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About/Descrição:
This is a TV show kind of game, where the contestants are required to
answer some question by pressing a button. The first contestant or
team member to press a button gets the chance to answer it first. If
it gets it wrong, some kind of penalty or the next fastest contestant
is given turn. There's also an host that will take care of asking
the questions and play the role of referee.
The main features of this project is that it can have from 2 to 8 teams, where the available buttons are assigned to each team at startup. It has a big 7 segment LED which will show the contestant or team number that can answer the host question. The host also possess a button that enables him to start/end a turn. The possibility of keeping score and other configurations is made by the connection to a personal computer running a GUI.
In terms of hardware, it has a controller board which uses a 16F648 controller and the ubiquitous MAX232 level shifter to connect to the PC through the serial port. There's also a 7 Segment driver board with a 74164 shift register and the ULN2803 Darlington array driver, since the LED segments require more than the 5V possible at the microcontroller outputs.
I decided to use DIL packages for the I.C.'s since it's easier for
other people with less skills to duplicate although having to drill all
the holes would be unnecessary if using SMD parts. Having the
possibility of replacing parts after everything is built is also a
plus with the DIL technology, being the SMD requires more expensive
I.C. sockets.
I used the 16F648 chip since I had several laying around, the same for
other part choices, like using a 4 diode bridge instead of a single
part, etc.
As usual I used the toner transfer method to build all the PCB's, by
first laser printing to photopaper, passing it several times through
the laminator and then peeling off the paper in hot water. After that
the heated and bubbling Sodium Persulphate aquarium etched the copper
and then I drilled the board holes.
Software/Programas:
Check the microcontroller assembly software and the
QT/C++ PC GUI.
Schematics/Esquemáticos:
Schematics and PCB in Eagle CAD format. If you don't have
eagle installed you can view the schematics and layout in the pictures
section below.
Pictures/Fotografias:
Some pictures and drawings of the schematic and
circuit boards, along with finished construction.
Contact/Contacto:
(C) 2007 Nuno Sucena Almeida.
Schematics,PCBoards,Programming,Debugging,Hardware:
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