Microchip Technology Inc. has released its MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC18 microcontrollers, which comes with all of the components, documentation, schematics, debugging and programming capabilities necessary for USB and touch-sensing applications. It includes a development board with a 44-pin PIC18F46J50 MCU featuring nanoWatt XLP technology for extremely low power, mTouch capacitive touch sensing, a Bosch Sensortec BMA150 accelerometer, 64 KB flash program memory, and more.
The Bosch Sensortec BMA150 digital triaxial accelerometer enables the PIC18 Starter Kit board to detect acceleration in three perpendicular axes for sensing the board's tilt and motion. The demo code included in the kit enables the board to operate as a USB mouse or joystick using the accelerometer. Acceleration on all three axes is used to compute the board tilt, which is then converted to movement of the mouse cursor on the X and Y axes. The accelerometer allows the cursor to move slowly when the board is tilted a small amount, or quickly when there is a steeper tilt.
Hardware debugging and programming come integrated with the MPLAB Starter Kit for PIC18 Microcontrollers, eliminating the need for a separate debugger or programmer. The kit is completely USB-powered. Pre-programmed touch-sensing code, as well as Microchip's free USB application stack and boot loader, eliminate the need for engineers to develop their own code.
Additionally, the board includes demo application software that enables it to read a memory card (MSD), operate as a USB mouse or joystick (HID), or function as a simple COM port (CDC) using the free Microchip stacks.
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