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Open PIC Lab


This site presents a simple didactical microcontroller modules designed for teaching of microcontroller systems, digital signal processing, and system programming.
Full documentation (schematic diagram and pcb design) is provided, and you are free to duplicate the modules. However, if you are going to use THESE schematic or PCB files to build and distribute the modules, than you should include the information about the original source and about the availability of the documentation.

Currently two modules are available:

PIC18F4550 module

Parameters:
  1. Clock frequency up to 48MHz (12 MIPS) with oscilator working at 8 MHz
  2. Memory: 2KB RAM, 256 B EEPROM, 32KB code (FLASH)
  3. USB 2.0 Interface - Low Speed & Full Speed
  4. 10-bit ADC (7 channels available for user)
  5. 2 analogue comparators
  6. 4 timers and 2 PWM/CCP modules (one extended)
  7. Synchronous/asynchronous serial interface (EUSART)
  8. Synchronous serial interface: SPI/I2C
  9. Parallel SPP port - for direct transfer of data over USB

This module is based on the PIC18F4550 microcontroller. It offers the direct USB connectivity. Available documentation includes the schematic diagram as PDF, sources of the schematic diagram in the gschem format, and the PCB layout in the free PCB program format.

dsPIC30F6014 module

Parameters:
  1. Clock frequency up to 120MHz (30 MIPS) with oscilator working at 8 MHz
  2. Memory: 8KB RAM, 4 KB EEPROM, 144KB code (FLASH)
  3. 16-bit DSP core, with mostly one-cycle instructions
  4. 12-bit ADC (up to 100Ksps),14 channels available for the user
  5. Flexible interrupt system with 8 priority levels
  6. USB connectivity (using the dsPIC UART and FT232BM UART to USB converter)
  7. The second UART available for the user
  8. 2 analogue comparators
  9. 5 16-bit timers (may be joined into 32-bit timers)
  10. DCI Interface
  11. 2 SPI Interfaces & 2 CAN interfaces
  12. Input Capture Module (6 inputs available for the user, other shared with other interfaces)
  13. Output Compare Module (8 outputs available for the users, other shared with other interfaces)

This module is based on the dsPIC30F6014 microcontroller/digital signal processor. The processor is placed on the daughterboard to allow easy replacement. The USB connectivity is assured by the additional FTDI FT232BM chip. Available documentation includes the schematic diagram as PDF, sources of the schematic diagram in the gschem format, and the PCB layout in the free PCB program format.
The daughterboard PCB layout is also available.

PIC programmer for LPT port

To enable programming of the above boards a simple programmer has been developed.
The programmer has been mounted on a prototyping board. Therefore no PCB layout is available. However you can download the schematic diagram in the PDF format or the sources in the gschem format.
The programmer may be used with the WinPic program under Windows, using the following configuration file (please note, that this file is valid for 74LS07 in the programmer, for 74LS06 you need to invert signals). However when using it under Windows XP we've experienced frequent problems caused by collisions between the WinPic and the printing subsystem of Windows (announced as "WARNING: Windows fooled around with the LPT port bits").
The preferred solution is to use the newest version of the Odyssey program (improved by Pierre Gaufillet) under Linux which is able to program the PIC18F4550 chips, when using this config file (should be placed as ~/.odyssey/config on the user's machine).
Unfortunately no Linux based solution for dsPIC is ready yet. Some work on adaptation of dspicprg for our programmer is on the way, but it has not been completed yet.

keyboard-display module

This auxiliary module allows to connect an additional keyboard and LCD display to any of the above modules. The communication between the microcontroller module and the keyboard/display module is possible either via asynchronous interface or via the I2C (TWI) interface. Available documentation includes the schematic diagram as PDF, sources of the schematic diagram in the gschem format, and the PCB layout in the free PCB program format.

Designs based on our OPICLAB boards

wzab
Last modified: Tue Nov 6 22:34:08 CET 2007