2013-11-06

The 12F series of PIC microcontrollers are handy little 8-pin devices designed for small embedded applications that do not require too many I/O resources, and where small size is advantageous. These applications include a wide range of everyday products such as hair dryers, electric toothbrushes, rice cookers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, and blenders. Despite their small size, the PIC12F series microcontrollers offer many advanced features including wide operating voltage, internal programmable oscillator, 4 channels of 10-bit ADC, on-board EEPROM memory, on-chip voltage reference, multiple communication peripherals (UART, SPI, and I2C), PWM, and more. Today we are introducing a new development board (rapidPIC-08 V1.0) for easy and rapid prototyping of standalone applications using PIC12F microcontrollers.



Rapid PIC12F Series Microcontroller Development Board

Features:

On-board voltage regulator provides 5 V supply for your application circuit

Header pins to access all six I/O pins of PIC12F microcontroller

On-board Reset and ICSP programming header

ON/OFF slide switch

Four tact switches with a voltage divider network on board for connecting to an analog pin

On-board power indicator and digital output LEDs

Board dimensions are 1.95″ X 3.9″ (5cm X 10cm)

Circuit Diagrams

The regulated +5V power supply voltage on board is derived using the AMS1117-5.0 regulator IC. The detail of the power supply unit (PSU) is shown below. The DC input should be in-between 7-12V. LD1 is a power-on indicator LED.



PSU Circuit

All microcontroller I/O pins and +5V power supply are accessed through header pins. A separate 5-pin header is provided for easy ICSP interface with the PICKit-2 or PICKit-3 programmer/debugger device.



MCU and header connections

There are five tact switches for user inputs and one LED for output on the board. Out of five tact switches, one (SW5 in figure below) can be connected to the GP3/MCLR pin of the PIC12F microcontroller through a 2-pin jumper (JP1). So, this switch can be used as either Reset or digital input through GP3, based on the MCU configuration Word. It can be completely disconnected from the circuit by taking the jumper OFF. The remaining four tact switches (SW1 through SW4) are for digital inputs. In order to save I/O pins, they are interfaced to the PIC12F microcontroller through one analog input pin using a voltage divider network as shown in the circuit diagram below. Jumper JP3 can connect these switches to either AN2 or AN3 analog pin of the PIC12F microcontroller. If you want to use a different analog channel (other than AN2 and AN3), you can simply take the Jumper JP3 OFF and manually hook it to the analog pin of your choice.

Tact switches and output LED

Jumper settings for Reset, output LED, and tact switches

The rapiPIC-08 development board has an additional prototyping area on the right side for your application circuit.

Assembled rapidPIC-08 development board

Powering rapidPIC-08 board through a 9V PP3 battery

Buy rapidPIC-08 Development Board as a kit

We are currently offering a DIY kit version of the rapidPIC-08 development board on Tindie for those who are interested. Check this out.

Items you will receive in the kit

PIC12F based projects

Wondering what you can do with this board? If you search online you will find tons of cool projects done with PIC12F microcontrollers. Here’s a list of few of them.

A beginner’s data logger with serial interface

0-20V digital voltmeter

Playing a song tune with PIC12F683

Ultrasonic sound detector

Metal detector

PAL video superimposer

Laser projector

A super simple IR remote

Thermometer with Nokia 3310 LCD

Pong video game

Mini servo controller

Temperature sensing mug

IR light dimmer

Another Ping-Pong game

Another metal detector

Single-chip Audio Player

Remote-controlled light dimmer

Show more