PICAXE Controller Projects
So I ordered a few of the PICAXE 08 and 08ms from this website. The programming is extremely simple. If you have never done any microcontoller programming before..this is an excellent cheap and easy solution. The most expensive component is (well…shipping) the cable. And even that can be pieced together if you know what your doing. I would suggest however buying the simple kit. That set me back under 20 bucks.
Still…if you need to cut more corners, I would buy the cable and a micro plug (??) and the rest you can fill in with spare parts.
Overall, I’m extremely impressed with the picaxe. Its slow but thats what your trading off for simple programming. It is basically a bootstrapped PIC. Its easier to program and its basic. The problem is that its not too asynchronous. (the pulseout is the exception). Each command is run. While a 500 ms sound is being played, there is nothing else you can do. The “Basic” commands are broken down and run in the order of a millisecond. Fast enough for simple stuff. Not good for DSP.
Regardless, I bought a stash of em and hope to explore what to do with them. I’ll probably branch out to the PIC assembly. At 4 Mhz, there is enough headroom to work with. Up to 40 Mhz with the bigger chips.
Projects
Making sound with PICAXE
PICAXE-08 as Arpeggiator - 9/1/08 Uses the Pic axe Sound command to play simple arpeggios. Not too impressive but a start.
PICAXE as a controller
PICAXE as a selection controller - 9/1/08 Uses the PICAXE READADC to read a value on a pot and translate it to values on three pins. This can be used to select signals via a 4066 chip.
PICAXE 08M driving a shift register - 9/11/08 Uses the PICAXE 08M to shift out data to a 4094 chip.
Wardialer
This Is a circuit based around the NTE1690, a dual tone multi frequency generator chip. Basically, it puts out the tones you hear on a standard pushbutton phone. The tones are generated two at a time (or single if you set the option) and are somewhat sineish. The tones are controlled by a 4×4 set of values that are arranged exactly like the buttons on a phone. The circuit cycles through various patterns to make noise.
Wardialer V1- This version uses a knob to control the speed.
Wardialer v2 - This version uses an external clock to free up some I/O. The code is a little more complicated because of this.