[time-nuts] Good (cheap) PIC chip choice for project?

[Herbert Poetzl]

On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 10:04:59PM -0400, Bob Camp wrote:
> Hi

> If you are putting money into a Microchip programmer, I'd
> probably head over to the PIC Kit 3 rather than the 2. It will
> do debug as well as programming on the range of parts. 

Unfortunately the command line support is missing in the
PICkit 3, although there was/is an efford to make the 'new'
PICkit 3 compatible with the PICkit 2.
(as usualy, marketing decisions ... :)

And the PICkit 2 can do all the debugging the PICkit 3
does plus it can work as UART and Logic Analyzer as well.

> Having breakpoints and debug is a *good* thing.

Depends, using breakpoints and/or debug on time critical
stuff (like software PWM or UART) usually results in
unexpected results, more often it is simpler to add one
or more LEDs to display a state or do 'printf' style
debugging via serial (UART/I2C/SPI).

But as always, YMMV.

best,
Herbert

> Bob

> On May 25, 2013, at 9:44 PM, Herbert Poetzl <herbert at 13thfloor.at> wrote:

>> On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 08:46:03AM -0500, Jason Rabel wrote:
>>> I've decided I finally want to tackle learning how to use a PIC
>>> chip for some smaller projects. Can someone recommend me a good
>>> (and cheap) PIC, and possible some literature (be it a book or
>>> website)? I have a fairly recent willem eprom programmer that
>>> I'm hoping I can use.

>> Microchip has good product selection tools like this one:
>> http://www.microchip.com/maps/microcontroller.aspx
>> (note the plus signs on the right side of each section)

>>> I don't know what all the features PICs have, but for my first
>>> project I would like to have it connected to a serial port on
>>> one of my Soekris' where it can grab info (i.e. the current
>>> time, or NTP/GPS info) and output that on a little LED display.

>> Depending on the type of LED display you have in mind, you
>> want to have PWM capabilities (multiplexing) and high
>> current source/sink, as well as an (E)U(S)ART for the serial
>> communication.

>> A four digit LED display can be easily controlled by a
>> PIC16F1503 (price about 0.8 USD, 14 pins) and the required
>> documents are available on the Microchip site:
>> http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en553475

>> You can do the UART part in software for low data rates
>> or simply take the PIC16F1508/9 which already includes 
>> an EUSART (price about 1.3 USD, 20 pins)

>> One programmer for many PIC chips (8 bit to 32 bit) is
>> the PICkit2 which can be bought for less than 30 USD
>> (via usb, works fine on Linux and MacOS as well)

>> HTH,
>> Herbert

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