You’re going to like this. This is my first self-controlled circuit! It is powered by a 9V DC transformer, works on its own, and is not connected to my computer in any way. In fact, a whole little computer is mounted on this circuit, something called a “PIC Microcontroller”.
The circuit works as a counter, pushing the button will increment the displayed digit by one. Pushing at 9 will reset back to zero. Circuit assembly may look trivial, however considering the fact that it is operating by itself and running a program, it is certainly a piece of art :p
Making this was a lot of fun; I got to use oscillators and voltage regulators, both components I never knew of. Also, this was my first time deployment of resistors and capacitors in logic applications. I enjoyed messing with these and observing how it affected the circuit. The most enjoyable part was making changes to the PIC program and burning it into the PIC microcontroller that is driving the circuit.
A Microcontroller is large IC, containing a processor, memory, I/O ports, and sometimes EEPROM. It is very easy to utilize yet more job-specific than a lone processor. Microchip PIC (Peripheral Interface Controller) is one type of microcontrollers that have interesting features. The one I got is PIC 16F877 (works as fast as 20 Mhz, has 8 kilo words program memory, 256 bytes EEPROM, 368 bytes RAM, 35 assembly instructions, interrupts, analogue to digital conversion… more)
PIC programs are written using PIC assembly on any desktop computer, compiled then burned into a PIC using a hardware programmer. Once you power it up, the microcontroller starts executing its program. This IC makes a computer by itself :)
I’ve been researching this for a while, but couldn’t make anything because I didn’t have a PIC programmer. I tried to build one but didn’t get lucky, so ended up buying one from eBay.
Previously, I started interfacing electronics to my computer, but soon realized that creating a functioning circuit needless of a nearby computer is far more powerful! Now (il mafrood ya3ni) am working towards creating a self-driving car; a robot. It’s not going to be serious as a start, though I have some plans in mind. I’ll start with buying whatever suitable remote controlled car, take off the remote control circuit, plant some infrared sensors, and finally embed one PIC microcontroller and connect it to sensors and motors. On power up, the microcontroller will run a program that will “hopefully” allow it to do something I was never capable of doing myself … driving responsibly! :’(
More circuitry on the way, keep checking :)
