Essential tools for electronic hobbyist (2024)

Lab equipment is essential for home electronics projects. Key tools include a multimeter, soldering station, oscilloscope, and power supply. This guide covers affordable options for...

Resistor color code – Online tool

A resistor is a fundamental two-terminal component used in countless electronic devices to limit or regulate electric current. Resistors are often marked with color bands...

PIC16F877A Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)

The ADC module in microcontrollers indeed allows them to interface with the analog world by converting continuous analog signals into discrete digital values. This capability...

Using PWM in PIC16F877A

Digital signals (0 or 1) and analog signals (range of values) are both used in electronics. Analog inputs can be converted to digital through an...

PIC16F877A Timer2 tutorial

The Timer2 module is an 8-bit timer/counter within most PIC MCU devices. Timer2 can increment up to a value of 255 before it overflows back...

PIC16F877A Timer1 Tutorial

The Timer1 module is a 16-bit timer/counter within most PIC MCU devices. Timer1 can increment up to a value of 65535 before it overflows back...

PIC16F877A Timer0 tutorial

The Timer0 module is an 8-bit timer/counter that is included with all 8-bit PIC MCU devices. The Timer0 is more than just a timer....

PIC Microcontrollers Timers

In this tutorial, we will learn what are "Timers"; we will explain this with examples using the Microcontroller PIC16F877A. For this tutorial is may be...

Prerequisits

To make it easier, I assume you have a basic knowledge of the following:

  • Basic circuitry knowledge; such as resistors, transistors, diodes, relays.
  • Basic programming knowledge in C; understand what are functions, operators, data types, and more.
  • Digital electronics, such as logic gates.

On some occasions I will explain it from scratch, but to understand everything, it is best to brush up on the basics so that you can follow the tutorials.

Required Software

For these tutorials we use Microchip’s own software package that includes:

  • MPLAB X IDE
  • XC8 Compiler
  • PICKIT3 programmer/debugger

All the tools can be downloaded at the official website of Microchip Technology

Required Hardware

The full tutorial consists of many different types of electrical components, sensors and actuators. It depends completely on your own project what you need. However, in all cases you will need a Pickit3 tool to install the software and you need at least 1 PIC16F877A microcontroller to install it on.