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PIC PROGRAMMING COURSE

We get a lot of emails from readers wanting to enroll in the PIC Programming Course. Most of them think the course is $250 - $750 or more!
No. The shock is the course is only $9.95 for the CD, plus the cost of the kits and postage.
The kits you will need are:

1. Multi Chip Programmer Buy Kit or ready-built and tested
2. PIC LAB-1 Buy Kit or ready built and tested
3. PIC Lick-1 Buy Kit
4. 5x7 Display Buy Kit
5. Robot Beacon Buy Kit
6. 8pin to 18pin Adapter Buy Kit
7. Tic Tac Toe (introduces PIC16F628) Buy Kit
   If any of the links don’t work, send an email to Talking Electronics for more details and how to order everything at once.
   The course starts with a simple program such as “Turning on a LED” and advances to algorithmical routines that solve a problem. It’s the only course that teaches PIC programming. Buy the kits in the order numbered above and you will be able to progress through the course.

We also have a number of projects in our ”FREE Projects Section.” This section is available to everyone and is intended to show the range and completeness of the designs we are presenting.
However, the majority of the site is only available by subscription and the details for subscribing are HERE.

LATEST ADDITION

Another piece of the programming jig-saw puzzle has been added to the site. Our aim has been to make programming as simple as possible. We have described the “ins and outs” of the instruction-set for the PIC16F84A microcontroller chip and produced a complete Library of Routines. We also have a WordPad version of the routines so you can ”Copy and Paste” them into your own program.
The first thing to do is think of a project that can be developed using a microcontroller. We have lots of ideas and concepts in the PIC Microcontroller Course to help you. This is in our subscription section and you need to subscribe to see the course.
We have also presented a number of projects and programs in the Projects section on the left-index (/articles/lef-index) and these will show you how they are put together.
You need to do a bit of homework and study them to see how they are written.
Once you have an idea of the layout and the capability of a microcontroller, you can think about developing something yourself.
Look through Library of Routines. It contains nearly every sub-routine you will need.
Then go to ”Copy and Paste” Routines. These are in WordPad format. It has a template and is the starting-point for your program.
Open another WordPad and paste the template.
Delete the instructions you don’t want and copy sub-routines as you need them.
This will produce a .asm file. (Commonly called “your program.“)
The file is then assembled by MPASM to produce a .hex file
The .hex file is loaded into IC-Prog v5 and “burnt” into a PIC16F84A chip.
The result is your own program with the least amount of hassle.
It all sounds so simple and in fact it is. All the steps and stages are laid out and backed up by projects, theory and kits. It’s the only way to start programming from the “ground-up.” We are constantly getting emails from readers who have bought the Multi Chip Programmer and they are saying ”finally I am getting somewhere with PIC programming.”
See more information in Discussion-5.

LATEST PROJECT

In the list above is our PIC Lick-1 project. The PC board is effectively a PIC16F84A or PIC16F628 chip with buffered inputs and outputs. It allows a PIC chip to drive up to 1amp per output. This will allow you to drive relays, solenoids, motors, globes and other high-power devices. Go to it after you have read the PIC LAB-1 project.

PIC LICK-1

Feedback from a customer:

A great kit. It is well targeted for the model train hobbyist and home grown burglar alarm freaks like me.
I used it to design my customized “yellow/alert” alarm system for my garage and the PIC LAB-1 to debug it.
-Mike Skypek

FM BUGS

This is a new topic for the e-magazine, but not a new area to us. It’s FM transmission. The author has been fascinated with the concept of transmitting an FM signal over a long distance with the least power. This has led him to develop a wide range of FM transmitters, commonly called FM BUGS.
Most of the FM transmitter circuits presented in hobby magazines lack the technical detail to achieve an impressive range.
Either the circuit is too spread-out on the PC board, the coil and capacitor in the oscillator circuit don’t match (don’t produce a “high-Q”), the coil is a printed track on the board or the supply voltage is incorrect for the component values.
In this new section, we will be presenting a number of FM transmitters and will be explaining how they work, in detail.
The legal power limit for a transmitter varies throughout the world, ranging from a total ban, to almost any output power, providing you are in the allotted band. Some countries allow a few milliwatts while others have no specifications. Some countries provide an “experimenters license.”

Before producing any of these devices, you need to find out the requirements in your locality.
All the circuits are provided for educational purposes only.
Go now to our FM transmitter section and I am sure you will get totally hooked.

MORE!

Another one of our projects is Tic Tac Toe.

$22.75
plus $5.50 post

It uses a PIC16F628 to drive 9 bi-colored LEDs. The program is so good, you cannot win! It has “player-first” or “computer-first” feature and a number of effects on the 3x3 display to show how to get the best from the red/orange/green illuminations.
If you really want to get into programming, this is one project you shouldn’t miss. It introduces ALGORITHMS and shows how to solve a problem with a routine.
If you want to produce “running letter displays” this project shows how to produce animations with “cells.”
We have added a program to the Tic Tac Toe project. It is called Duo Dice. It shows how to produce a program for the 3x3 display. All you have to do is make the Tic Tac Toe project, add the extra routines and you have a completely different project!

ANOTHER EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

Learn PIC programming with our 5x7 Display:

$46.25
plus $5.50 post

It uses a PIC16F84 and CD4017 to drive 35 LEDs. All sorts of effects can be created on the display including counting up and down, 2 digit counting, animation effects and lots more. The project includes over 25 experiments, with each line of code fully explained.

THE INDUCTOR

Three pages on INDUCTORS have been added to the BEC course - pages 69, 70 and 71. We have covered this component in an entirely different way to conventional text-books - using animations.

Watch the needle when the coil is moving away from the detecting loop.

Read the entire article on the subscription section and you will fully understand how this component works.

THE OP-AMP

Two pages on the OP-AMP have been added to the BEC course.
Animated diagrams show how the op-amp works when a voltage is applied to the inputs in various configurations, including single rail and dual rail supplies.
Here is just one of the animations:

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