YourITronics

This is a very accessible project for beginners. If you are thinking into starting with microcontrollers, this is better than a blinking LED. Basically we have a 3-digit 7 segment display showing data from a thermistor, and all this is controller by a PIC16F684. The circuit will tell the temperature between 0 and 140 farenheit. This project is actually quite easy to build; the hardest part is calibrating the thermistor… If you need more info on the project visits the authors page using the links bellow.

Parts List:

• 1 x PIC16f684 microcontroller
• 1 x 14 pin IC socket (so the PIC can be removed to reprogram)
• 1 x Thermistor (see below)
• 3 x 2N3906 PNP transistors
• 1 x .01mF capacitor (any kind)
• 10 x 100ohm 1/4watt resistors
• 1 x 3-digit 7 segment display
• 1 x 3 AAA battery holder with switch.
• 1 x PCB breadboard
• etching chemicals to make board etc.

PIC16F684 Based Digital Thermometer:

[Link] - [schematic, Eagle PCB file, artwork and source code]

 The AT90S8515 microcontroller-based Microstepper Motor Controller can handle four-wire bipolar stepper motors with up to 1-A phase currents and 30-V power supplies. This project achieves 256 microsteps per step, which is approximately 50,000 steps per revolution.

[VIA] 

Michael Sung writes:

The SAK2 (Swiss-Army-Knife 2) Board, is a very flexible data acquisition board that serves as the central sensor hub for the MIThril 2003 distributed system architecture. The SAK2 board was designed primarily to interface a variety of sensing technologies with mobile device-based wearable platforms to enable real-time context-aware, streaming data applications. The SAK2 is an extremely flexible data acquisition hub, allowing for a wide variety of custom as well as third-party sensors to interface to it. In addition to being a sensor hub, the SAK2 can also operate in stand-alone mode for a variety of long-term data acquisition and real-time interactive applications.

The SAK2 was designed and intended for general use by research groups at the MIT Media Laboratory as well as other research communities at large. The following links provide all the design files necessary to replicate the MIT Wearables Group’s hardware setup. On the hardware side, we recommend the MPLAB 6.5 microcontroller development environment, the CCS compiler, and the PICStart Plus programmer. We support a variety of linux-based tools called Enchantment to stream data in real-time from the SAK2 hub through the 803.11b infrastructure (via the Zaurus or other linux-based device). We are currently working on a much cleaner, modular, and buffered version of the SAK2 firmware which should be available in May, 2004.

Michael Sung

Here is a countdown timer base on the versatile PIC16F84A, with so many practical applications, nothing illegal though. The time range can be adjusted between 1 and 99 minutes. It displays time sequence on BCD decoded 7 segment LED display. When count down finishes, the microcontroller send’s a control signal to a relay, giving you the possibility to control anything you want at the end of the relay. The board is assembled on soldering technique so no PCB design is available or needed. The project as well as the source code for PIC16F84A is very well documented and explained, so this is a good project even for advanced beginners, you could consider this as your first microcontroller project, you will sure remember it.

Link to project