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Suggestions for learning to program PIC microcontrollers please

Former Member

I am working on engineering projects involving PIC microcontrollers. I need the groups assistance with some suggestions for good places to start learning this type of product. Tutorials, web sites, books (do they still have those?) anything of assistance. Also demonstration boards etc.

I have no experience with any type of microcontroller. I am leaving the work to the professional programmer on staff, but I would like to be able to look at code, understand resourse use - be able to review work and see how and why things happened etc -  even write some of my own code to try ideas.

 

I am a professional engineer and can pick up most things fairly rapidly. My analogue electronics is fairly good - I just happen to have graduated before micros became common place in the industry and have managed to avoid working on them for the past 30 years.

I can program to an extent - Excel, math, MCAD programs etc. I have never touched machine code or assemblers. No C experience.

I will be working on lighting industry projects. Power conversion, PWM, motor control, ADC - monitoring current, heat and responding to the same, communications, IR, rf and wired.

PIC products seems to be a good palce to start - I like what I see on the Microchip website - just based on their application notes.

I would appreciate the groups pointers on:

Starter board - resource to write and program some code into a chip. For instance - See how fast / accurate an AD converter needs to be to safely handle current control of an HB LED for instance - play with conceptual drive ideas... See if I can come up with some novel mathmatical solutions to control problems.

Suggestions on where a savvy engineer with no experience could look for a friendly high level lnaguage interface to write some code. I can think like a program - just have no experience writing anything into a device like this.

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

Jon Connell, IESNA, MIEEE

  • Hi Jon,

     

    A few years ago a microcontroller project was thrown in my lap. I could have passed on the work to an external company but i also saw the added value of understanding microcontrollers myself so this is what i did.

     

    I bought the book:

    Embedded C programming and the microchip PIC

    By Richard H. Barnett,Larry O'Cull,Sarah Cox

     

    The book describes the Microchip PIC controllers and the CSS C compiler. There is really no need in starting with lower level prgramming (such as assembler) or trying to program ANSI C. Always remember that there is ANSI C and Assembler, that is sufficient.

     

    Ordered the Pickit2 programmer at Farnell.

     

    This programmer also comes with a small experiment board, i bought some additional controllers. I build a experimental board myself with some standard components (switches, LEDs, Relays, POTs, crystal oscillator).

     

    You can buy a debugger, but for simple programs this is not needed.

     

    Reading the book (great!) and trying some of the programs will learn you the basics pretty fast.

     

    Best regards,

     

    Enrico Migchels

     

     

     

  • Hi Jon,

     

    The fastest way to learn about PIC microcontrollers is probably to attend training at one of the Microchip Regional Training Centers located around the world.

    This classes catalog is not up to date but will give you a good glimpse about possibilities.

    You can even learn the basics embedded C programming (course TLS2101) in a couple of days.

    There are courses on all subjects : various architectures, technologies like USB, Ethernet, graphics displays,...

     

    Another source to get started are the webseminars (5 to 20mn).

     

    If you are particurlarly interested by HB LEDs, there is a design center dedicated to various ligting technologies, including HB here.

     

    You can also find lots of PIC centric book references here.

     

    Good reading

    Regards