This is a very basic beginner's kit for 8 pin PICAXE microcontrollers. Includes a handful of easy-to-solder through-hole components. Be sure to purchase the 8-pin PICAXE below.
A battery snap is provided in this kit, but the board must only be driven with a 4.5 to 5V battery pack. To prevent a 9V from accidentally being attached to the 5V board, we recommend attaching the 3xAA battery pack below, in place of the battery snap included in this kit.
This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.
Skill Level: Rookie - The number of pins increases, and you will have to determine polarity of components and some of the components might be a bit trickier or close together. You might need solder wick or flux.
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If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.
Skill Level: Competent - The toolchain for programming is a bit more complex and will examples may not be explicitly provided for you. You will be required to have a fundamental knowledge of programming and be required to provide your own code. You may need to modify existing libraries or code to work with your specific hardware. Sensor and hardware interfaces will be SPI or I2C.
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If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.
Skill Level: Noob - You don't need to reference a datasheet, but you will need to know basic power requirements.
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We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.
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this is a great part if you just want to experiment with the 8 pin pic, this board went together in about 5 mins for me , everything is through hole and super easy to solder.although the quarter that is in the picture strangely didn't come with the product... ill have to speak to someone about that.
So affordable you could throw a few across the football field!
Is the 08M2 included?
Nope.
And it's only a dollar more than the plain picaxe 08M2!!
Fun Project
Excellent small-scale project board. I used it in combination with a reed relay hooked up to a camera to control a video in my weather balloon satellite.
can I use this to program a PICAXE 08M??
Yes you can. Connect to your computer with one of the Picaxe cables - either the one that goes to a serial port or the one that goes to a USB port.
You can also add headers to this board so it will run LEDs, servos, infra-red detectors, etc.
I would love to see something like this in some other flavors than only Picaxe. Proto kits would help a lot for such things as sensor node arrays or just plain old learning. There is really no reason for keeping something like this from being more diverse to peoples preferences.
I use this to program the larger ICs that have the same power, ground and serial pin locations; I just let the other pins hang off the back of the socket.
Which specific ICs are you referring to? I'd like to try that trick myself?
If you check out picaxe.com: PICAXE Pinouts, you'll find there's 7 models in total, of which 4 are theoretically compatible (same +V, 0V, serial in and serial out pin configuration) (PICAXE-08M2, PICAXE-14M2, PICAXE-20M2 and PICAXE-20X2) and 3 (PICAXE-18M2, PICAXE-28X2 and PICAXE-40X2) are not.
Yep that works, looks strange, but works...
Can I use this to program a PIC?
No PICAXE is different from a PIC.
Totally forgot to order 8-pin... o.O looks like separate shipping... cringes
Why put in the disclaimer about the battery, rather than just include a 5V regulator? http://www.sparkfun.com/products/107 is cheap enough, and would be easy enough to add.
The power inlet looks like a .100" spacing...
The kit is pre-packaged, sorry. You can just add the regulator to your cart if you want. We just wanted to keep the kit simple as there are other options for powering it with 5v (wall wart).