CS-Technology PIC Board

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JohnCrow
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CS-Technology PIC Board

Post by JohnCrow »

CS-Technology PIC Board

Introduction:

I was recently browsing the adverts in Elektor magazine and spotted an entry by this company.
They have some interesting projects for sale at reasonable prices.

http://www.cstech.co.uk

Having looked at their website this small project board was purchased as a kit.
(It can be bought ready built, for a slightly higher price)

The board is all standard thro-hole components, except for the LM75BD temperature sensor chip. This is an 8 pin surface mount device, which can be soldered by hand without too much difficultly.
Alternatively it can be left off altogether if temperature sensing is not required
It is recommended that this device is fitted first to allow ease of access when soldering.
The LM75 uses I2C bus protocol

The LCD on the board has a slightly unusual connection in that it takes the RS line from Port B and the data lines on Port A

Port A Bit 1 = Data 1
Port A Bit 2 = Data 2
Port A Bit 3 = Data 3
Port A Bit 4 = Data 4
Port B Bit 6 = RS
Port A Bit 4 = Enable

Available I/O are

Port A Bits 0 -3
Port B Bits 0 -7

The PIC is a 16F1827

The unit also has
An RS232 serial port.
An onboard potentiometer to control one of the A-D inputs
The device is clocked by a 4MHz crystal.

The various connections on the board can be disconnected by means of jumpers.
The project took about 30 minutes to assemble and worked first time. The PCB supplied is a high quality screen printed type.

Modifications:

I mounted the 2 boards on a plain protoboard to give some mechanical strength when handling them

The serial port driver IC was mounted in a socket (I don’t like mounting ICs directly onto PCBs unless there is a good reason). I also tend to spend a few extra pence for a quality turned pin socket rather than a cheaper standard one.

I used SIL sockets for Port A & Port B outputs rather than the pin headers supplied.
That way I can use turned pin jumper cables to make connections from the board to my Matrix Protoboard

Software:

I have previously written Flowcode programs to use the TPA81 Thermopile Array with various Matrix hardware. This is a simplified version to test the CS Technology board.

Previous TPA81 projects can be found here

http://www.matrixmultimedia.com/mmforum ... a81#p26701

The only reason I used this sensor (rather than something else) is I happened to have it on the bench when I was playing with this board.

This device can output 8 separate channels, though they can be displayed separately, in this project they are combined and an average taken and displayed.

The unit can read a maximum temperature in the region of 100°C with an accuracy of approximately ± 2°C
The unit can also display its own internal temperature.

The TPA81 is connected as follows using the hardware implementation of I2C
(Software I2C can also be used allowing a free choice of connections)

Port B Bit 1 = Yellow Jumper (SDA)
Port B Bit 4 = Blue Jumper (SCL)
+5V = Red Jumper
0V = Black Jumper
The 5V and 0V lines are taken from the Port B SIL header on the bottom of the board.
Pull-up resistors are fitted to the SCL & SDA lines as normal.

Overall I have been very impressed with this little board, and for the cost, it could be used as the base for a complete project.
TPA81- CS Board - Hardware Bus V5.fcf
(26.28 KiB) Downloaded 313 times
CS-Tech Board.JPG
CS-Tech Board.JPG (120.59 KiB) Viewed 3305 times
Sensor.jpg
Sensor.jpg (94.69 KiB) Viewed 3305 times
1 in 10 people understand binary, the other one doesn't !

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Re: CS-Technology PIC Board

Post by JohnCrow »

This is the completed sensor board.
The board is the adafruit 1/4 size protoboard.
The SIL header makes the board usable with any hardware.
Just needs 4 wires
5V, 0V, SDA, SCL

The 3 connections on the LHS are currently unused, but allow the device to connect to a servo.

Sensor Board.JPG
Sensor Board.JPG (102.92 KiB) Viewed 3297 times
1 in 10 people understand binary, the other one doesn't !

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