Hardware agony

dogfish64 · Post by **dogfish64** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:36 pm

Have flowcode and a couple of e blocks, which when programmed work great. However when i construct anything on a bread boaRD IT FAILS. e.g.
I tried a simple flasher on a 16F628 and it does nothing unless i unplug the ground wire from the chip which results in a steady LED light on. Could someone please give me a simple diagram to follow - am I missing something simple ? do all unused ports have to go to ground ?
As I said it works fine on the e block leds and I have it set to internal clock on the chip.

Any help would be fantastic

Thanks

Post by **Benj** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:26 am

Hello

Here you can find the datasheets containing the schematics for our E-Blocks.

http://www.matrixmultimedia.com/eblocks/index.php

I/O ports do not need to be grounded and LEDs should work straight fro the I/O as long as there is a path back to ground.

As for your LED staying on. Did you include delays between the switch on and switch off commands.

dogfish64 · Post by **dogfish64** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:33 pm

Hello again,
I have the program working fine on the eblocks - it's only when I try it on a breadboard which I have checked a thousand times. Could you please give me some information on the correct settings for flowcode v3 as I am unsure about internal timers, etc and watchdog on/off

I am using a 16F628 chip and want to use it's internal timer (what speed do i use ?)

Any help would be great

Delwyn

Post by **Benj** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:54 am

Hello

If the program is running fine on the E-Blocks system then it is likely that your software is fine. If nothing is happening on your own hardware then the first things to check are that the OSC crystal and caps are connected correctly (refer to pic datasheet), The +v and GND lines are connected and stabilised by electrolytic capacitors and that you have at least a 1K resistor between +v and MCLR.