Win a one of five Firefly 16F88 PIC Tutor PCBs. Contest ends Dec 1 / 06

JUST the PCB?

NOT worth a blank PCB! Maybe for a built one, but for a cheap pcb, Isn't worth the time, information given or possible SPAM.

Well that's your opinion. The answers are mostly yes or no and one multiple choice. Takes only a couple of minutes to answer. It's for a popular kit PCB and it beats hand wiring. It also can be built as a PIC ZIF socket programming adapter.

Is an engineer's time not worth more than a $2 circuit board though? Is the marketing data you gleen not worth it? Heck, we give away thumb drives to contacts for less info!

Attract the right people with the right "reard" and your information will probably be more valuable. Right now, someone who would spend the time for a blank pcb would probably NEVER turn into a sale, making your gathered info a bit tainted.

I think the site, its products and this promotion are aimed more at the hobby market rather than professional engineers.

Tim

The target market is students, hobbyists, educators & anyone curious about programming a microcontroller (PIC in this case) . Sure in quantity a PCB can be very cheap to manufacture but in single quantity they are very expensive. Thumb drives are no different, because thumb drives are made in the millions the cost on smaller ones is on a few dollars. When I've gone to trade shows and such; to get a screwdriver, pen or other bobble was always fun, and it has the makers name on it for marketing. Well I've chosen to give away a handfull of Firefly PCBs to find out what kits might have a chance of success, and where to improve where I can. I would like to offer kits that you can use long after you've assembled it, unlike the vast majority of the kits offered now. I have two more projects coming out and the feedback I've gotten from both the contest and electro-tech forums has been fantastic. Other kits coming soon...

1. an RS485 setback & auto changeover thermostat (think of Aprilaire

1. a 18F2525 based automation controller with 4 relays (think of mm443 or Stargate) I'm trying to design and offer useful, affordable PIC based kits, not just Christmas light type kits or useless little circuits you build once and forget about.

PS what is "reard" the guy who invented bikinis?

Reward.

The "brilliant" can always spot a typo. Wow.

Look, peddle your junk, fine. But unless you are going to REALLY offer us something for our time and info, quit SPAMMING the newsgroup with it.

For the regular SED guys, if you will come to my site and tell me all your trade secrets so I can use them to earn lots of money, I will send you a FREE envelope of air you can use to create your own environment.

Well to each their own, you could have entered the contest three times over with much less typing and time than you've already spent with your replies.

As for "SPAM", I've not sent millions of ads to peoples mailboxes. Matter of fact only a couple of postings on the usenet. The information I've gathered is very helpful and I'm not a big company but simply a small one and I'll use the information collected to design the next kit. There are thousands of electronic kits out there and very very few are any good. Long gone are the Heathkits of yesteryear. I'm trying to design and sell at very affordable prices kits that are modern, well designed and documented, affordable and useful. Not silly blinking lights (although the first program for Firefly is silly blinking lights) but kits you might actually learn something from. What would you consider a prize worthy of 5 minutes of a persons time? To layout and design a PCB takes considerable care and effort even for a simple one. The cost of circuit design can be very high and a although it can cost $3 for a small board (in quantity) they can sell for many times that.

I've been using the Usenet for years, way back when dialup was the norm and BBS ruled the day. I can still smell a Troll...

PS nice site,

Brian wrote:

Isn't

Why on Earth would I want one of your kits? They are more worethless than most.

That Troll odor you smell is arising from you, bud. Look at your stupid comment at the end, like a child, can't help yourself. I'd tell you what the REAL site does, but based on the low complexity of your "kits", you would not understand internet automation anyway.

Now go, peddle your oh so useful wares, but try not to SPAM sed as it is not a site for selling stuff. Learn SEO techniques, natural and P2P, and maybe you will find the kids that would buy that stuff.

Hmm, low complexity. If you knew anything about modern microcontrollers they pretty much pack everything you could ask for inside the silicon. Once what was a jumble of glue logic and such is now self contained.

Oscillators are now all contained in a tiny chip that sells for only a few dollars. That easy to build Firefly & PIC16F88 has more processing power than those old home computers from the 70s. When combined with the ICD2 (Inchworm) you could do thousands of projects on the board, and countless more with the expansion connectors.

Here's a simple program that runs on Firefly and PIC16F88, to a beginner it might appear complex, but with a debugger it's easy to understand.

;Blinky VR1 requires the use of VR1 (DIP switch VR1 = ON) LIST p=16F88 INCLUDE "p16f88.inc" ERRORLEVEL 0, -302

__CONFIG _CONFIG1, 0x2F30 __CONFIG _CONFIG2, 0x3FFC

movlf macro x,y ;MACRO movlf ,

movlw x ;W = literal banksel y ;make sure it's in the right bank movwf y ;register = W endm

cblock 0x20 ;start of general purpose registers Delay_Count ;delay loop counter endc

org 0x000 ;this is where the program starts running Init movlf 0x07, CMCON ;turn comparators off (make it like a 16F84) movlf b'00000010', ANSEL ;select RA1/AN1 as analog input movlf b'11001101', ADCON0 ;AD enabled, RC clock, AN1 selected (VR1) & begin conversion

Red1 movlf b'01000000', PORTA ;LED1 RED movlf b'10111110', TRISA call Delay

Red2 movlf b'10000000', PORTA ;LED2 RED movlf b'00111111', TRISA call Delay

Red3 movlf b'00000001', PORTA ;LED3 RED movlf b'01111110', TRISA call Delay

Green3 movlf b'10000000', PORTA ;LED3 GREEN movlf b'01111110', TRISA call Delay

Green2 movlf b'01000000', PORTA ;LED2 GREEN movlf b'00111111', TRISA call Delay

Green1 movlf b'00000001', PORTA ;LED1 GREEN movlf b'10111110', TRISA call Delay

goto Red1 ;repeat forever

Delay bcf STATUS, RP0 ;bank 0 movf ADRESH, W ;W = VR1 value 0x00-0xFF bsf ADCON0, GO ;start next conversion movwf Delay_Count ;Delay_Count = W btfsc STATUS, Z ;if ADRESH = 0 (Z flag is set) return ;then return (no need to delay)

Loop nop ;32KHz Clock (default internal OSC speed) decfsz Delay_Count, f decfsz Delay_Count, f ; goto Loop return

END

Brian wrote:

Add this to your ignorant use of top posting, it is obvious you don't have a clue! No wonder your site is invisible to the search engines!

Yeah, I am sure TO YOU the PIC is the ultimate of electronics. It will be at the peak of your intellectual reach forever. However, for most applications we design here, it just doesn't have the horsepower. Plus, there shortcomings lead many designers to use 8-bit offerings from other companies.

Know that your stuff is in Toyland, don't be ashamed of it. Lots of people use them, but if you better understand your audience, you'll peddle more of that junk.

Ok sorry about the top posting, fixed.

I've seen site for chicken breeding and circuit design, do you specialize in anything in particular? Do you have any reviews of your electronic designs? What microcontroller if any do you prefer when designing, as the Microchip stuff (they sell millions of em) are only good for toys I suppose :-) Eight bit micros are still the most popular by a large margin, typical appliances don't need 32bit CPUs and small microcontrollers sell for pennies. Your keyboard and mouse contain 8 bit micros, and likely your remote, VCR, TV and thousands of other devices. My kits are aimed at hobbyists, students and experimenters. Even you assuming you actually know what a microcontroller is had to start somewhere. Be it Intel, Motorola, Atmel, Microchip... You probably started with an 8 bit CPU.

I suppose Serama Chickens are good eats but had a hard time finding decent recipes.

Here is the MOST valuable piece of advice you will ever receive: hire a marketing guy. You have ZERO clue that you are on the low end of electronics, or ashamed to realize it. Because of this, you will totally miss your market segment unless you hand things off to someone who can honestly assess your junk for what it is. Old, low-end technology. Why not try something A MILLION people have not already offered? Your kits are no more or less baseline or useful than a million others.

But you miss the point - SPAMMING isn't an accepted market method, even on SED. Maybe if you offered something REAL for someone's time it would be tolerated. Dunno. But you are just an angry little man trying to look like a hot shot now with really pathetic attempts to insult me. Haven't been attacked so viciously for 30 plus years, over on the monkey bars.

Seriously what have you designed? You avoided the question, you claim your company designs electronic something or others. So what have you designed? And how have I insulted you? You called my kits I design and build educational kits and a programmer / debugger. Toyland as you put it, well they are for beginners not amazing techno gurus like yourself who's designs remain top secret and I'm sure are beyond my simple understanding of such ohh electronical thingamabobs.

I've looked at your old post, you're just boo hooing about somebody responding to your "ad" for your company way back.

You've been name slinging on the usenet for ages, "Truck Stop Whore" ring a bell? Grow up petty man, your skin should be a little thicker if you've been around for 30yrs. Still wearing your "Crash Helmet"?

If you want to know what he does for a living go to his website and find out.