Picaxe Project Board

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blauer

Member
Hello PICAXE world

Here is new PICAXE-projectboard we made. Thought you all would like to have one. Free to use in education and hobby. If you want to make money with it...Please remember us :)

Sometimes you hope that you could quicly use any of the PICAXE chips you usually have or like to use. Here is ultimate answer.

Enjoy...

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Comments:
- It's for free... No charge, really, but you have to make it yourself or get somebody else to make that board.
- That silvery cube in bottom right corner is for keyboard.
- There are two regs. 7806 and 7805. No 3.3v. But that can be
- You need Adobe Reader 9. to view and print it.
- Haven't but there any more ICs because we thought to use with them the breadboard thats glued in the midlle. That white thingy there.
- Yes. Some like to use plain breadboards and some like to use boards like ours and with it also breadboard. Whatever....
- This board it's not expansive. You don't have to but everything in there in one instant. You start from the bottom...
- 08/14M are in the same slot. Didn't see any need for both of them.
- That switch is to choose between battery and 12V regulated.

Have fun...
 

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benryves

Senior Member
Very nice project board, it seems to have just about everything on it (is that a PS/2 keyboard socket in the bottom right?) Excellent work! The PDF appears to be password protected, though; I can't open it on my machine.
 
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westaust55

Moderator
Looks great as a universal test board.

no problem opening the pdf file with the PCB layout here. Using Adobe Reader 9.2
 
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tommo_NZ

tommo_NZ

New Member
benryves said:
Very nice project board, it seems to have just about everything on it (is that a PS/2 keyboard socket in the bottom right?) Excellent work! The PDF appears to be password protected, though; I can't open it on my machine.
Click to expand...
Same here, message "viewer cannot decrypt the document"
Adobe Reader v6.0
[edit] Upgraded to v7 and still can't open it.
[edit] Opens OK with latest v9.2.0
[edit] DOH! Sorry Westy, you just said that.
 
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Andrew Cowan

Senior Member
Opens fine with Adobe 9.1.

Things I would like to see added:
7 segement LCD
EEPROM
Shift registers?

Apart from that, it looks great! Is the switch at the top to switch from 3.3v to 5v?

A
 
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Dippy

Moderator
My old Adobe can't open it either.

Is this the same board as....
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9285&page=4

.. at the bottom of the page.


Coincidentally, just last week I was wondering what had happened to that?
Phew! I didn't realise it was 18 months ago.
I think you've done a very nice job.


Uh Oh! Well done Andrew tee hee! People will always want more than is on there - and unfortunately don't realise the production costs ;)

The trouble is that if you accept everyones suggestions you end up with this below.




And then when you say "Oh by the way it'll cost you £120" - then people will say "Oh, maybe I'll just get a smaller cheaper one".

Anyway, it's very nice. I see there is no resist. Are you making loads of them at home? Brave man.

You are giving them away?
Didn't it sell?
 
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womai

Senior Member
Dippy,

incidentally the board you are showing is one of the best PIC development boards around, especially for the price the company sells it (around $120). I have been wondering how they can get it even made and assembled for that price.

Wolfgang
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Hi Wolfgang.

I know. I've got a couple of the version 4 from the same manufacturer.
And a couple of the dsPIC versions.
Extremely useful.


I am seriously thinking about getting the version 6. I just want to find out if a couple of little issues that cropped up on V5 have been ironed out.

My only gripe is the use of cheap standard LEDs.
If they'd used Hi brightness with larger resistors they wouldn't load up the lines so much.
On occasions they have made the voltage droop just a little too far.

Excellent price. Made in ...?

I can't get over-excited by that Company's compilers though :(
 
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womai

Senior Member
Dippy said:
I've got a couple of the version 4 from the same manufacturer.
And a couple of the dsPIC versions.
Click to expand...
Great minds think alike :)

I'm actually using their C compilers (for PIC as well as dsPIC), at least for me they work fine and were easier to get into than Microchip's environment. Unfortunately their libraries aren't open source (I guess they want to keep the IP to give people more reason to buy their compilers), but they make for a pretty smooth start - I was reading the ADC and displaying it on a LCD within minutes after installing the compiler and powering up the board the first time. Still not as easy as the Picaxe, especially for things where the Picaxe really shines (e.g. I2C, one-wire) and for the initial setup (was a big effort until I had all the fuse bits - clock, PLL, brown-out reset, watchdog, code security,... - on the dsPIC set correctly, which is something the Picaxe has right out of the box). Which is why I still prefer to use the Picaxe for quick proof of concept and prototyping work and only move to PICs if I absolutely need more speed / memory / low-level access.
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Maybe I'm just too impatient :( .

I tried C, Pascal and BASIC and got a bit tired of errors in examples and documentation. I thought 'Help' in dsBASIC and Pascal was awful; example config settings wrong, parameter specs for commands all wrong, riddled with spelling errors, slow bug-fixes. I even bought a bottle of Just For Men because of the effect it had on me.
Having said all that, the last time I tried their stuff was 2 years ago, so it may have improved.
But I can't fault the value of their hardware.
Even their little touchscreens are great value - albeit at the cheaper end of the quality spectrum.
I even managed to write a quick scribble and save app on a PIC.

But for quick development for quick projects you'd be hard pressed to beat PICAXE.

Apologies, I didn't mean to digress from Blauers board. I'll leave my ramblings now.
 
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cactusface

Senior Member
Picaxe Project board...

Hi,
Very nice board, but I can't afford it!!! So I have been working on my own, in fact I only got it up and running today, still can't get the LCD to display the time and date in a way that makes any sense. Think I need to use BCDTOASCII, but at least the serial firmware works fine. Each port has a 10 pin header and socckets for power and data, etc....

Will do a full posting soon, but here's a quick look.
Kind regards
Cactus
 

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westaust55

Moderator
cactusface said:
Hi,
Very nice board, but I can't afford it!!! So I have been working on my own, in fact I only got it up and running today, still can't get the LCD to display the time and date in a way that makes any sense. Think I need to use BCDTOASCII, but at least the serial firmware works fine. Each port has a 10 pin header and socckets for power and data, etc....

Will do a full posting soon, but here's a quick look.
Kind regards
Cactus
Click to expand...
Looks clean and tidy Cactus.
While a little "minimalistic" with only 1 PICAXE chip (40X1/2) you do have RTC + EEPROM + DS18B20.
Is that board a protoboard of some type (with lots of holes in a matrix) or one you have specifically designed?

If you start another thread on your RTC to LCD "problem" and include you current program code, I am sure that you will get an answer. The topic has been covered many times before here so a searc h might even solve you problem. Mind you a search on a 3-letter acronym such as "RTC" does not work here as you need at least 4 letters.

I can sense another "This is my breadboard" thread coming :)
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Eh?
Waddya mean Cactus, you can't afford it ??

Post#1 "Free to use in education and hobby."

That's pretty cheap innit?

Anyway, it was a good excuse to show off your project eh? :)
Hey, maybe you have a wiring error?
So maybe if you'd used a project board ,as opposed to strip/bread - board, you'd have it workingby now ;)

But you're right Westy - we're just going to have a pile of pictures of cheap breadboards now :)
Well, it's good for a laugh.
 
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cactusface

Senior Member
Picaxe Project board

Hi Dippy and all,
I missed the free bit!! how do you get one! Yes silly question, go back to the beginning and start reading again.

My board only shows one Picaxe, but will use adaptors to take the smaller sized Picaxes, which is why I used socket strips and not an IC socket. The board is half of an old rack mounted prototyping board, the ground plain is useful.
Regards
Cactus
 
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