December 2006

Steve reviewed the available PIC programming hardware and software, Peter reviewed Maestro, a program that generates prewritten code, Alex presented a PIC to PIC communication device, Tom invited comments on a problem he has with a C program.

November 2006

David demonstrated MPLab IDE v7.50, a free download from Microchip. He demonstrated compiling and de-bugging programs, using its CCS compiler, and discussed the PIC24, the new 24 bit microprocessor. Andrew showed us a circuit board he made using the Press 'n Peel process, double-sided, with a surface mounted PIC and other components.

October 2006

Andrew demonstrated his PIC development board, comprising a socketted PIC with power supply, and data input and output connectors, allowing hardware under development to be plugged into this board and run. David demonstrated his PIC rendering of Hangman, the 20 year old electronics game. The electronics was greatly simplified by transferring the complexity to the program, written in Assembler. As the program only needs to be written once, the product cost was reduced. Also, errors due to component variability are removed, and the game can be easily upgraded.

September 2006

Andrew and Alex continued their presentations from last month, Steve showed some Pic projects he'd built from Pete's World, and we examined some members websites.

August 2006

Alex presented his graphical interface for the PIC, developed using AutoIT, a freeware scripting tool. Andrew spoke about his high resolution thermometer using a PIC and a thermister.

July 2006

We examined Microchip's PICkit2 programmer.

June 2006

David installed the PIC C Lite program, and demonstrated a simple "flash a LED" program, written in Picaxe BASIC, PIC assembler, and C. Bob Bunton demonstrated his PIC-based device to enable a quadraplegic to move a curser on a computer screen, and to click and double-click, by blowing into a tube.

May 2006

Andrew showed his test instrument for a tide gauge, and showed how he used symbols in programming its PIC, simplifying the code. Peter reviewed Speed Camera Watch, a PIC project of EPE magazine Nov 2005. Bob Bunton discussed making a PCB using the Press 'n Peel method.

April 2006

Steve demonstrated designing a circuit board from a schematic, using Circuitmaker and Traxmaker. He also reviewed the PIC-based Energy Meter circuit of the July 04 Silicon Chip. Tony displayed his remote controlled number display, and his Pill Timer, both PIC controlled.

March 2006

We discussed controlling remote devices wirelessly, using infrared and UHF.

February 2006

Patrick showed an application of the PICAXE to measure the speed of toy jet cars. Powered by soda siphon cartridges, they achieve speeds up to 150kph. Peter discussed the theory of connecting a keyboard to a PICAXE. His circuit diagram was drawn in ExpressSch, part of the ExpressPCB program.

January 2006

Tony discussed interfacing a clock with the serial port of a PIC. Steve demonstrated a configuration wizard he wrote in Visual Basic for the PICAXE18X. Geoff introduced the Magic application development system, showing receiving serial data from a PICAXE, storing it in a database, display, manipulation, export to a spreadsheet etc.

2005 2007