Introduction

There are two target boards which were created by Sean Carroll:
--- The first is large and intended to be used for the lab exercise part of the course.
--- The second board is small and is intended to be a chip carrier for final projects and other space-limited uses.
Both boards are programmed using a PICkit 3 programmer/debugger, or by tapping the programming signals
from a Microstick2 (see below).

The large board

The large board features a port expander, DAC, TFT socket, programming header, and power supply.
-- Assembly instructions
-- Large board schematic and layout (ExpressPCB format)
-- Using the Port Expander and ZIP code (Sean Carroll)
-- Using the TFT LCD
-- SPI and DAC

An example uses Protothreads 1.2.1 to drive the TFT-LCD, on-board LED and DAC. The example displays some graphics, blinks the LED at 0.5 Hz and outputs a 24.4 Hz sawtooth from the DACA (DAC channel A) output pin. SPI channel 1 runs the TFT, SPI channel 2 runs the DAC. Pin RA0 is attached to the LED. (code, ZIP)

The small board

The small board is stripped down to just a MCU and power supply.
The intention is that this board can be built into projects easily.
-- Assembly instructions.
-- Small board schematic and layout (ExpressPCB format)

An example uses Protothreads 1.2.1 to drive two LEDs connected to RA0 and RB0, see picture in the
microstick2 programming section below. (code, ZIP)

Microstick2 as a programmer

The connections to the microcontroller socket on the Microstick2 act like the standard programming signals from the PICKIT3, which was used to develop the boards you will build. On both the big and small board, J1 marks pin1 of the 6-pin ICSP header.

A wiring example is shown below. Note that pin 1, MCLR, is only available on the Microstick2 DIP socket as shown.
When you click on the small images, you will get enlargments with the pin numbers indicated.

Another example with the small board.

Resources