Olympic Timer

[damien]

Hi Melanie,

Newbie alert with dumb questions!

Not meaning to drag this topic on (4 years - wow). I am interested in doing the project and would like a to ask a couple of questions.

Has the PIC16F876 been replaced by anything, as I seem to be having trouble buying them.

In the photo's you posted showing the casing for the LCD, it only appears to be small, how is the PIC interfaced with the LCD (is it inside the casing) on a carrier board or spacific schematic.

Do you still ahve any o fthe LCD's for sale - the 'sexy blue' ones.

Thanks in advance.

[Melanie]

> Has the PIC16F876 been replaced by anything, as I seem to be having trouble buying them.

Yes, the 16F876A replaced it.

Two lines need to be added in the initialisation sequence of the program to disable the Comparators and the Voltage Reference module...

CMCON=%00000111
CVRCON=%00000000

...and any @ DEVICE statements right at the start need to have an 'A' inserted to indicate it's now a 16F876A and not a straight 16F876.

You can also migrate to an 18F242, 18F2420 or any of that family as they're all pin compatible but need a litte more code adjustment...

> In the photo's you posted showing the casing for the LCD, it only appears to be small, how is the PIC interfaced with the LCD (is it inside the casing) on a carrier board or spacific schematic.

Those LCD pictures and casing digressed from the Olympic Timer topic per se. I do have a PCB and bezel that is more suitable for playing with that I can let you have. Though it wasn't intended for that purpose, with a bit of frigging (techical engineering term) you can use it for the Olympic Timer project. It'll also house an EEPROM and a RTC so it can be used for other things too when you get bored waiting for the next Olympics.

> Do you still ahve any o fthe LCD's for sale - the 'sexy blue' ones.

Yes, about 8,000 pcs at the last inventory-check. Contact me off-list.

[tenaja]

> Has the PIC16F876 been replaced by anything, as I seem to be having trouble buying them.

Yes, the 16F876A replaced it....
You can also migrate to an 18F242, 18F2420 or any of that family as they're all pin compatible but need a litte more code adjustment...

My guess is that the 16F866 is probably going to be the 16F876A replacement--and they are cheaper than either of the older parts. It will possibly require more edits than going to the A part, but not as many as going to the 18F part.

Note that 18F parts, given the same specs, are like having larger code space. They don't have code pages, and they have almost twice as many asm commands. You can expect a 20% savings right off the top. I also believe the 18F2420's are facing impending obsolescence, as the 18F24K20 (I think that's the new part...) has migration instructions to it. And it's cheaper.

[rmteo]

Note that the 18F24K20 is a 3.3V ONLY part, so the 18F2420 is likely to remain in the MicroCHIP product line. Another advantage is that the 18 series have larger stack.

Of course, from a purely cost/performance standpoint, a 28-pin PIC24FJ is several orders of magnitude above the 16/18 parts. For example, a PIC24FJ16GA002 has more RAM (4096 bytes), more peripherals and costs less than either the 16F876A or PIC18F2420.

[Bruce]

The 24 series are nice, but they aren't supported by PBP.

[rmteo]

The 24 series are nice, but they aren't supported by PBP.

Agreed. For me, selecting the right tools (both hardware and software) is more than half the battle won.