I have planed to start a similar tutorial series on Microchip PIC Microcontrollers. PIC Family of Micros are popular among hobbyists as they are easily available, easy to use and are low cost. In the first couple of tutorial we will make/collect hardware and software tools which will be required to experiment with PIC MCUs. Once you have the basic tools up and running we will proceed to learning how to do basic stuffs with PICs, like setting and using PORTs, Controlling LEDs, Relays, Motors etc. These will help you as building blocks that will help you develop your own project and understand and implement thousands of PIC MCU projects out there in Magazines and Internet. These tutorials assumes that you are a beginner with Microcontroller i.e. having no or little experience with them. What is a Microcontroller? Ans: For information of "What is a microcontroller?" and how it can help you see this link. Selecting A Microcontroller We will start our journey with PIC16F877A and PIC16F628A Microcontrollers. Then we will move to high performance 18F core microcontrollers like PIC18F2550 and PIC18F4550. Tools Required What hardware and software tools you will need is described in this page. The article also gives you the over all process of development with MCUs. The […]

Synchronous Serial Communication Tutorial – The Basics of I2C and SPI.

This tutorial give you the details of synchronous serial communication, which is the basis of data transfer in communication standards like SPI and I2C. The tutorial is aimed for a beginner who has no experience or any idea of serial communication. So intermediate user who already has some idea about serial data transfer can skip this tutorial and jump directly to SPI or I2C tutorials. Data Transfer. Knowledge of data transfer is very important for any embedded system developer. In any embed ed system data is moved between several units like between RAM and CPU. There are many methods and technique for data transfer each having its own pros and cons. So different data transfer technique is used in different situations. Some example of data transfer are Simple parallel transfer. (Used to transfer 8,16,32 … bits of data in the same time) Asynchronous Serial Transfer (USART) – Old but still in use mode of serial communication using only 2 lines (+1 additional line for GND). SPI – Serial Peripheral Interface – Standard Mode of communication between different ICs. Many ICs designed for a Variety of Jobs like Flash Memory, LCD controller, Ethernet Controllers etc uses this standard for communication. So if you want to use any of these functionality you need to have a knowledge of SPI. IIC(or I2C) – […]