We also visited Mervyn who gave me some header pin connectors for the Maximite computer which will be sampling the signal and deciphering the combustion pressure for our project.
The Maximite is based around a powerful PIC32MX695F512H micro-controller. Operating at 80MHz and capable of 1 instruction per cycle it should be fast enough to perform the calculations required to determine the optimal ignition timing.
The increased power and extra peripherals are welcomed but it also means I must learn how to use the MPLAB IDE along with its C32 tool suite. This software is not as user friendly as CCS but has encouraged me for example to learn to handle the registers for I/O port operation instead of relying on CCS's basic macros. MPLAB is also very powerful with a full software debugger including a logic analyser and a stopwatch for measuring the performance of operations.
My first program running on the Maximite simply consists of a flashing LED, this will be adapted to allow me to identify the position of each of the 20 I/O pins in the IDC connector and has allowed me start at the shallow end of the MPLAB pool.
My next step is to interface with the ACE kit for use of the LCD and frequency generator for debugging with more complex code.
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