Musical Greeting Card

Step 15 The PIC10F six pin processor - V3

That figure shows version 3 of my attempts to wire up a microchip 10F2XX series processor. I have soldered wires directly to the pins of the processor, without a circuit board. This can be done, provided you use a magnifying glass when you do it, and you use a soldering iron with a tip as small as the joint you are trying to make.

Those wires are in a sort of colour code. Black is ground, or zero volt rail, that Microchip calls Vss. Red is positive, +5 volts, or the supply rail, that Microchip calls Vdd. Orange is the programming voltage, and the white and grey carry the Data and Clock for programming respectively.

The white wire is GP0, and the grey wire is GP1. The GP2 connection of the micro is not used, and so it is not soldered. GP1 and GP2 connect to the piezo buzzer after it has been programmed.

Since the PIC will be, in most cases, programmed once and then connected up into its circuit, I find that connecting it to the programming signals in this way is sufficiently quick. If you are trying to program it several times, for example when developing a melody, it might be better to solder it to a socket to accept the connections from your programming circuit.