David Wrigley's Microwave Website, Manchester, England

Microchip PIC info

History:
In the early 90's I was introduced to the Microchip PIC family, initially the PIC16C84. I got interested for home projects and built my self a programmer based on the David Tait design. In fact the Tait Archive was a very useful source of information. It is unfortunately no longer maintained by David Tait but it is archived and available as a download either in parts or as a whole. The Microchip website is a superb source of information and the MPASM assembler and even better MPLAB are there for free download. I intially used the MPASM as a stand alone assembler, but the MPLAB system is much better in that any errors picked up can be corrected with much higher speed - a click on the error takes you straight into the editor to correct the source code. You can also use an emulator within MPLAB.

Present Status:
Later with the advent of more complex PIC's with ADC's and serial interfaces already built in, I developed a need for a much better programmer which would cope with the newer devices. The Microchip "PICSTART" system is the recommended device, but there is a bewildering choice of competitive programmers. I believe that the NEWFOUND ELECTRONICS (Australia) programmer WARP13 is as good a value as there is around especially as it is a PICSTART equivalent and MPLAB compatible. However for those tight-fisted souls like myself who get upset about throwing away their existing 16C84 programmer, Newfound have an answer. That is a design for a converter unit which can adapt an existing "Tait" design from a single PIC type parallel port driven unit to a Universal serial port driven programmer. By downloading the info from Newfound's site you can have a simple but effective DOS based "universal" programmer for the cost of building the converter. If you wish you can also try out their Windows based program. After a while using this system (as naked PCB's) I decided to build the whole thing as one unit within a box. I called it the PICST4RT (imitation PICSTART). The circuit is based on tha NEWFOUND converter and the TAIT programmer. The PCB uses a combination of SMD and Wire Ended components and with a bit of carving out I managed to fit it in a small Maplin plastic box. The basic ZIF socket is for 28pin devices but I have made adaptors for each type of PIC I use (for example the PIC16F84).

Projects to date:

1. Beacon Keyers, providing a timed morse code output.
2. DTMF controlled systems for security video cameras
3. Video test signal/ATV Beacon
4. Digital PLL controllers
5. LCD drivers
6. Satellite dish position controller

(last updated: 2000 November 28)