Archived News (click here for HOODMICRO main page)

09-12-2005

Oops, while adding the option to order bare PCBs last time, I made a little mistake in the HTML code, making it impossible to order either option. Fixed it, you should be able to add HOODMICRO products to your shopping cart now.

Added option to order completely bare, unassembled HOODMICRO PCBs without components for the super low price of $1.95. Not sure if this will turn out to be more trouble than it's worth. On the one hand, the time spent supporting users trying to solder boards by themselves might outweight the profit. PJRC.com tried providing MP3 Players as unassembled kits, but found that it cost them just as much to pre-assemble them than try to debug people's soldering mistakes.

On the other hand, most of the customers buying this product ARE engineers who know how to debug a circuit, so maybe it will work out. What's your opinion? Let us know in the forum or send email.

I built a few more HOODMICRO's, now have 5 completed in stock, ready to ship.

The production boards have arrived from the PCB fabrication house, woohoo! These are very nice looking boards with full solder mask and silk screen. I haven't counted very hard, but it looks like I have about 240 boards! Now I just have to start soldering.

I finally got a 19.2Kbps serial bitbang receive routine working! I have updated the example firmware area with the new code. This new example shows how to send and receive 19.2Kbps serial data to a PC's serial port using the HOODMICRO and PIC12F629 running at 4MHz (internal oscillator).

I submitted my order for a full panel of HOODMICRO PCBs (should provide at least 100 units). We currently have two completed HOODMICROs in stock, and once these PCBs arrive in a week or two, we should have lots of stock quantity.

Added example firmware for bitbanging serial data.

Added an example firmware page with some C source code for blinking the HOODMICRO's LED.

I added a little write up about how the integrated PIC Programmer of the HOODMICRO works.

Built one extra HOODMICRO today. I also submitted a small patch to Alain Gibaud, author of PiKdev, to try to get PiKdev to support HOODMICRO out of the box. People have been doing some interesting projects with the HOODMICRO. I'm quite encouraged and pleased with the results so far. I need to submit an order for additional PCBs, but probably won't be able to do so until at least this weekend.

Sales have been picking up lately. I have one order from Canada that I haven't received any payment on yet. If I get a check for that order, I'm out of stock for now. I placed a big order for more components this morning. When I get a chance, I'm also going to order a full panel of PCBs (currently I have two more prototype PCBs left ready to build).

Been looking at the USB dongle again. I'm thinking of writing bare bones PIC12F6XX programming software for the USB dongle using the new open source Qt 4.0 and MinGW GNU C++ compiler. This would allow us to have the same programming software available under Windows and Linux. Today I was able to use a few FTD2XX.DLL API calls from MinGW. Haven't started on the Qt GUI or anything else yet though.

Today I made a tool for cutting the slot in the plastic case a lot easier. Before, I was free handing it with just my bare soldering iron. Now I've got a little cookie cutter like piece that I heat up and use to cut out the slot, which makes a much nicer looking cut with a lot less effort.

I have one completed device in stock now.

The new PCBs work great and solder together nicely. I'm making a running change to the GP4R/GP5R current limiting resistors. They are now going to be 2.7K ohms instead of 1K. This shouldn't really make any difference to most applications, but will simplify soldering (less crap to pay attention to).

Received the boards. Been busy soldering one together. Not quite finished yet, but getting there.

Received shipment confirmation on our next batch of prototype PCBs. Hopefully they will arrive shortly!

06-14-2005

Submitted my HOODMICRO.ini file and PIC12F683 calibration fix to the WinPic author. Hopefully these will be included in future versions of WinPic to make it easier for users.

Received payment on the other order and packaged it for shipment. I'm out of HOODMICRO's until the next batch of PCBs arrive. I received email confirmation of passing DRC today, so hopefully it won't be long before they are manufactured.

Received payment on one of the two orders and packaged it up for shipment tomorrow.

I also submitted an order of my own for 7 additional prototype PCBs to be manufactured. This PCB revision moves some of the resistors around on the board layout so that they are not underneath the switch. This will make it easier to solder.

Received two (unpaid) orders in one day! Assuming these two send in their payments, I'm out of stock for now. Might have to think about making a larger batch next time.

Got our first order this weekend!

Been working on a third PCB revision that re-positions some of the resistors out from underneath the DPDT switch. This does not change any of the functionality or circuitry of the device, but will make it easier to solder in the future. These initial prototypes took a little extra time assembling because we had to manually hold the switch from rocking back and forth during soldering.

Finished drilling the plastic hood for one extra HOODMICRO. This one is now available for sale!

Just finished soldering the other three prototype PCB duplicates. Haven't tested them yet, and I haven't drilled the top plastic hoods for them yet.

Posted pictures of the HOODMICRO v1.1 prototype.

I built one v1.1 HOODMICRO prototype and have been playing with it all weekend. It works quite well, I can program and test my code quite rapidly. I did run into a little problem with the WinPic software however. Programming a PIC12F683 seems to lose the oscillator calibration configuration word. We'll probably want to patch that bug before too many people start trying to program PIC12F683 chips with it.

The new PCB v1.1 prototypes have arrived.

Got shipment confirmation on my HOODMICRO v1.1 PCB prototypes. Should arrive in few days. I can't wait to start playing with them.

Ran across an old web page by Luigi Rizzo from around the 1996 to 1998 time frame that describes another serial port PIC programming circuit. The RCD Programmer is appearantly not the first circuit to employ a charge pump capacitor for producing VPP programming voltage. As it turns out, the HOODMICRO v1.1 bares far more similarity to Luigi's design than the RCD Programmer I was originally deriving my design from.

Anyway, it is nice to know that the HOODMICRO has relations to prior art dating back so far in the past. It doesn't look like Luigi had any interest in pursuing his charge pump PIC programmer as a product, so I doubt he's going to care about HOODMICRO the way some company (hint, initials of: BS) cares about one of my other earlier products.

Started writing up documentation on the HOODMICRO's pinouts.

Posted the HOODMICRO v1.1 schematic diagram in the Developer's Area. This is the one that includes the integrated PIC programming circuitry (derived from the RCD Programmer). You will notice that the programmer hardly adds any components to the circuit to speak of. I was able to re-use many components that the old circuit already had.

Got food poisoning this weekend at the company picnic, but managed to send off revision 1.1 of the HOODMICRO for manufacture. I ordered two copies this time, hope they work!

Stayed up really late and got the FT232BM bit-bang mode to successfully read a PIC12F629 with the RCD Programmer. It's still a lot slower than using a real serial port, but that might be fixable with more work optimizing the code. The cool thing about this is that you can now make a USB PIC Programmer without requiring a pre-programmed microcontroller to do it, like all of the other USB PIC Programmers that already exist out there.

I bought one of these USB to RS232 adapters for $7.80. This seems like the cheapest way to interface to computers without built-in RS232 ports (like my laptop). It even has full -/+9VDC signaling, which should be good enough for providing the 13VDC we need to program PICmicro chips. Unfortunately, IC-Prog and WinPic do not work right when trying to use this adapter.

My USB to Serial cable is appearantly using an FT232BM USB chip inside. This chip has an alternative mode of operation that allows bit-banging the I/O lines. I'm trying to figure out FTDI's API to see if I can use this bit-bang mode to successfully do PIC programming.

Spent the night routing traces for the next revision of the HOODMICRO. Got all traces routed, with all components mounted on the top side. Very exciting. I will have to print it out and verify that all components will fit without interferring with each other, but it's already almost midnight and I have to go to work tomorrow.

The first prototype works okay, but of course, now that I'm thinking of adding in-circuit serial programming (ICSP) to the device, I will not be mass producing this prototype.

Yesterday, the additional parts I ordered from Mouser for adding ICSP arrived (DPDT switches, 13V zener diodes, 470µF capacitors, etc). I've been playing with them, trying to think up various ways to successfully cram them into the DB9 to DB25 plastic hood. It's going to be very tight, but I still think that it can be done.

Finished soldering the prototype together. Haven't tested it yet.

The board has arrived.

Got shipment confirmation on the revision 1.0 prototype PCB today. Should arrive before the end of the week hopefully.

I've been trying to find ways to program the microcontroller chip in-circuit. I ran across the RCD Programmer and I'm pretty excited about the charge pump idea it introduces. I'm not terribly pleased with the current RCD schematic, I think there is plenty of room for improvement upon the current implementation. I'm hoping that I can integrate an RCD type programmer into the next revision of the HOODMICRO protoboard. Hopefully, with the flip of a switch, the protoboard can become an in-circuit PIC programmer. This would make the protoboard a lot cooler.

Got this message in email today: "The design has passed DRC and is now pending panelization. The design will be sent out to manufacture in our next batch." We passed DRC, woohoo!

Been updating other parts of the web site in preparation for the arrival of HOODMICRO.

Added some better pictures of the proof-of-concept.

Added the prototype schematic diagram to the Developer's Area.

Took a picture of the proof-of-concept. This isn't the actual prototype PCB yet, this is just to show the basic idea of the device and to prove that a DIP socketed microcontroller can clear the plastic hood enclosure. In the final device, the DIP socket will be located more close to the center of the board rather than up against the DB9 like in the picture. This will make it easier for users to get their fingers inside to remove the chip for programming.

Sent off the first prototype of the HOODMICRO PCB out to the PCB fabrication house. Since this design requires a double layer PCB, we're not too excited about trying to fabricate the PCB ourselves. Besides, the end goal is to have this device mass produced rather than hand made like earlier products.