This month I am continuing with the PIC projects that I started in August. To be able to build this circuit you must build the August circuit which allows you the ability to program PIC's. The circuit this month is a simple 8 light chaser built around a PIC. This will demonstrate how easy it is to program a PIC and to utilize it in a circuit. The circuit works as follows. When power is supplied to the circuit the PIC resets and starts to process instructions that are programmed into it. The program will turn on each LED in sequence with a small delay between each one. It will continue to...

The following information was extracted from the September 1998 Electronics Now Magazine. The author of the article was Michael A. Covington. In Michael's article he acknowledges the contribution of David Tait in regards to the "TOPIC" program. This project provides the beginning of a Learning Series on PIC micro controller. I will be providing other projects based on PIC in the future and therefore this project, PIC Programmer, is necessary for any future projects. It will allow you to program a PIC to perform functions that in the past would require numerous IC chips. What is a...

This circuit is a church bell controller. Basic component is an ATmega32 microcontroller. At the circuit 2 24LC32 eeprom memories is being used, the 1st for internal standard melodies and the 2nd one is for user's compositions. This feature will be provided in the future. As control I created a menu who will be appeared on 4x20 LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). The menu browsing can be done by 6 buttons at the face of the circuit's box (Menu, Up, Down, Enter, Start, Stop). The all firmware binds about 19Kbytes flash memory and can be increased by adding new features-functions. This program has...

The ATMEL AVR programmer works with the Windows program "Ponyprog" which works under 95, 98, XP, ... and can be found at [url]http://www.lancos.com/prog.html[/url] On board the AVRs that can be programmed are those in the schematic. For other members of AVR family or the rest programmable ICs that Ponyprog can program, there is the J1 connector (CON10) which allows expanding the programmer's hardware. See Ponyprog's site for other's ICs Ponyprog circuits. The JUMP1 jumper is there to connect the crystal's circuitry to the 8- pin AVRs or to disconnect it. Some AVRs have internal...

This unit was constructed in the shell of a Radio Shack battery charger. The original unit charged only one type of battery at a time and only in pairs. This unit allows for mix and match for AAA, AA, C, and D cells. Each battery is individually monitored and charged. An LED for each one flashes to show the current charging condition as follows....[list:68e9b49a6d]Dim with bright flash: No battery detected Solid on: Battery charging Blinking on: Battery charged[/list:u:68e9b49a6d] When a battery is first inserted, a small charge is pulsed to it. In between the pulses, the battery is...

Wine doesn't like subzero temperatures, and during wintertime, my "winecellar" got pretty cold. There was an electric heating element, but the thermostat was broken, so it was either full burn or nothing. That's how the temperature monitor/controller came to be. It was an obvious task for a small processor and I've always wanted to test the Dallas temperature sensors. So, I designed this little device which could monitor the temperature and control the heater. It's based on an AT90S2313 and a Dallas DS1621 Digital Thermometer. The temperature is displayed on a dual 7-segment...

This is a fun project. Unfortunately, it takes some time to develop the code, so this is a work in progress and here i'll just present the project so far. Basically the AccelR8 is a device for measuring acceleration. It can measure +/- 2 g. As it contains a microprocessor, it an also measure time. This opens up some interesting possibilities. If we have the acceleration and the time, we can find speed (V), as V = a * t. Also, we can find distance (D) as D = 0.5 * a * t * t. If we now the mass of the object we are moving, we can also find the force (F) applied, as F = m *...

Based on a WWW publication I [url=http://sandiding.tripod.com/ga628.html]found[/url], I designed a software written in standard C for the MSP430 family. It can easily be modified for different micros. The GA628 display provides a 12 character alphanumeric display , some icons in the second line and power consumption of some 100 uA. It can easily be connected to the hardware, simply by soldering some wires. The only disadvantage is , it needs a 3.3V power supply and something around 5.6V. However, this code and the MSP430 provides a clock for a simple charge pump, realized with 3 diodes...

Despite nobody seems to own the appropriate documentation, it is possible to use the big cheap color LCD displays of the Nokia series 60 cell phones for home brew projects. I don't even have the docs and it was a rough and painful way, but now it works. [b:4954943b50]A brief overview about the controller solution[/b:4954943b50] The Nokia 7650 LCD has a host interface which consists of an 8 bit bidirectional data bus and some control pins. Due to the unknown on-board controller instructions set, an image for the display is put together in the RAM area of an external controller (LPC2106,...

This small board allows to connect a standard 1 line or 2 line LCD-Module (with HD44780 LCD-Controller or compatible) to I2C bus or optional to RS232. Here is the [url=http://www.circuitdb.com/download.php?fileID=155]schematic (Rev. 1) in pdf format[/url] [url=http://www.circuitdb.com/download.php?fileID=158]Assembly drawing (Rev. 1) in pdf TOP[/url] [url=http://www.circuitdb.com/download.php?fileID=157]Assembly drawing (Rev. 1) in pdf BOTTOM[/url] [b:e9b66b14da]Pictures of the...

At about $1.08 each in small quantities, the PIC12F629 is just begging to be used in small and strange projects. [img:80fe655682]http://www.circuitdb.com/download.php?fileID=140[/img:80fe655682] The original yoyo was equiped with 2 LEDs that lit up when the device was spinning. I decided to add a micro to give it some extra pazazz. The trick here is to make the unit work without a power switch. The mercury switch is positioned so that it supplies power when the unit is spinning. After about 20 seconds, the PIC shuts down in sleep modes, see listing below. That way, if the switch is...

Based on PIC16F877 and DS1820 This thermometer is a simple thermometer using DS1820 thermal probes that have a tolerance within 0.5°C. I originally wanted a thermometer to monitor temperatures on my over clocked Video Card. Below are some pictures, schematic and PCB layout for the thermometer. The code I used wasn't written by me. It was downloaded from [url=http://www.warburtech.com/compilers/picbasic.pro/sample.code.htm]Warburtech[/url] (labeled "onewire.bas" near the bottom) and modified to display 2 temperatures instead of one temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit. Some of the...

Here is a fascinating and nostalgic project that kept me up many, many nights last summer (creating it, not playing the game!). I had long thought it would be exciting to try to generate video from a PIC, and with built-in A/D converters available for the paddles, the game of Pong seemed an obvious application to prove the concept. The most amazing thing about this project is the small number of parts. My boss joked that it involves 17 cents worth of parts and 1000 dollars worth of programming. But don't worry -- the code is free to you! That means you can build this TV pong game in a very...

This clock timer uses a PIC16F628 microcontroller to display digital time and control an external load. Timer output duration can be programmed from 1 to 59 minutes and can be manually switched on and off. The clock has a correction feature that allows an additional second to be added every so many hours to compensate for a slightly slow running oscillator. The oscillator uses a common 32.768 KHz watch crystal and the frequency can be adjusted slightly with the 24pF capacitor on the right side of the crystal. The clock will also adjust itself for daylight savings time and add or subtract...

[b:e951b67583]Background[/b:e951b67583] Several months ago I tried to connect a microcontroller system to a VGA monitor to output data in the form of text. I was surprised to find little on this subject on the internet, to assist me in achieving this goal. Certainly nothing simple a beginner could find useful. There are examples out there that utilise standards such as PC-104 or complex FGPA implementations found at [url]http://www.opencores.org[/url]. Other solutions include graphic controllers from Fujitsu or even one local Russian person who was offering for sale a project for $5000 on...

This is an easy to build 7x7 led matrix. You can use it as a casebadge, for example. The device comes to it rights the most when showing animations. See 7x7led.avi for a short movie showing a rotating torus. As you can see the schematic is quite simple. An AVR, a few transistors, com resistors and some logic to convert RS232 to TTL. [b:d36eaf5672]Features[/b:d36eaf5672] 7x7 led matrix 127 grades of brightness per led Interface to PC: RS232 Microcontroller: ATTiny2313. License: GPL [b:d36eaf5672]Construction[/b:d36eaf5672] Let's start with the led-array. Best is to build it row by...

Config: WDT Off, TIMER On, OSC Internal RC, MCRL Off, LVP Off The Display is an array of 5x24 Leds. I used Shift registers to light up every column, DO NOT USE ANY 74LSXXX TTL. The 74LS is a Low Power TTL that doesn't light up the leds very well. Use the 74HCXXX series or 74FXX series. After almost 2 weeks sleeping only 5 hours every night, the circuit is working. Is hard to get a picture while the display is scrolling the message. This LED Display allows up to 128 Characters, Just write your message in the EEPROM Data and it will be displayed. If the Display is "blinking", the power...

This is the simple and easy-to-build PIC programmer that I use for many Microchip(r) microcontrollers. Only a few parts, JDM Compatible. I use IC-PROG with this programmer. I programmed sucessfully the PICs 16F82, 16F628, 12F629, 12F675, 12C50X, also 16F87X series. 12/06/04 Corrected connections on 28-Pins. Thanks to 'Her Masters Voice' & Alisher ! Microcontroller PIC microchip programmer. JDM compatible. Before building this programmer, be sure that your serial port (RS232) have at least 11 Volts. At least 11 volts is needed to program the Series "C" (12C50X, 16C84, etc)....

[color=red:ac2ab2f135][b:ac2ab2f135]Attention!!![/b:ac2ab2f135] This circuit its only a reader its not programmer. You CANNOT refill, hack or any illegal thing, the telecards. The purpose of this circuit its to understans how a microcontroller read, serial, the telecard, to build some other circuits like "electronic safety lock", "Checker for how much units left in the card" etc.[/color:ac2ab2f135] [b:ac2ab2f135]Introduction:[/b:ac2ab2f135] This reader can read the contained memory of the telecard. This cards have 64 bytes ( 512 bits) of eeprom memory that the first 8 bytes ( 64 bits )...

[b:0498ae6123]Introduction[/b:0498ae6123] Most of the source code of this project its based on my Telecard reader project of my web site ([url]http://www.serasidis.gr/circuits/telecard_reader/telecardreader.htm[/url]). The components for this project are few and ordinary, that its mean low-cost and easy to find them. The "keys" are empty or not telecards that you can find them on any telephone booth and with no charge. To learn more about telecards read the phonecards_204.zip. [b:0498ae6123]Circuit description[/b:0498ae6123] This circuit its not write any data to the telecard. The...

Programable LCD counter with memory backup Schematic is shown below: [img:52aa9c75d2]http://www.circuitdb.com/download.php?fileID=74[/img:52aa9c75d2] Copyright 2003 Serasidis Vasilis ([url]http://www.serasidis.gr/[/url])...

A very simple circuit to experiment with AT90S2313, 2x16 LCD display and 4x4 keypad. The clock based on 4 MHz crystal, but you can use anyone crystal between 1-4 MHz. The keys with the name "A", "B" ... "F" are typed to the LCD with numbers 10-16. Because the AVR have only 15 I/O pins we are working the LCD display with 4-bit databus. The 4 resistors (10K) are to protect the AVR from the shortcuts as the coloumn of the keypad is change. I make the source code with a simple form, that its mean I don't make any economy to the memory, to understand the beginner how does the circuit its...

I start this project 3 weeks ago, because I was wonder " is that possible, some AVR MCU to create simple colour bars? " At the beginning I believed that its easy. So, I ask some people who they knew more about PAL composite video signal. Some of them told me that is impossible to product color entire-in-software with AVR MCU (microcontroller) because there is not enough power (frequency). The first idea they was to work with 8.867238 MHz crystal (2 times the color carrier). When I read more about PAL video composite signal creation, I saw that, if you want to product colors...

avrDotmatrix - Is a 5x7 LED Matrix Display controlled by a ATMega8 to display scrolling text, time or temperatures. The pattern is generated with multiplexing the 5 matrix columns and setting the correct row bits. This projects is still in development and i'm gonna add a temperature sensor (LM75), a I2C EEProm and maybe a IR receiver for transmitting texts to the display wireless. See attached files for a movie, source code and schematic. Copyright Tobias Floery [url]http://tobiscorner.floery.net/[/url]...

The LCD terminal is a little AVR project for my carputer that plays mp3 ([url]http://alcas.circuitdb.com[/url]). It has the following features:[list:a050ce07f9]- Control the LCD (HD44780) - Decode ps/2 keyboard commands - Control a rc servo - Communicate over RS232[/list:u:a050ce07f9] Purpose is to connect it to the mp3 computer. The computer is then able to put text on the LCD display via RS232. The servo can also be controlled using the serial line. Purpose of the servo is to automatically hide and unhide the display. Decoding of ps/2 will be used to gather input from an IR receiver I...

This is a simple In-Circuit (ISP) programmer for Atmel AVR microcontrollers. This circuit connects the PC via its LPT port to four pins of the microcontroller (MOSI, MISO, SCK and RESET). Power is drawn from the target circuit via the 10 pin ISP connector. Pinout of the ISP connector: 1. MOSI 2. VCC 3. LED 5. RESET 7. SCK 9. MISO 6, 8, 10. GND When the AVR is not in programming mode the 74HC244 will act as a sort of isolator. This prevents the programmer influencing the target circuit. The circuit can be used...