mrburnette
Senior Member
It has been a long time since I posted in the forum (many may be appreciative of this absence) but I wanted to let you know about an Open Source project that I published that is a refresh of an old PICAXE project, the QBF which I originally posted in the Blogs.
Serial comm is one of the big hangups of working with microcontrollers (IMO) and generally requires that you have a terminal window open and a USB serial hardware adapter connected to your notebook. Everyone working with PICAXE knows the issues: Software, hardware, interfacing, etc.
QBF was originally written to have a known send message of 4800 or 9600 BAUD so that working with PICAXE receive code could be done without having to have a second connection back to the PC and without having to use the Serial Monitor in PE. I found it helpful when working with PICAXE and I found it helpful as I moved on into other microcontrollers. I have used that old PICAXE 08M2 code for a very long time with the Atmel and Arduino development.
But sending a message is just one piece of having a great little piece of separate test equipment. Receiving a serial stream at 4800 or 9600 BAUD would be really great, too. So I wrote the The QBF Signal Generator and posted the full code. Regrettably it is Arduino code, but the code is structured such that one may easily be able to morph it into a 20X2 or similar. For those that want, building the test unit as-is should be rather painless. Total parts costs are under $15 if you go the Chinese parts route.
Whether someone takes the challenge to convert to PICAXE or whether you build as designed, I sincerely believe that building this hardware for permanent test use will provide you with a piece of equipment that is as handy as a DVM in your everyday use of microcontrollers.
QBF Signal Generator
Regards all,
Ray
Serial comm is one of the big hangups of working with microcontrollers (IMO) and generally requires that you have a terminal window open and a USB serial hardware adapter connected to your notebook. Everyone working with PICAXE knows the issues: Software, hardware, interfacing, etc.
QBF was originally written to have a known send message of 4800 or 9600 BAUD so that working with PICAXE receive code could be done without having to have a second connection back to the PC and without having to use the Serial Monitor in PE. I found it helpful when working with PICAXE and I found it helpful as I moved on into other microcontrollers. I have used that old PICAXE 08M2 code for a very long time with the Atmel and Arduino development.
But sending a message is just one piece of having a great little piece of separate test equipment. Receiving a serial stream at 4800 or 9600 BAUD would be really great, too. So I wrote the The QBF Signal Generator and posted the full code. Regrettably it is Arduino code, but the code is structured such that one may easily be able to morph it into a 20X2 or similar. For those that want, building the test unit as-is should be rather painless. Total parts costs are under $15 if you go the Chinese parts route.
Whether someone takes the challenge to convert to PICAXE or whether you build as designed, I sincerely believe that building this hardware for permanent test use will provide you with a piece of equipment that is as handy as a DVM in your everyday use of microcontrollers.
QBF Signal Generator
Regards all,
Ray
