Bare Bones Propeller Update v1.4

BARE BONES PROPELLER UPDATE V1.4

THE MOST ESSENTIAL PROPELLER CHIP CIRCUIT

BARE BONES is one of our favorite Propeller chip machines and continuing projects. In under ten minutes, it's possible to whip up this circuit and run the virtual LED programmed in Spin, blinking it on and off, watching it on the serial terminal.

This is the latest updated schematic to construct the Bare Bones Propeller circuit with the mentioned improvements. It has the main chip protection circuit added to the schematic for crisscross wiring and decoupling capacitors, ensuring a greater longevity chip.

ADDITIONS
The main schematic addition is one resistor to activate the BOEn disable circuit so that the Propeller can operate on less voltage, at or below the 2.7 volt reset limit. This allows experimenting with solar cells, smaller batteries with less voltage and other supply circuits. It also allows a battery to function at increased discharge levels and the Propeller chip can boot at a lower voltage.

VERSION
This updated Bare Bones Schematic is currently at version 1.4 and is subject to change without notice. It replaces versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. Use the blog's search feature to find any future changes. The suggestions from this thread, and some from another thread are now incorporated into the circuit to maximize Propeller chip performance, reliability, and facilitate ease of assembly for beginners.


LOWER POWER
The circuit allows lower power operations, mainly 3-volts with two (1.5 volts each) AA batteries, and experiments at lower voltages. Bare Bones is a good reference circuit and starting point for many projects. By itself, Bare Bones is considered to be a simple machine project with provided software on the schematic and the ability to communicate with a serial terminal, providing virtual representations.

PROPELLER TOOL SOFTWARE
http://www.parallax.com/downloads/propeller-tool-software
BARE BONES CODE
With no crystal needed, the program runs in rcfast (~12 mHz) and at 1200 baud to blink a serial terminal LED on and off. Hosted at the Parallax Forum, the link for download is found below or simply cut and paste the code into BST or the Propeller Tool software.

' Terminal LED Test Program           http://humanoidolabs.blogspot.com/
' Author: Humanoido (c) 07.18.2013    Terms of Use MIT License
' Runs on Bare Bones Propeller
' Blinks one serial LED
' Boot to RCFAST (~12MHz)
OBJ
   PST : "Parallax Serial Terminal"
PUB main
pst.Start(1200)
pst.str (string(13,"Serial LCD Demo",13,"Blink LED On and Off",13))
repeat
 pst.str (string("LED ON  *",13))
 waitcnt(clkfreq/2 + cnt)
 pst.str (string("LED OFF o",13))
 waitcnt(clkfreq/2 + cnt)

Attached Files

bare bones 1.spin‎ (477 Bytes)

MMT Molecular Strip Mining

STRIP MINING THE HORSEHEAD NEBULA
WITH THE MMT MOLECULAR TELESCOPE
The MMT Telescope has initiated three levels of molecular strip mining. Level one is at the top with the tiny Horsehead in the center. The center view is molecular X2. The bottom strip is molecular with a machine setting of X3. The molecular view has several fantastic discoveries.

Horsehead Nebula small telescope view

The strip mining shape of the horse takes on a new appearance indicating the molecular does not exactly match up with the visual light representations. At Molecular Machine X3 calibration, the horse has an intense molecular center which is not see in a visual light image with the small telescope. Refer to the image captured with a smaller telescope and a CCD, at approximately the same image scale. Molecular brings out a better view of more stars and matter, including nebula, for analysis.