newbie requires help

[Steve001]

Hi,

I am new to microcontrollers and purchased the following kit (Before i had herd of matrix multimedia)

http://microcontrollershop.com/product_ ... b04349e59d

i also purchased the following software as a learning tool (Which i was told would be ok, and good software to make a start with)

assembly for PICMicro microcontrollers (ELPIC_3)

Reading through forums on here and various aplication notes

Can i use the software on my board ? to do the exersises and tutarials by copying the code into MPLAB ?
as it looks like the software works with the development boards
or would i be better bighting the bullet and purchasing a E-Blocks board ?


Also the project that i wish to build is a thermometer that has selectable inputs ( 6 or 8 )
with a additional one mounted on the pcb for an ambient temperature wich displays on a LCD Screen
two relay outputs for alarm and over temperature trip
using thermopile diodes as sensors

http://optoelectronics.perkinelmer.com/ ... tID=TPS333

looking at the following

PIC 18F877A with an additional AD Convertor ( ANALOG DEVICES AD7582) to get additional analouge inputs

Not sure the way to go adding ad convertors seams silly when there is a chip with it all there.
but the 18F8722 seams a very daunting contoller

Regards

steve

[Steve]

Hello Steve,

Sorry for the late reply - our offices have been shut over the Christmas period.

That course should be ok on that board, but some of the tutorials may require a different hardware setup (e.g. the LCD tutorials expect the display to be connected to certain pins on portb and they may not be on your board).

There is a v4 of this course which is an improvement (and this course is also applicable for the 877a without any code modifications), so make sure you buy the v4 course if you decide to buy it at all.

The exercises can be used within MPLAB, but we have written our own cut-down IDE because MPLAB can be daunting to new users due to its complexity.

As for your project, the 877a has 8 analogue inputs. So this may be enough for your project anyway. And instead of using an extra ADC chip, you could instead use a multiplexer chip to gain additional ADC inputs.

A final note... If you are a beginner, you may find our product Flowcode a good solution. This makes programming microcontrollers much simpler than using C or Assembly. There is a free version downloadable from our website that will work with the 877a, so you should be able to try it to see if it suits your needs before you buy it. And it produces a standard HEX file, so will work with your board.