Posts Tagged ‘:explorer 16’
Hacking the Microchip Explorer 16 Development Board
Disclaimer and caution: some of the changes outlined in this article involve soldering and modifications to a fairly costly circuit board, which always runs some small risk of damage or mayhem. While I suspect that most anyone with the inclination to buy and use one of these boards is well-versed in soldering and related precautions, maybe that’s not actually the case, and I assume no liability for any damage that might occur to the board, yourself or your belongings.
The Explorer 16 Development Board is Microchip’s mainline trainer/project board for 16-bit (and lately now, 32-bit) microcontrollers. The modular design of this board allows use of three different microcontroller families along with add-ons for networking, storage, audio, LCD graphics and more, and providing a common point of reference that allows Microchip to provide working example software templates for these different types of projects.
For all its virtues, this is not to say the experience can’t be improved. What follows are a few simple tidbits I’ve learned for enhancing the functionality of this kit.