DDS (generating sine waves) with onboard DAC using latest PIC 16F chips?

[rmteo]

Use a DDS chip.

[HankMcSpank]

Use a DDS chip.

They're overkill for my needs (I only want an audio waveform at about 5khz frequency max! They typically go up to Mhz...so i'm paying handsomely for a feature I don't need) - I also want intricate 'control' over how to select the final waveform via my own control set (not be forced to follow theirs) ....plus if we all simply used dedicated hw ICs (at $15 a pop!) what would we ever learn?

[rmteo]

Using the right tool for the job is half the battle won - that is what you learn. Here is a 20KHz Sine Wave generated by using the built-in 12-bit DAC of the MCU which like any peripheral (such as a timer or ADC) uses little to no CPU resources once set up. Without a proper DAC, generating waveforms will consume substantial amounts of CPU resources. However, for any practical application, I would still use a DDS chip.

[HankMcSpank]

Using the right tool for the job is half the battle won - that is what you learn.

Agreed, and paying $15 for a DDS IC, that I can (hopefully) get a $1 PIC to fulfill my (modest) needs means I am indeed trying to use the right tool for the job - i wouldn't use a rotavator to dig over my garden when for my tiny bit of soil a spade is just fine (while a rotavator clearly turns soil over, I'd say it wasn't the right tool for the job in that instance)

Here is a 20KHz Sine Wave generated by using the built-in 12-bit DAC of the MCU which like any peripheral (such as a timer or ADC) uses little to no CPU resources once set up.

Again, I don't need to generate 20khz (that's 4 times higher than I need), I don't need 12 bits resolution (that's about 5 or 6 bits more than I need).

But more importantly, I don't learn a thing if I go & buy a DDS IC (& at the end of the day, isn't that why most of us do this type of stuff?)

[rmteo]

Well I did use a $1 MCU to generate that sine wave. So by your logic, that would be the right tool for the job.