My father brought me a MC68HC908GP32 microcontroller so that I can spend my Easter holidays with something "productive", and today, with help from my brother and father, we did this:

We lit a led and then added another one!
Pics:
http://mike.thedt.net/images/temp/DSC00275.JPG -- One led only
http://mike.thedt.net/images/temp/DSC00277.JPG -- Two leds

I know, lighting leds isn't such a hard thing to do, (even with a microcontroller), but for me it's a begging.

I used to do this last summer, but didn't got far away. I was still doing various things with leds.
Now, I have forgotten almost everything from what I knew (that little knowledge anyway... ).

I still don't understand most of the things, but let's hope that I will in the near future...

so now you can start making your own "someone messaged you" led blinker

(assuming you can control the PIC via the RS232 port? otherwise you could output a signal to the RS232 port or even centronics (parallel) port (but be very carefull with that since you could blow up your parallel port and PIC with that if done wrong) and wire that to one of the input legs of the PIC...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
so now you can start making your own "someone messaged you" led blinker (Smilie)

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

(assuming you can control the PIC via the RS232 port? otherwise you could output a signal to the RS232 port or even centronics (parallel) port (but be very carefull with that since you could blow up your parallel port and PIC with that if done wrong) and wire that to one of the input legs of the PIC...

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I made the leds blink
Check out the (poor quality) video! : http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00280.3GP

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Originally posted by Mike

I made the leds blink (Smilie)
Check out the (poor quality) video! : http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00280.3GP

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Originally posted by CookieRevised


so now you can start making your own "someone messaged you" led blinker

(assuming you can control the PIC via the RS232 port? otherwise you could output a signal to the RS232 port or even centronics (parallel) port (but be very carefull with that since you could blow up your parallel port and PIC with that if done wrong) and wire that to one of the input legs of the PIC...

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Originally posted by SonicSam

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised


so now you can start making your own "someone messaged you" led blinker

(assuming you can control the PIC via the RS232 port? otherwise you could output a signal to the RS232 port or even centronics (parallel) port (but be very carefull with that since you could blow up your parallel port and PIC with that if done wrong) and wire that to one of the input legs of the PIC...

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aka

Mike thats cool

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New program: http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00303.3GP

Nothing really new...

It is supposed to be one of those which are in the streets that tell you to stop or go (don't know the English name for it )

Traffic lights?

And nice - i've got 2 of these things around the house but I've never used them
* Nathan goes to find them

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Originally posted by Nathan
Traffic lights?

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heyyy. i found one of these in my garage, mines um.. obviously smaller than yours but i was like MIKE HAS ONE OF THESE!

i dont know what the fuck it does though

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/marissaok/IMG_5919.jpg

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Originally posted by marissa
heyyy. i found one of these in my garage, mines um.. obviously smaller than yours but i was like MIKE HAS ONE OF THESE!

i dont know what the fuck it does though

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/marissaok/IMG_5919.jpg

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I also made this the same day I posted the previous post, but I didn't post it.
http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00332.3GP

Nothing new again. I just used 8 small red leds this time

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Originally posted by Mike
This is where you put all the electronic stuff. For example: leds, resistors, buttons, etc.
(I guess that) you can't do much without the microcontroller (which is on the green board)
I know, my explanation sucks I suppose Cookie can explain better

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Originally posted by Mike
I also made this the same day I posted the previous post, but I didn't post it.
http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00332.3GP

Nothing new again. I just used 8 small red leds this time

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Originally posted by Mike
I made a small change to the traffic lights project: http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00307.3GP
The two new lights are for the pedestrians

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
EDIT: for those who don't have a real breadboard but still want to experiment and play around with one: Java breadboard simulation:
http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/netpro/bboard/jbreadboard.html

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Hah.. breadboard...

Do I miss it?
No, not at all

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
small (but dangerous.. for the pedestrians (Smilie)) thingie: the green light for the pedestrians jumps on green the same time the car light jumps on red. There should be a delay between them...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
Next exercise with this: add a push button: as soon as the button is pressed a delay happens, then the car lights jump on yellow, then on red and the pedestrians lights go on green (for a shorter time than in a normal sequence)... This will simulate the button pedestrians can use on lights to quickly cross the street.

if you have a infrared diode, you can add that too: only start the pedestrian request for green light when the pedestrian pushes the button and when there is no traffic: if the infrared beam isn't interrupted for, lets say, 5 seconds... (this also teaches the use of logic gates, in this case the AND gate)

Next exercise: add a circuit (can be a rocker switch) which when broken sets car lights on flashing yellow. The switch will simulate a shortcircuit or power failure in the system. eg: traffic lights out of order...

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I rebuilt the traffic lights circuit and added a button for the pedestrians.
Video here: http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV00356.3GP

The reason I added that blue led is because:
1) I wanted to know if I actually pushed the button
2) Because I have never seen a blue led before, and wanted to test it
3) Because it is sexy

awesome

nice

I decided to experiment again after one and a half year and this is what I've done: http://mike.thedt.net/temp/MOV01540.3GP (sorry for the quality)

It's something simple but, this time, instead checking if a button is pressed, I've used interrupts to do it which means that the processor can do other things than constantly checking wether a button is pressed or not

I wants me one of those. I love toying about with stuff like that.

@Cookie - how cheap is it to get PCBs printed?

Depends on the quality of the board you wanna get (different materials), the layers you need (usually only one layer though, more is very expensive), the amount of sides, solder masking, tooling, the amount and size of tracks (though only sometimes, depends on how they are made), etc...

Making them yourself is very possible, but it involves some craftmanship, a lot of patience and some chemical know-how (or a very good how-to book would do too), and above all a lot of trial and error...

Or you could get them made by companies which make prototype boards in very small quantities for you, like http://www.eurocircuits.com/ or http://www.pcb-pool.com/. They are still relative cheap and you don't need to bother with all the labor, burns, sweat, toxic stuff, and trials gone wrong...

eg: a double sided board of 100mmx160mm, plated through and partial hot air levelling and tooling (which is already more than what you'll ever need if you're a beginner), is €50 according to PCB-Pool. But a single sided 100x100mm, not plated through, not tooled, not masked, plain and simple, is just around 25 euros. For that kind of money I cba to try and make one myself tbh.

See google "make PCB boards" for tons of info. Also, the local libary is a gold mine of information regarding this ancient hobby.





PS: Note that an experiment board (like the one Mike is using) can be bought very cheap in almost all local electronic shops* as kits, including needed materials and components to make your own experiments, just as Mike did.

* that is electronic shops, thus not electricity shops (although some have them) or household equipment shops. But the kind of shops were you go to buy a bunch of resistors and transistors and those kind of things...