L.e.d

[mackrackit]

You could do that, but for a first project it would be a nightmare.

Go to microchip.com and look at their sample program. They give free samples!

I would point you to 16F877A for starters.

[CocaColaKid]

The 16F877A is a nice start is rather friendly. I personally like the 18F series though. I find they are easier to configure. At least for selecting the ADC ports.

[GrandPa]

Marty,

I STRONGLY suggest you to go with Picaxe chips. Much easier to start with and most of what you will learn will be usefull if you later want to 'upgrade' to picbasic. I DID IT and enjoyed it.

You will be able to do almost everything you can do with picbasic too, but it's not as fast because the program is interpreted instead of being compiled (no hex files). On top of that you will NOT need to pay for a compiler and you don't need a programmer (hardware) either. And you know what, a picaxe is just a microchip PIC with a bootloader and an interpreter!

Look at their forums, they are very friendly with newbies.
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/

J-P

[nomad]

Go to microchip.com and look at their sample program. They give free samples!

thought I already mentioned that. lol

[mackrackit]

thought I already mentioned that. lol

Yup, but when the high cost was mentioned I figured it needed said again.

[Marty]

Hi, my electronic teacher has suggested me to connect 2 pic's together but i don't have a clue how to. Can someone help me please

[mackrackit]

You can hook two PICs together with some sort of serial communication but again for a first project I would not recommend.

The basic idea is to send a command from PIC#1 to PIC#2. When PIC#2 receives a command it will execute an operation. The manual tells how to get started with serial comms.

Have you blinked a LED with one chip yet?

[Marty]

Yes i want control over around 16 L.E.Ds but i cannot find a pic with 16 outputs so i thought connecting 2 pic together would be a better solution. Which command should i send from pic 1 to pic 2?
Thanks

[mackrackit]

Marty,

For your first project I strongly recommend using just one chip. There are plent of PICs with 16 and more IOs.

The 16F877A-I/P would be a good one to start with. At least I like it. 33 I/Os.
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/id...cName=en010242
But if you look here you can find others. Just make sure your programmer will support it. And get something in the "F" , 16Fxxxx. These are flash memory.
http://www.microchip.com/ParamChartS...g=en&pageId=74

If you still want to use two the send part would look something like this.

SEROUT PORTC.4,T2400,[9,3] '9 is the character the receiving
                                           PIC is waiting for, 3  is the command

The receiving code

SERIN PORTC.4,T2400,[9],net  'when  9  is received  the  next  
                                   character  is  written  to  variable  "net"

IF net = 3 THEN Do something

Here is a simple example of how to control more LEDs than you have pins.
http://www.mackrackit.com/mac/www/dave/LED/LEDs.html