Sirron
August 21st, 2008, 06:12 AM
Might be the wrong place, please move it if so.
I've got very little prior experience with PIC chip programming, but I need to automate a biodiesel reactor, and I think this would be the best way to go about it. All I need it to be able to do is respond to button presses to turn on and off the heater, pumps, that sort of thing, and keep track of the stage the reaction is at, preferably with a numerical LED display - but a row of lights would be fine otherwise.
I think I could probably do it all with transistors... but they give me a headache so I'd rather not ^^. Also, since this machine will be going into small-scale production, being able to update the software just by swapping out the chip would be very useful, so PIC seems to be the way forward.
What I'm asking is, does anyone have any recommendations for a kit? I need a board for flashing the chips, and it would really help if it was USB. I would be prepared to assemble it myself if it's straightforward enough. And of course, I really would prefer if I could do the programming and flashing through ubuntu. And I'll make the program available under the GPL, of course.
If windows and a serial port are necessary, so be it. But I'd still appreciate recommendations.
thanks!
I've got very little prior experience with PIC chip programming, but I need to automate a biodiesel reactor, and I think this would be the best way to go about it. All I need it to be able to do is respond to button presses to turn on and off the heater, pumps, that sort of thing, and keep track of the stage the reaction is at, preferably with a numerical LED display - but a row of lights would be fine otherwise.
I think I could probably do it all with transistors... but they give me a headache so I'd rather not ^^. Also, since this machine will be going into small-scale production, being able to update the software just by swapping out the chip would be very useful, so PIC seems to be the way forward.
What I'm asking is, does anyone have any recommendations for a kit? I need a board for flashing the chips, and it would really help if it was USB. I would be prepared to assemble it myself if it's straightforward enough. And of course, I really would prefer if I could do the programming and flashing through ubuntu. And I'll make the program available under the GPL, of course.
If windows and a serial port are necessary, so be it. But I'd still appreciate recommendations.
thanks!