Thread: Help with Coding a PIC for automated watering system

Hi guys,

I'm new to programming and for my final year project at university I am having to program a PIC 18F2420 using C to water plants when a soil moisture sensor has an digital output of 0. I would like it to only measure every 10 minutes and sleep the rest of the time to conserve energy. I have literally no idea how to do this any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. I have many books but I still don't seem to understand it.

Thanks

Originally Posted by georginamc

Hi guys,

I'm new to programming and for my final year project at university I am having to program a PIC 18F2420 using C to water plants when a soil moisture sensor has an digital output of 0. I would like it to only measure every 10 minutes and sleep the rest of the time to conserve energy. I have literally no idea how to do this any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. I have many books but I still don't seem to understand it.

Thanks

"I'm new to programming..."

Have you at least taken a intro course in C? If not, you would need to at least work through a good book on C first, programming all the exercises first, before attacking this application, plus studying the documentation for the microprocessor.

Sorry, but I think you are not ready.

Two good books I recommend:

C Programming, A Modern Approach
Author: K. N. King

or

C Primer Plus, 6th Edition
Stephen Prata

Choose one only.

I don't think so that you can programming a Microcontroller with normal C. Here is an online tutorial for programming the PIC Mics:

https://de.scribd.com/doc/886920/PICmicro-MCU-C-An-Introduction-to-Programming-the-Microchip-PIC-in-CCS-C#fullscreen

For download:
https://de.scribd.com/doc/886920/PICmicro-MCU-C-An-Introduction-to-Programming-the-Microchip-PIC-in-CCS-C

Here is a tutorial too, in German, but there are certainly enough in English.
pic: C für PICs


And this is an IDE for programming PICs:
Download and Install MPLAB X IDE - Developer Help

My point was that I don't think @georginamc is ready to program any "final year project" C program on a Linux or other hosted system, let alone, a microcontroller.

Originally Posted by rstanley

My point was that I don't think @georginamc is ready to program any "final year project" C program on a Linux or other hosted system, let alone, a microcontroller.

Yeah, it's not rare: A-last-minute-panic-call for an University Year Project.