Right out of the box, a quick test and clear...and the Brake light signal code is flashed to the memory space on the chip. Here is a photo of the fixture that i have made to use the MCU with necessary components all attached neatly to the same board. This makes it really easy to program, test the programs, and show others how this thing works.
Here we have the MCU Controller PCB at the top left. That is the chip that will hold the flash program in memory and loop the commands until told otherwise...
Bottom Left is an interfacing board that i made to go directly from/to the MCU module. This has a line of LED's on it with extra connectors for variable resistors, and pull up/down resistors for signal molding. also these can be used for infared/ultraviolet recievers, Phototransistors, Photo-resistors, Microphones, or whatever you want to hook up to the damn thing.
Top Right is a White Circuit prototyping board. This is the spot for all the components that are added to the circuit later on. It serves as a tenporary place to pop them in and test out how the components will work with the module without the hassle of soldering and desoldering.
And the bottom Right is a Driver board that i made to accompany this setup.
It consists of 14 MOSFETS, one for each digital I/O Pin to be used as output switching drivers. Although the wiring on the board will not handle it, the MOSFETs themselves are rated for just over 50Amps at 150V. This is much more than i'll ever need to drive with this.
the MOSFETS will take the 5VDC signal level from the Module or TTL and CMOS Logic IC's and acts like a switch that connects ground to whatever power source you need...
For example, You connect a Halogen Strobe light setup in your car, you take the Negative lead ( - ) from the lights and connect it to the negative lead on the battery. You then take the Positive Lead from the lights and connect it to the driver board on whatever pin you want to use with it. Then connect the Driver Positive (+) bus to + on the car battery. You turn this thing on, and with the right code written in C, you can have the lights come on/off by button or switch, strobe, strobe alternately, strobe 3 times on one light and 3 times on another light, flash all at the same time, blink back and forth like police lights...the possibilities are endless. This is just a single application.
Interface the inputs with light and touch sensors and you could have a dashboard that has no buttons! It can all be activated by touch! Or automatically fades on with the lighting, as it gets dim outside, the dash gets brighter.
Connecting this setup to Relay(s) will give you control over anything you want. A winch for the truck, the compressor for Air suspension, ignition timing, Underglow lights and fog lights, anything electrical that works on 12 to 13.5 VDC.
Im almost ready to have a simple setup in motion to demonstrate the versatility of these Programmable Microcontrollers.
Videos will be posted and Ill even pull the third brake light out of the car to demonstrate.
Arduino Duemilanove MCU Board with an ATMega328p Chip and Bootloader pre-burned in:
about $40
Replacement ATmega328p Chips with bootloader Pre-burned:
about $6