This board contains a PIC-microcontroller (PIC16F1938 to be more precise) that translates ASCII-commands received via a serial link to I/O operations on the microcontroller's port pins. The 22 pins can be used for digital I/O, ADC, capacitive sensing switch, PWM and counter.
The serial link can be established via WiFi, Bluetooth (2.0 and 4.0) or USB. The board accomodates footprints for connecting either a HC05/HC06 Bluetooth module, RN-41/42 Bluetooth, RN-171 WiFi, ESP8266 WiFi, Elektor FT331 BoB for USB, Elektor FT232R BoB (USB) or the Elektor BL600 E-BoB (Bluetooth4.0).
The author developed Java classes (libraries) for controlling this I/O board, so the user can focus on the functionality of the app rather than digging into details of handling I/O.
There's a 26 pin connector on the PCB for access to all port pins. The board also has two LEDs, NTC and a touch switch for basic applications and testing plus a 32kB EEPROM for datalogging applications.
The preprogrammed PIC16F1938 has a bootloader for (optional) easy updates of the 'interpreter', full source codes are available.
This board will be used in a series of articles in Elektor, development of Android apps for this system will of course also be covered.
9150604532