My first PIC project was a CW IDENTIFIER to use with my 10 Meter and 6 Meter beacon.
The ID'er consists of a PIC, 4 MHz ceramic resonator, a 5 Volt regulator, and an NPN
transistor. The circuit is quite simple and it is so small, I built it on a small Radio
Shack perf board. The ID'er sends out my call and grid square over, and over, and over again.
I wrote the program in PIC BASIC PRO.
This is a picture of my 16F84 proto board. Once I have successfully programmed
a PIC-16F84, I transfer the chip to this proto board and bredboard the circuit to test the
software. As you can see, I am currently working on a project using this board.
This is the LAB-X1 microprocessor proto board. With this board, I am able to test serial
communication applications, LCD display applications, LED, DTMF, audio applications,
analog control, and digital control. This board can be purchased from MELABS either in kit
form or assembled form. The main PIC on this proto board is a PIC-16F877. When I create
software, I must change a few parameters to adapt the software to work with the 16F877
prior to testing the program on this proto board. Once all the bugs are worked out, then
I dump the program into a smaller, more economical PIC.