PIC Microcontrollers: 50 Projects for Beginners & Experts [Illustrated] [Paperback]

As a starter with the PIC programming I purchased a couple of books under the title PIC programming through amazon that had "good feedbacks" with very disapointing results. Then I got this book! Published from the excellent Elektor electronics organisation this book goes on about eplaning every detail in the amazing and fun projects as well as the new and upcoming programming language JAL, a very useful and clever language that is completely free and equaly or more capable than other languages-compiler (PicBasic...etc) and with a huge JAL community.

The key point of this book is that every software used in the book (compiler, translator etc) is free and it is not assuming that you are using the same equipment (i.e. programmer) with the book. The PIC16F877 (which is the pic used for all the projects) is a big, popular and powerful pic which a beginner or an expert can use to implement any desired circuit. The writter also tells you how to easily move onto other PICs, after you have mastered and understood all the project, in a very succesfull way.

There is also a support website with all the PIC source codes, all the downloads you will need, FAQs and mutch more.

I've only recently started getting into PIC microcontrollers and electronics in general - I'm more of a graphics programmer - and I knew I didn't fancy learning more ASM, so I'd plumped for JAL as my language of choice for programming the PIC I'd chosen, the 16F628A.

My initial experiments were good... I was using my JAL code to program the PIC 16F628A and getting good results (I was doing something with an RGB LED and PWM).

I enjoyed myself so much, I decided to learn more and bought this book after seeing it recommended. I have read some of the first chapters and must say that the book is written in a very easy-going engaging style. It covers what you need to know and the learning curve is acceptable.

One thing that should be understood is that it is made quite clear at the beginning that the main PIC to be used will be the 16F877 and so you'd be best getting some of these for your projects. The 16F877 is massive when compared to the 16F628A or the 12F675 (which I also had hopes of using) but you need it. Even though the book talks about porting from PIC to PIC I've not got there yet - but previous experience (without the book) proved that this was not a cakewalk.

One really great thing about the book is that it tells you how to go about getting hold of an in-circuit programmer and the software you will need to start programming in JAL and writing to the PIC nice and easy. I believe in-circuit programming is a necessity although I, myself, plumped for a USB programmer... as I'm using a laptop I don't think that a serial connection to the PIC programmer will get good results. Be wary of this.

The book has a large variety of projects for you to try and each one will open up new avenues for you to explore. The download bundles the book refers to are also easily accessible as you would hope.

I'm very impressed with this book. Its very easy going in style and readable. It focuses mainly on a 40 pin PIC 16F877 as mentioned elsewhere and you'd do well to buy one and use his way of programming it with the 'wisp' programmer to get the most help from the book.

However Ive noticed that the functionality is similar to my official 20 pin PicKit2 development programmer with 16F690 which i already bought so I'm happy to to convert the programming to that smaller PIC as I had this working 'hello world' in an hour and I am more confident with programming than electronics. Its just the pin layout and configuration of the pins (as input/output etc) that will vary as long as you choose a high spec chip like that has those features he uses.

The author has obviously been on the scene for some while and has helped extend the JAL language to have his own libraries (called 16fxxx_bert) with useful routines such as serial interfacing. There isn't i dont think a 'bert' version available for the pickit2 pic but there is a basic JAL library available on the web for it so I will have to copy and paste code to grab the extensions they made.

The 12f675 6 pin pic (from around 80p!) does have a 'bert' version as well as the basic jal library and it is supported by pickit2 programmer as well as being well known. The author covers this one towards the end of the book.

There is so much to learn here in both electronics and pic programming.
There is loads about sensors, sounds, connecting to other pics, external memory etc etc. A lot of effort has obviously been made to explain all the circuits / functionality in that 40 pin pic mostly but that should translate well to all pics that share each feature.

You could use the book if you dont like JAL but can program as you can always use the JAL as simple way of explaining the electronics and program flow and convert to C (or assembly as given with training with pickit2) if you prefer it. However as the author says if it hadnt been JAL only a subset of the examples would have been coded in the same time and also you will spend a lot of time reading microchips reference material. Why not go the JAL route and use the forums for advice instead!

I notice a lot of potential pitfalls have been mentioned about how to avoid damaging your PICs and just good general advice and knowledge shared.

Thoroughly recommended - I am learning stacks from this.