MapleEngineer

When I first started using AVRs I bought a couple of UNOs. I needed something smaller that I could use inside controllers for my machines. I moved to the ProMini and it served me well for two or three years. I got a couple of Nanos in Hacker Boxes and really liked them. I like the built in voltage regulators, the USB port, and the ICP port. I used Nanos for a couple of years then needed something bigger. Now I'm using the ATMEGA2560 Pro Mini. It's got enough IO to run my entire room.

I've recently switched from Bascom AVR to Great Cow Basic. I'm thinking that I may need to mode to a PIC based MCU.

Does anyone have a favorite PIC based MCU board similar to the ATMEGA2560 Pro Mini?

This little power supply board plugs into a ProMini shield stack or the ProMini Backplane boards that I designed. It's basic but it has a couple of nice features.

In this top view:

A - Power inlet

B - Screw terminals for offboard switch

C - Jumper across switch screw terminals

D - Reverse current protection diode

E - 5V regulator

F - 3.3V regulator

G - 3.3V/5V on Vcc rail jumper

The switch screw terminals let me use an external switch to turn the power supply on and off. If I'm not using an external switch I can use the adjacent jumper to tie the power supply on or I can put the jumper on and take it off to turn the power supply on and off.

The power supply puts the supply voltage from the power connector onto the Vin rail on the ProMini Backplane board. There is a jumper on the next slot over to allow me to take Vin off that socket so that I can put the ProMini in there and not have it powered all the time.

You can see two round pads between the white power inlet connector and the green screw terminals. This is an optional 2-pin header that sends regulated 3.3V and 5V from the power supply board down to the ProMini Backplane board to supply screw terminals to allow me to power offboard sensors or other devices easily.

You can clearly see the extra 2-pin connector in this bottom shot.

This board was designed in DS PCB before I switched to Pulsonix. I had them made by All PCB and assembled them by hand. This was a fun little project and I use these little boards quite often.

Here it is in action. The PSU board and a ProMini installed on the left ProMini Backplane board. You can see the 5V, GND, and 3V3 screw terminals to supply offboard power. I've also got two Backplane boards daisy chained together. You can also just see the 6-pin ICP port to the left of the screw terminals.

I needed some LEDs so that I could track what my data lines were doing. I started with a bunch of LEDs and resistors on a breadboard.

From there I made up a small block of SMD LEDs and resistors on a piece of proto board.

Then I moved to an actual prototype on a dedicated protoboard.

Finally, I produced the finished product. BLINKY LIGHTS!

The friend who I work with can design a board entirely in software, we use Pulsonix, without every making a prototype, send it for manufacture, and get working boards back. Even when I build multiple prototypes I often end up with boards that need FECs to make them work.

When I started soldering everything was big and had leads that went through holes in the board. You inserted the leads, bent them over to hold the component, flipped the board over, soldered everything, and trimmed off the excess leads.

Now I'm soldering things down to 0402 SMDs (1/4 the size of the smallest component in the picture) using a needle point soldering tip and a microscope.

A pair of 2N2222 transistors, one SOT23 and one TO-92.

This is the setup I used to calibrate the vacuum sensor. The vacuum line connects on the right. The right T is the vacuum sensor. The left T is a vacuum gauge. The ball valve allows me to easily release the vacuum.

I use the vacuum transducers to monitor the vacuum level on the pump side and the collection (tree) side of the vacuum releaser.

This is the breadboard prototype of the first iteration of the industrial controller that I use to make maple syrup and that I call the SapMaster.

The Arduino Nano version ended up in a PVC project box from Turkey.

The Arduino boards is on the left in this photo.

I built these a few years ago to let me use UNO shields with Pro Minis to speed up prototyping. This was an early version. Later versions had more and more features added until I didn't need the shields anymore. That's when my Pro Mini Backplane was born.

One of the more than 120 varieties of dailies planted around our house and gardens.

My wife ran off the London and left me in charge for 3 weeks. I didn't kill her tomatoes.

A couple of farts yesterday.

When I saw these I started talking out loud about my recent efforts to prefect a homemade naan recipe to go with my favorite butter chicken recipe. We'll see whether that had any impact today.

The naan is coming along nicely. I'm going to make another batch today.

I'm working on making decent naan at home. My Indian coworkers are trying to help. It was better the second day after fermenting overnight. I hope that bread flour and a new recipe will improve it even more.