Mycroft2152
Senior Member
As a user of both PICAXE and Arduino micros, one of the things I like about the Arduino system is the "shields".
The shields are stackable add-on boards for the basic Arduino. Shields come in many flavors, containing simple prototyping areas to motor drivers to Xbee modules.
The shields allow attaching other circuits without directly soldering to the main board.
Shields work for the Arduino because there is a standardized form factor
Unfortuantely for PICAXE users there is no standard board, well sort of...
The AXE020 board seems to be a defacto standard for building robots. I had some time on a dreary rainy afternoon, So I decided to sketch out a couple of possible PICAXE 28 prototyping shields, that would stack on the AXE020.
I generally do not use commercial boards, they tend to be expensive, are the wrong shape or have too many functions or not enough. I am one of those guys who actually does make their own pcbs. It is not really that difficult and after you've done a few it is second nature. I use DIPTRACE (surprise, surprise) to draw out the schematic or pcb and then use Toner Tranfer to add the resist then etch and drill. There are a lot of good sites explaining the TT process, so a quick GOOGLE will give you the step by step procedure.
Back to the PICAXE Protoshield, here are a couple of ideas. The control signals are brought up onto the stackable PICAXE protoshield, along with a reset switch and a power LED and a grid of holes is left for the user.
To use the non-inverted outputs of the PICAXE28, the darlington driver on the AXE020 is replaced with a 330 ohm resistor pack (similar what is done on the AXE030 Servo Expansion pack).
I'm thinking of also adding a 5 volt regulator to the protoshield.
Note: these are only rough sketches and not ready for etching. I'll post the DIPTRACE file when completed.
Myc
The shields are stackable add-on boards for the basic Arduino. Shields come in many flavors, containing simple prototyping areas to motor drivers to Xbee modules.
The shields allow attaching other circuits without directly soldering to the main board.
Shields work for the Arduino because there is a standardized form factor
Unfortuantely for PICAXE users there is no standard board, well sort of...
The AXE020 board seems to be a defacto standard for building robots. I had some time on a dreary rainy afternoon, So I decided to sketch out a couple of possible PICAXE 28 prototyping shields, that would stack on the AXE020.
I generally do not use commercial boards, they tend to be expensive, are the wrong shape or have too many functions or not enough. I am one of those guys who actually does make their own pcbs. It is not really that difficult and after you've done a few it is second nature. I use DIPTRACE (surprise, surprise) to draw out the schematic or pcb and then use Toner Tranfer to add the resist then etch and drill. There are a lot of good sites explaining the TT process, so a quick GOOGLE will give you the step by step procedure.
Back to the PICAXE Protoshield, here are a couple of ideas. The control signals are brought up onto the stackable PICAXE protoshield, along with a reset switch and a power LED and a grid of holes is left for the user.
To use the non-inverted outputs of the PICAXE28, the darlington driver on the AXE020 is replaced with a 330 ohm resistor pack (similar what is done on the AXE030 Servo Expansion pack).
I'm thinking of also adding a 5 volt regulator to the protoshield.
Note: these are only rough sketches and not ready for etching. I'll post the DIPTRACE file when completed.
Myc
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