pic16f628

i’ve always had an interest in design and am recently trying to merge that with my knowledge of electrical engineering. through the many tech/hacking/design/electronics blogs i read, i came across this project. it is a RGB LED controlled by a PIC16F628 microcontroller. through school, i’ve worked with the motorola 68HC11 processor and now the TI C5510 processor, but never microcontrollers. so i decided to take matters into my own hands.

i having been seeing them used more and more in projects i read in my RSS feeds and figured it would be a good opportunity to apply my knowledge and learn something new. especially considering i have experience with other processors. plus i want to start installing neat ambient intelligent LED based accent lighting sytems in my house such as this stair lighting project (which uses the same chip) and the interactive LED coffee table (which uses OP-AMPS), as well as some things i’ve been thinking up of my own.

i was delighted to learn that the development environment for is published by the manufacturer and is totally free.

i ordered a 2 WATT RGB LED (it even needs a heat sink), i already have the microcontroller/programmer and the rest of the miscellaneous parts, and can’t wait to get this together. i hope to learn from the source and write my own program to create the lighting system i’ve been thinking of, more on that once i scan some sketches.

here’s the programmer i’ll be using and the preliminary circuit.