Visited Maplins today to see if there was anything worthwhile left in the closing down sale, and came away with a Velleman PIC Programmer and Experiment board Comes as a kit to assemble And supports 8p, 14p, 18p and 28p dual in line (dil) chips. Paul
Forgot to mention, this board uses a serial port connection to a PC and is not compatible with a USB to serial convertor. Apart from assembling MERGT Kits containing these type of PICs I've not used them, so I thought with a 50% discount why not. Paul
Can it be converted to be used with Picaxe perhaps? Dave Bodnar at Trainelectronics does work with PIC chips might have a couple of ideas.
Hi Graeme I don,t think you can convert that board to programme Picaxe chips but as the following. http://www.picaxe.com/Hardware/Project-Boards/PICAXE-20-Project-Board/ is only £3 and all you need is a cable to connect it to either serial or USB both are available. Programming a Picaxe is very easy too. Be seeing you Bob
I have a Picaxe programming cable and all the software, its just I struggle with Picaxe (and all programming for that matter). I know the logic I want to write but finding the corresponding commands is where I come undone, ie getting it from English to computer speak.
and I'm supposed to get a warm feeling .... I'll give me time to ponder, as I have to build the traversers before venturing on to new things, otherwise Toto will nip ma heid Paul
Greame Have you tried the Logicator programme. It uses simple visual boxes to connect to form a programme. be seeing you Bob
Given the small physical size, the cheapness and the massive difference in memory and processing power, I have glossed over picaxe and just dived straight into Arduino. Generally speaking (there may be exceptions), I consider the picaxe a dead duck.
But are very popular with MERG and used in lots of their kits. Like you my primary interest is with the arduino, but I'm prepared to look (sometime) and at £20 thought it was worth a punt. Paul
Yes but the MERG bunch are all electronics boffins! Even they will eventually come over fully to the Dark Side! {why is there no 'evil' emoticon?} I did originally look into Picaxe maybe 10 years ago (the programming side put me off) but I never kicked it off. The only difference I can discern is size, a picaxe might fit in a building, an Arduino might have to live under the baseboard. Possibly of use in a wagon? But I have an alternative solution for lighting control (that no-one else has) using excel ! But that is for another thread!
