In March is designed a USB LED Matrix board which I afterwards got manufactured at BatchPCB.
USB Led Dot Matrix - Revision 1
After about a month I recieved the board, but unfortunately it had some manufacturing defects. I contacted BatchPCB and got a full refund.
You can read more about the defects in one of my other posts. But now I’ve fixed the defects using a razor blade and some wire.
The board and components used
Here is some assembly pictures…
Assembly step 1
Assembly step 2
Assembly step 3
Assembly step 4
Assembly step 5
Assembly step 6 - Finished
After a couple of hours programming I’m able to control the display using a nice GUI on the computer (made in Visual Basic 6). The programming is done in PicBasic Pro, and the flashing of the PIC18F2550 is easily done via USB, as I’ve installed Microchip’s PICDEM FS USB Bootloader on the chip.
Board connected to computer
LED Matrix example
After my last success with the Serial TV, I’ve got the idea making it possible for you to the television using a browser.
I’m still using my Serial TV, but now it’s connected to an Arduino instead of the computer. The Arduino has an Ethernet Shield on top, and it’s programmed to make a homepage with a text-field and a submit button!
Here is some pictures of the project:
Ethernet TV - Full
Ethernet TV - Arduino
Ethernet TV - iphone
Ethernet TV - iphone + TV
Ethernet TV - Test Text
Finally I’ve finished my Serial TV project.
It uses a PIC18F4620 running 32 Mhz (8 Mhz crystal + HS PLL), so I’m using the EasyPIC5 for the testing. It is also possible to use other PIC’s, but the available TV Pixel lines will be reduced, caused by the limited RAM.
First I’m going to give alot of the credit to Bruno from Micro-Examples, as I’ve used his PAL TV Code: http://www.micro-examples.com/public/microex-navig/doc/089-pic-pal-tv
Then I’ve wrote some extra code, to make it possible, to write text strings to the television, via a serial communication.
You can download the MikroC project here: Serial TV – MikroC
Here is some pictures of the project:
Serial TV - EasyPIC5
Composite Video Resistor Array
Serial TV - Test Text
Yesterday i started my development with Microchips 24FC1025 EEPROM.
I have successfully connected one 24FC1025 to the PIC16F877A, but i will try and connect 4 of them, which is the maximum.
I’ve also got my SD Card holder soldered so i could use it. I’ve connected the SD Card to the PIC18F452 and made some code in mikroBasic, using their SD library. I’ve successfully made a logging code, and a piture manager.
24FC1025 EEPROM <-> PIC
SD <-> PIC
