This project was send to us by Bob Ashlock, who is rightfully proud of his achievement, he made a temperature gauge with the LM34 sensor and PIC16F684. He inspired he’s project from this PIC16F84 thermometer that was posted here on youritronics. The sensor has 10mV/F output, not to be mistaken with the LM35 which has 10mV/C output, but the firmware can be easily adapted.
The source code is well documented, but there is room for optimization, yet taking into consideration that this is Bob’s first project and he learned by himself its a great code. The outcome looks very nice and has its practical use, he used to measure the air and oil temperature in his 66′ Porsche. In the download you have the schematic and source code written in C.
Great job, and thanks for sharing with us your project and experience.
Car temperature gauge: [download]
Looking at the schematic and the firmware this is probably the most compact pong game project, the PIC12F675 has only 6 pins which can be used, an very small flash and ram resources, only 64 byte of RAM!
The TV output is PAL, no other format is supported, the game is controlled with two consoles made of potentiometer and push button, both dual and single player mode is available with two speed option, the small hardware has even an audio output which sends outs the beeps.
The source code is written in assembler language and highly optimized yet reasonable commented, but I don’t recommend reverse engineering it, it is easier to read the authors documentation.
This project shows the real power of assembler language if used properly, this doesn’t mean that every project should be implemented in assembler language, but if space and speed requirements are scarce, then it’s the only solution.
Micro Pong game: [via] [link]
Are you tired of carrying around one remote for the TV, one for the DVD player, one for the sound system and the list can go on. There is the possibility to buy one “good for all” remote control but it will cost you a few hundred dollars, off course there is an alternative for less money, make your own DIY universal remote control.
Any valid RC5/RC6 will be displayed on the LCD, and any code can be sent with the on board IR led’s, the LCD is the common 2×16 HD44780 compatible type.
The hardware is very simple, the software is written in basic and made available by the author. The Dell TV deals page sometimes has universal remotes like the Logitech Harmony One for heavily discounted prices.
I recommend this project for those interested about the RC5/RC6 codes, it can be a great alternative for radio based remote control for robotics, as you can see in one of my previous articles: IR remote robot
Universal remote control: [Link]
This can be considered an old project, and yes you can buy the commercial version quite cheap too, but in case you want to build one, this is a working project. The source code isn’t made public, but since it was written in assembler language probably wouldn’t be any use at all.
It is a compact and clever dimmer, with capacitive power supply and a small PIC micro controller, it can be mounted in very small space. The learning process is straight forward and explained step by step. It has also a 110V/60Hz version of the hardware and complied firmware.
Keep in mind that this device uses the potentially lethal mains voltage, care should be taken when testing and mounting, use good quality isolation and disconnect from mains when handling. When powered up, please don’t touch the triac to see if it gets hot because you will get zapped, this is a basic mistake, and maybe the most common among hobbyists.
IR light dimmer: [via] [Link]
Yes, the title is tricky, don’t be afraid Arduino still uses the ATmega168, this project is very similar to the Arduino concept, but also very different. It is a small development board which uses a PIC micro controller with native USB support, the author states that this is the main advantage over Arduino, but there isn’t available a user friendly IDE with custom language. Although not everything is lost since for the PIC18F family you have a feature limited C compiler made available from Microchip, C18. The author also states that he launched his CUIduino board in 2005, roughly the same time with Arduino, maybe is true but at least the name was inspired from Arduino.
It is a great alternative for the PIC community, but in lack of simplified language, it still remains just another development board.
PIC based Arduino: [Link]
