[GreenKeys] low cost general purpose PIC controller board

[Henry Minsky]

I came across an interesting company which does a number of services that
might be of interest to people on this list.

It is called "Olimex", and it is located in Bulgaria. They have a service=
 that
will fabricate PC boards in single quantity for only $26 USD. These
are double sided boards with solder mask and silk screen. That's really=20
cheap...

The other thing is they make a bunch of prototyping boards for the PIC=20
microcontrollers.
THis one looked particularly interesting- it is a board for $26.95 which has
RS232, four relays and four opto-isolated inputs. You could easily build a
RS232 to current loop converter with one of these I believe. Just need to=20
program
the PIC to do the ASCII to ITA-2 conversion. You could use one of the relays=
 to
send data, and the other one to turn on power to to the teletype (these=20
relays look
a little small for pushing too much current, but you could drive a bigger=20
relay).

A couple of people on this list have programmed PICs to do the conversion,=
 so
maybe this would be a useful piece of reference hardware.


http://www.olimex.com/dev/pic-io.html


DESCRIPTION: Development board for 18 pin PIC microcontrollers with power=20
supply circuit, crystal oscillator circuit, RS232 port, ICSP/ICD port, 4=20
relays output, 4 optocoupler isolated inputs.
=B7       FR-4, 1.5 mm (0,062"), green soldermask, white silkscreen=
 component=20
print
=B7       Dimensions 100x80 mm (3,9x3,15")
=B7       ICSP/ICD connector for programming with PIC-PG1 and debugging with=
=20
PIC-ICD1 (* for the PICs with ICD support)
=B7       Power plug-in jack for +12VDC power supply
=B7       Voltage regulator +5V, 78L05 and filtering capacitors
=B7       status LED connected to RB5
=B7       Quartz crystall oscilator circuit 20Mhz
=B7       DIL18 microcontroller socket
=B7       RS232 DB9 female connector
=B7       RS232 interface circuit with Tx, Rx signals
=B7       4 optocoupler isolated inputs with screw terminals
=B7       input status LEDs
=B7       4 relay outputs with 10A/250VAC contacts with screw terminals
=B7       output status LEDs
HARDWARE: Schematic, PIC ICSP connector (top view)
SUPPORTED DEVICES: PIC16C52, PIC16C54, PIC16C554, PIC16C558, PIC16C56,=20
PIC16C58, PIC16C621, PIC16C622, PIC16C623, PIC16C624, PIC16C625, PIC16F627,=
=20
PIC16F628, PIC16C711, PIC16C715
ORDERING CODES:
                 PIC-IO Fully assembled and tested with 20MHz oscillator