Dangerous Prototypes

The PIC16F1847 seems to be the most powerful successor of the 18-pin PIC16F series of microcontrollers. It is pin-compatible with PIC16F628A but equipped with lot more peripherals and enhanced features. It has 14Kbytes of on-chip flash memory and 1KByte of data RAM. This would probably be the first 18-pin PIC device of the mid-range 8-bit family with so much of RAM and flash memory. I thought of doing some experiments with the mid-range 8-bit PIC family and so decided to make my own development board for PIC16F18. Here's how the finished board look like.
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It is made on a general purpose perforated prototyping board.

This is my first post and so cannot provide the link to my external page that provides the details of the project.
I will be posting more later.

- Raj

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Here's a link (http://http://embedded-lab.com/blog/?p=2889)

Great work. I'm not big fan of dev boards (I have easyPic and it is one of the best dev boards out there but for years it just collects dust since it's easier to make a custom board every time you need it :D) but this is really a nice dev board.

2 hints

1. I do not see any decoupling on board, not on top nor on the underside. you reeeeeeeeally need decoupling on mcu and on all serial devices (i2c as I can see).

2. if you want to run this from battery power toss that 7805 to garbage and make a simple switching power regulator

again, great work :)

That looks FANTASTIC! Though, the wiring under the perf board seems a bit messy, heh. Do people usually wire the perf board on the bottom like that or do they cut the wires to the perfect length and put them at corners and whatnot?

Also, current sensing on that board would be awesome if you are using a single source like a battery! And yes, a quick smps would do wonders for your power usage compared to a 7805!

[quote author="arhi"]Great work. I'm not big fan of dev boards (I have easyPic and it is one of the best dev boards out there but for years it just collects dust since it's easier to make a custom board every time you need it :D) but this is really a nice dev board.

2 hints

1. I do not see any decoupling on board, not on top nor on the underside. you reeeeeeeeally need decoupling on mcu and on all serial devices (i2c as I can see).

2. if you want to run this from battery power toss that 7805 to garbage and make a simple switching power regulator

again, great work :)[/quote]

Arhi,
The decoupling capacitor for the MCU is on the underside; it is kind of hidden beneath an yellow wire in the bottom center part. But you are right, I would probably put a few more for other chips too. And I liked the idea of using switching power regulator. Thanks for your suggestions.

I looked hard and failed to see them so had to mention that :D .. I usually put them inside the DIP socket so it is under the chip :)

as for the switching one .. there's a few usable hints in the soldering iron controller :D for e.g. if you want 5V only the viewtopic.php?f=56&t=2457&start=135#p28741 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=2457&start=135#p28741) is a simple schematic (few parts only) that will get you rolling. If you want to make bit cheaper and bit more complex regulator then http://dics.voicecontrol.ro/tutorials/mc34063/ (http://dics.voicecontrol.ro/tutorials/mc34063/) hold the super easy to follow calculator for MC 34063 chip that is one the cheapest one available :D .. there's also Dave's video blog explaining the use of that chip to make simple DC/DC regulator (http://http://www.eevblog.com/2010/09/10/eevblog-110-lets-design-a-dc-to-dc-switchmode-converter/)