Hey guys hope you all are fine and healthy. Today I am going to start a new tutorial, about PIC Microcontrollers. I will start from the very basics of PIC Microcontroller so that the beginner can also learn from it and can easily work on their projects and I will also post some projects in which I will use PIC Microcontroller and will control different modules using it.
The only thing I hate about PIC Microcontroller is the designing of its basic circuit, which we will discuss in coming tutorials, that's why I prefer to work on Arduino which is way more user-friendly than PIC Microcontroller but if look at the brighter side of PIC Microcontroller than it is much more flexible in option as compared to Arduino. Let's start today's tutorial, today I will just give an overview of what actually Microcontroller is and why to use it. So, let's begin with getting started with microcontrollers.
What is Microcontroller?
Microcontrollers are used to put the brain in your projects. Let's take an example, you have seen different light patterns at weddings or different functions where it seems like lights are walking, sometimes they show some characters glowing on and off quickly, etc. Before microcontrollers such patterns of light were very difficult you need a a lot of circuitry (serial & parallel combinations of lights) and then have to decide which light to on and which to off. A big messy thing but with the invention of the microcontroller, now you just have to add a microcontroller and put in some coding and you are done. That's the benefit of the microcontroller. and second thing in order scenario if something goes wrong then you have to change the hardware connections but in the microcontroller just change the code and you are done with no need for soldering etc.
Types of Microcontrollers
There are different microcontrollers manufactured by different companies these days. A few of them are:
- PIC
- ATMEL
- AVR
- FPGa
- Arduino (Board actually, I will explain later)
- & a lot more
but all of them have the same function. Let's look at their function.
Function of Microcontroller
A microcontroller is a simple chip (IC). We are not discussing its internal architecture as it's beyond the scope of this tutorial. We are here just concerned with its output. So a microcontroller is just a simple hardware chip. Now how to operate that chip is a question. A microcontroller has different no of pins some have 8 pins some 16 and some 40 even have 80 pins. Each pin has its function and we tell the microcontroller what function each pin will perform by adding a code in the microcontroller.
PIC Microcontrollers
PIC microcontrollers are manufactured by a company named Microchip. There is a wide variety of PIC microcontrollers. They are named PIC16F877A or PIC 18F452. The first two numbers show the series like the PIC16F series and PIC18F series. Each series has its own functions and qualities and the number of pins also varies. In my tutorial, I am gonna use the PIC18 F452 which is shown in the above figure too.
That's all for right now. I will continue it after afternoon. Stay blessed .... :))
