- Tue Jan 01, 2008 11:45 am
#40229
Hi All,
First, a little background: I've been experimenting off & on with microcontrollers & basic electronics for quite some time (a few years), but never had the time, money or knowledge to do any serious work. The most advanced circuits i've built to date are: controlling leds, 7-segment displays, temperature sensors, eeprom, etc. I don't have any (formal or informal) practical electronics training, so I'm probably missing many of the basic concepts.
Recently, I've decided to build my own simple robot. It will be controlled by a simple microcontroller (PIC16F877A), a L293D motor controller & use simple sensors (bump switches & sharp distance sensors) for object detection. This *should* be simple enough, yet i'm somewhat apprehensive about starting this project because i've always been plagued with the following problem: my PIC chips all seem to break.
Since my resources are quite limited, this is very frustrating and frankly, very discouraging. I'm curious if this is due to my lack of anti-static equipment, the lack of proper programming hardware, or some other cause.
Is this a normal occurrence for the rest of you? Any ideas what I can do to prevent further damage?
Kind regards,
Erik
First, a little background: I've been experimenting off & on with microcontrollers & basic electronics for quite some time (a few years), but never had the time, money or knowledge to do any serious work. The most advanced circuits i've built to date are: controlling leds, 7-segment displays, temperature sensors, eeprom, etc. I don't have any (formal or informal) practical electronics training, so I'm probably missing many of the basic concepts.
Recently, I've decided to build my own simple robot. It will be controlled by a simple microcontroller (PIC16F877A), a L293D motor controller & use simple sensors (bump switches & sharp distance sensors) for object detection. This *should* be simple enough, yet i'm somewhat apprehensive about starting this project because i've always been plagued with the following problem: my PIC chips all seem to break.
Since my resources are quite limited, this is very frustrating and frankly, very discouraging. I'm curious if this is due to my lack of anti-static equipment, the lack of proper programming hardware, or some other cause.
Is this a normal occurrence for the rest of you? Any ideas what I can do to prevent further damage?
Kind regards,
Erik