There are a lot of posts to trawl through in this blog if you’ve not followed it from the beginning. Hopefully this summary makes everything a bit clearer…
The first thing I did was to have a look at other cat tracking products on the market. I found that they all have a big flaw… battery life. I wanted GPS level accuracy and a battery life measured in months. Nothing on the market offered that, so it was down to me to design it!
I’ve finished laying out the base station PCB, hurrah!
As ever I’ve laid it out using Eagle – this time I’ve managed to keep it to two layers so that’ll save me some money in PCB manufacture costs. Click it to enlarge.
Now that I’ve got CatTrack working, I’ve been having a look at refining the code. As I previously mentioned, I am using the CCS C compiler, basically because the ‘paid for’ version of their compiler is significantly cheaper than Microchip’s XC8 ‘paid-for’ version. I did begin to wonder though, just how much bigger would my code be, and how much slower would it run if I used the free version of Microchip’s XC8 compiler?
This is what the Memory usage currently looks like in the PIC16LF18345, compiled with CCS C:
Continue Reading “Comparing compilers: CCS C and Microchip XC8”
The last thing I need to work out before getting on with the schematic is which battery chemistry I’m going to use. The most important thing at this point isn’t necessarily identifying the exact battery I want to use, I need to just know the voltage, such that I can design the circuit to suit.
In order to work out the ideal battery chemistry, I need to work out how much each component draws, both in sleep mode and at its peak.
We’re having a bit of a heat-wave at the minute in the UK! It has been over 30°C (86°F) for 2 days in a row. We can’t cope. It’s too hot. Buttons particularly is not impressed. The coolest place he’s found is on top of the water butt – as you can see in the picture.
Anyway, as everyone knows, the best thing to do when it’s nice and sunny outside is sit inside on a computer and look at Microcontrollers.