PICKINI V4 - an easy to build, self adjusting PI detector

[MartyJ1963]

Hi Guzzi,,,Nice little layout,,,Can you post the sprint layout for it please? Hope your outside tests go well,,Regards,,,Marty

[waltr]

Hello All
Just finished my Pickini SMD and it works.Not tested outside, but promising.
Used Pickini HEX 4.4. I used the bottom layer as ground.[ATTACH]48338[/ATTACH][ATTACH]48337[/ATTACH][ATTACH]48339[/ATTACH]

Nice ground plane.
I like doing a full ground plane as it tends to reduce noise.

[Guzzi]

Pickini SMD

Hello All
Just finished my Pickini SMD and it works.Not tested outside, but promising.
Used Pickini HEX 4.4. I used the bottom layer as ground.

[MartyJ1963]

@Goaty,,,,Sorry,,Yes,,Of course, how did I mistake that! Elliot 'is' in Victoria,,Sorry Elliot,Lol. I've used the Mirage only once at the beach and the Pickini twice. Both have found me numerous objects, but for Gold (or whatever it is you mostly search for ) the Mirage, to me, is by far the best, I favour it over my T2. I use the pickini a lot in the woodland here and it is always in my kit whenever I go out. It'll be great to make one like Waltr said where all the programming pins are on board and it can be drawn and made smaller to fit more lighter compact boxes or tubes. I've spent a few nights recently trying to draw one but it may take me awhile because I'm very new to SMD components,,,but, like they say, if you 'don't do'-you 'don't learn',,,keep us posted on your progress Goaty and I'll keep pluggin' at this smd drawing and let you know how it goes,,,Regards,,Marty

[waltr]

Yeah! Sorry!

And Thanks waltr for the ICSP info. Ultimately it would pay to re-design the board for this but at the moment I am working towards a small 'set & forget' Pikini for a waterproof detector based on designs published earlier in this thread. I keep promising myself that I will get into programming micros but too many other things keep coming up to occupy my time - one of the hazards of retirement I guess!

That is also a good plan.
The ICSP interface is important if you plan experimenting with code.

[Goaty]

Hiya Goaty,,,Just wondering, with you being near the Gold fields in Sth Oz, have you tried the Mirage P.I out yet? I think it's Ace for small gold,,,really sensitive,,though at the moment I'm only using it Inland as I'm too far from any beaches,,,I think Elliot may be still doing some pcb's and he's in Sth Australia too. Regards,,Marty

Most of my detecting is on the beaches. The local goldfields around Echunga have been well & truly picked over and the goldfields in the north and mid-north a long trip to get to. Elliot is across the border in Vic ( but I won't hold that against him ) which seems to have some reasonably productive fields.

[MartyJ1963]

Hiya Goaty,,,Just wondering, with you being near the Gold fields in Sth Oz, have you tried the Mirage P.I out yet? I think it's Ace for small gold,,,really sensitive,,though at the moment I'm only using it Inland as I'm too far from any beaches,,,I think Elliot may be still doing some pcb's and he's in Sth Australia too. Regards,,Marty

[Goaty]

Hiya Goaty,,,,Did you mean a PIC12F1824? Regards, Marty.

Yeah! Sorry!

And Thanks waltr for the ICSP info. Ultimately it would pay to re-design the board for this but at the moment I am working towards a small 'set & forget' Pikini for a waterproof detector based on designs published earlier in this thread. I keep promising myself that I will get into programming micros but too many other things keep coming up to occupy my time - one of the hazards of retirement I guess!

[MartyJ1963]

Hiya Goaty,,,,Did you mean a PIC12F1824? Regards, Marty.

[waltr]

@Marty
Thanks for your concerns - it's certainly a worrying situation for a lot of people. Hats off to the 'firies' who do an amazing job fighting these fires.

Re the smd Pickini project, progress has slowed at the moment waiting for parts but I have made a programming socket to hopefully enable programming of the 14 pin smd Pic 16F1864.

[ATTACH]48329[/ATTACH]

It seems to hold the pic securely enough (upside-down!) and make good contact with the pins. The contacts have been cut from a 32 pin PLCC sm socket soldered to pads scribed into a scrap of PC board using the back of a scalpel blade. I had to fit a strip of plastic into the bottom of the socket to pack up the chip so its legs make more secure contact with the sprung socket contacts. I can't test it until the 16F1864s arrive - It just has a 'dummy' chip in it at the moment.
I think off board programming may be a better proposition as in-circuit programming may require isolating too much of the other circuitry to make it effective.

I have also spotted another problem with the board layout - the S pin of the IRF740 goes to an isolated pad. It needs to go to ground.

That should work and an inventive solution.

However, an ICSP header is really the way to go and circuit can easily be designed to isolate other circuits without impairing their function.
First is a diode & 10k pull-up from +5V to MCLR/Vpp and a Schottky diode from +5V to PIC's Vcc to prevent powering +5V from the programmer.
Series resistors between the PIC's PGD & PGC pins to other circuit if used. I try not using these two pins so that I can use them for In Circuit debugging.

Here is the schematic of the universal 18pin PIC boards I use.
PIC- 16F88 sch.pdf

[useus]

thank you, I buy a correct pic

[BC547]

I asked to rewrite the code for pic16f73

That won't be possible. As I told before, the design is relying heavily on built-in resources like a gateable timer, internal 32 MHz oscillator, DAC output, ADC and analog comparator inputs ...

After a quick look at the datasheet of the pic16f7x:

https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/30325b.pdf

A lot of the required resources are missing !

[useus]

just insert the code i a windows notepad editot txt file, save it as pickini.hex instead of pickini.txt
easy or?

I asked to rewrite the code for pic16f73

[bernte_one]

would anyone be able to create the hex file for PIC16F73?


thanks!

just insert the code i a windows notepad editot txt file, save it as pickini.hex instead of pickini.txt
easy or?

[Goaty]

@Marty
Thanks for your concerns - it's certainly a worrying situation for a lot of people. Hats off to the 'firies' who do an amazing job fighting these fires.

Re the smd Pickini project, progress has slowed at the moment waiting for parts but I have made a programming socket to hopefully enable programming of the 14 pin smd Pic 16F1864.



It seems to hold the pic securely enough (upside-down!) and make good contact with the pins. The contacts have been cut from a 32 pin PLCC sm socket soldered to pads scribed into a scrap of PC board using the back of a scalpel blade. I had to fit a strip of plastic into the bottom of the socket to pack up the chip so its legs make more secure contact with the sprung socket contacts. I can't test it until the 16F1864s arrive - It just has a 'dummy' chip in it at the moment.
I think off board programming may be a better proposition as in-circuit programming may require isolating too much of the other circuitry to make it effective.

I have also spotted another problem with the board layout - the S pin of the IRF740 goes to an isolated pad. It needs to go to ground.