Free PCB to the most helpful two replies (PIC Tutor)

[Ayne]

U Mr. William At MyBlueRoom
I want to to know that which software u use for making PCBs And Schamatic diagram.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

Bill, I like the design too. One suggestion, which may just be my personal preference and not widely shared, would be to make the IR emitter on RB3 socketed or at least easily disabled with a jumper, as you have for the TSOP detector. In the applications I have worked on, it was an advantage to be able to move and/or to substitute different emitters. Also, the IR emitter/detector combination you show is so sensitive, it's easier to unplug the emitter than cover with black tape. Last, and maybe most important, if the emitter could be removed, the open socket woud give the user access to a fairly high current switch. John

Done, good suggestion. It's now part of the schematic on my site.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

U Mr. William At MyBlueRoom
I want to to know that which software u use for making PCBs And Schamatic diagram.

An old OrCad capture. And an easy to use and learn program called Sprint Layout for drawing the PCBs.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

Well I've tested the RS232 mode of the Firefly 16F88 with the Tiny PIC Bootloader (uses the internal 8MHz clock and hardware USART @ 19200), nice and fast, a 2K program took only 2 seconds to load. The Inchworm ICD2 programs and verifies very fast too.

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Of course if you overwrite the first two bytes (a jump to the bootloader) you'll disable the bootloader.

 

[mramos1]

Bill, when PCB layout is done, I will make a couple and mail one up to you if you like. You have a drill . I did fix the drilling problem.

No off board expansion connector on the firefly? Just a thought.. Maybe to much for the board to keep it small and low cost.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

I'd prefer if you just did an electrical check, I take it you like the board. USER is the off board connector, it's small but can be used for a fair amount. How about a Minimal Mass RF coupler on it with only a loop antenna and a cap.

http://www.cappels.org/dproj/minmassrf/Min_Mass_Wireless_Coupler.html

The 10K pot is set midway...
Then you could use a pair of fireflys and play with short range RF.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

Dynamic links to Firefly & Dragonfly.
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[mramos1]

I'd prefer if you just did an electrical check, I take it you like the board. USER is the off board connector, it's small but can be used for a fair amount. How about a Minimal Mass RF coupler on it with only a loop antenna and a cap.

http://www.cappels.org/dproj/minmassrf/Min_Mass_Wireless_Coupler.html

The 10K pot is set midway...
Then you could use a pair of fireflys and play with short range RF.

I saw that site years ago, was going to make his RS232 to RF pen looknig thing and never did. Brought back some old memories. Off to check the boards.

 

[m1tch37]

The boards are coming along great.

I'd like to see power switches on them. I find turning the boards on and off at the wall very annoying. Possibly even get a red/green power led, and turn it red when the switch is off, for power, but no activity.

I also like Ayne's idea of connecting LEDs and Buttons (probably not buttons, you got the 4x4) to all the I/O pins of the PIC for debugging.

I may be wrong but it looks like your board relies on the Inchworm or another ICSP programmer for power. Thats a good idea, but i dont think it should be required. A jumper to select ICSP power or a power jack with a regulator would be nice.

Now im just throwing ideas out, but i think a real time clock with battery and EEPROM would also be useful.

Good Luck

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

The Firefly is pretty small (same size as inchworm) and gets its power from inchworm. (It's also designed to be mounted on top of the inchworm or in a second 1591B case or even in the lid with #6 screws.) Firefly is a tutor at heart, not designed for anything practical... Well maybe a RS232 iButton reader/writer or an IR repeater? who knows...

The Dragonfly might just get a power switch and a power connector, but no regulator (it will have a 1.5mm tiny power jack for 5v switchmode wall adapters like cell phones use.) The board is fairly tightly spaced. It's designed to fit into a Hammond 1595C Sloped Case 6.4"x3.8"
https://www.hammondmfg.com/pdf/1595C.pdf

I've got 5 LEDs on Dragonfly and 3 BiColor on Firefly, and in my experience lighting your first LED is the hardest.
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[William At MyBlueRoom]

Firefly was the winner thanks to all your posts I will now have to re-read these forums and select the two winners of a Firefly PCB.

Here's a drawing of the final version. See my site for more info on the Firefly . I'm working on the documentation right at this moment, I'll also have to add some program examples for the 16F88.

In case you're wondering; the drawing was created with Sketchup 3D
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[mramos1]

Off to download Sketchup 3D. That is nice work. Not just the board.

I think this one will be very popular, I could have used it last weekend

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

Off to download Sketchup 3D. That is nice work. Not just the board.

I think this one will be very popular, I could have used it last weekend

Thanks, and look for the free "Google version" of sketchup.

I had to use SIP resistors on Firefly, just no space when using big old DIP parts. That ZIF is quite large, finding a sub-mini 33uf 6.3v cap will make a difference. Keeps the ZIF handle from bumping into bits. The 3D rendering helps when checking the fit, and look of a project. I hope it also helps those building it.

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[Ayne]

Can u make PDF file of these projects for us???

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

All your suggestions were useful, hard to pick just two winners; so I'll be sending a Firefly PCB to everyone in this thread that had replied. Please send me a private email with your address and I'll put one in the mail for you.

Although it was designed for use with the Inchworm ICD2, any programmer that can function as an PIC ICP will function. There is a small 1.3mm power jack for stand alone operation but it requires a 5V DC regulated supply (many cell phone chargers might work, check the specs)

I'm working on the PDF manual, the trick will be the project(s) code.

PS the schematic (above) has been updated, it's the version the PCB uses.

Maybe another contest... Firefly projects...

 

[mramos1]

I will move my wires around this weekend to match the Firefly on my 16F88 project.

It is a POT and LED right now (I put the scope on the LED). The ADC works fine according to MPLABS (I would think that would be the hard part).. The digital I/O does not.

Philba and I went all over it.. I am going to redo it on a new board.

So doing a MikroBASIC/MPLABS/ICD2(Inchworm) project.

I know the MPLABS and Inchworm work.. The MikroBASIC or protoboard seems to be the problem.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

Have you tried PICBASIC Pro, it integrates into MPLAB just fine.

PS you've gotta turn off the comparators on many pics else port A will be screwy.

 

[mramos1]

Have you tried PICBASIC Pro, it integrates into MPLAB just fine.

PS you've gotta turn off the comparators on many pics else port A will be screwy.

I have PBS not PBP.. It is probably what I want, but their lack of IF THEN ENDIF in PBS (I do not need anything more than that in the PBS for it to be perfect) and the facts I have bought it twice, back in the 90's (before I went Atmel) and this year (hoping it had improved, just more pics) and still no IF ELSE ENDIF.

They blame on the basic stamp, but either way, it is backwards programming to me so I refuse to spend $250 for it. I will buy Proton first. Maybe I will dig out Proton and play since the code is small enough to fit in the demo. Off today (birthday).

I think I have port A OK. I have the pot on porta.0/VSS/VDD and the LED on portb.0

The ADC reads fine, but I can not get the LED working. I will redo it on another protoboard today (trisb as well). It is something that is sort of simple and the circuit just keeps changing results on me. Programming and debugging all run fine. And I tried a second F88 as well. So gonna start it over.

OH, I pulled google sketchup. That is cool. Did you make all the parts for your drawings or do they have libraries of things. I did not get past the playing with boxes and circle, I will have to look.