CPU-PIC interfacing

[e-nola]

Hi,

For my senior design project, I am attempting to build an automated device testing system. Most of my experience is traditional electrical engineering stuff, so I spoke with a CE professor at the beginning of the semester about what I need from the system (turn devices on/off from computer control, measure voltages on devices and report back to the computer periodically). He suggested I use microcontrollers and more specifically the PIC16F88 as it has a built in ADC and is fairly simple to program. He also suggested I get the PIC C PCM compiler to interface the computer with the RS485 network of microcontrollers. He ended up leaving unexpectedly shortly after I purchased programmer, the compiler and the uC's.

He basically led me to believe what I needed to do was program the uC's themselves in assembly by just setting up the pins as needed and the UART. Then I could use PIC C to create a C program that interfaces with the uC's(I figure through the built in functions like output_high, read_ADC, #USE RS232...). However, after wrestling with it for sometime and recently talking to another microprocessor teacher, I think perhaps I've been on the wrong path.

If i wanted to make a user interface program that talks to the uC's through the serial port, would PIC C be able to do that, or is it actually just to program the PIC's?

Thanks,
~Eric

[rberek]

The compiler will not create a Windows program for you to interface your PC to your hardware. The C code you write is compiled and burned into the microcontroller and will control only the operations of the PIC itself.

You will then have to write a program on the PC, using Visual Basic or Visual C# or something similar, which will talk to the PIC via the PC's serial or USB port and present the information to the user.

[e-nola]

Thanks for setting me straight Rberek.

I knew something wasn't adding up. Too bad I didn't think to get on here and ask that question a month ago. I may try and just use the parallel port with a stand alone ADC for now since the deadline is not but 2 weeks away and it seems somewhat easier.

[arunb]

Hi,

Standalone systems may need more hardware and software to run, with a microcontroller all you need to do is establish a communication (which is easily done) with the PC....

thanks
arunb