Strange PIC chip on AXE091

megatoad

New Member
Hello all, I am new here.

I recently purchased a PICAXE AXE091 development board, when I powered it up for the first time there was that hot electronics smell of a toasting component, thats whan I noticed an 8 pin chip (12F508) in the 24LCxx socket that was extremely hot.

This chip appears to be a Microchips PICS microprocessor.

What was it it for?
Why would it have been in that socket?

The board obviously runs fine without the said chip and I am currently cutting my teeth successfully using the 18M2+ asupplied and a 20M2 that I bought with another kit
 

nick12ab

Senior Member
Welcome to the PICAXE Forum.

The PIC12F508 does not correspond to any PICAXE microcontroller, however it is the base PIC microcontroller used for the NKM2401 Radio Encoder/Decoder IC.

It was not meant to be in that socket and it is used with RF modules. It must have been included by accident. According to the AXE091 datasheet, the i2c EEPROM that does go there isn't included in the pakage so you haven't lost out.
 

megatoad

New Member
Thanks Nick, it explains why it toasted itself then :)

I am quite enjoying fiddling around with these again, I last played with PICS controllers 20 years ago when I wrote some switching controllers for a friend who had a business buiilding the electronics behind car stereo display stations, e.g. when you choose what stereo head / speakers/ amp/ subwoofer combinations. They used to kit out the Clarion and Pioneer demo trailers etc.

The micro controllers have come a long way since then and I just thought I would see what I can do for my model railway.

The plan is to build an indexed railway turntable for my future model railway so I am working myself up to that. Hmm its 30 years since I did my O'level in Electronics so I tend to be more a plig and play chap rather than a V=I/R chap, typical techie really :)
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
@ megatoad : Did you purchase the AXE091 directly from Tech Supplies, our online store, or from somewhere else ? Do you know the date the order was placed ?

The 12F508 might have been programmed as an NKM2401 and that seems a feasible explanation.That would not have normally been supplied unless you had ordered one, and should not have been fitted in the I2C EEPROM socket if you did.

If the AXE091 did come from ourselves, please accept our apologies for that. I will make a note of the issue and I am sure we will check our stock of AXE091 boards and try and figure out why it happened.
 

Technoman

Senior Member
... it toasted ...
A bit apart from the original topic : observing that it is sometimes hard to get a perfect toasted bread, and as a toaster seems to rely only upon time, I was wondering what sort of sensor could be used in a high tech toaster, knowing the temperature constraint.
An image sensor coupled with an optical device?
 

BeanieBots

Moderator
My toaster must use optical because it won't toast bread that has already been toasted.
More annoyingly, it won't toast brown bread unless you set it to "charcoal" which is exactly what you get if you forget to put the setting back next time you put in white bread.
I think time is still probably the best overall method for a general purpose toaster.
 

BeanieBots

Moderator
Believe it or not, there does not appear to be a brand anywhere on it!
It's certainly not "high tech" in so far that it is over ten years old and I'm a "tight wad" so it would also have been cheap.
More than likely purchased from Sainsburys.
 
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