That compiler would certainly open up some options by making development
time quicker. I can't justify the cost for the occasional time I use a
PIC though.
I'll have a look at the microchip app notes again for PID routines and
see what might be of use to me sometime. The PIC on rs232 must have good
diode clamping /zenering to cope with rs232 nominal +- 12V signal levels.

Roger N wrote:

"David Billington" wrote in message
k...

I am not that familiar with the PIC family as there are so many. Can you
program any of the 16 series in C or basic, I thought the issue was
insufficient memory for high level langauge support. I agree that the
PID routine would be far easier in these languages than assembler. Last
time I looked I don't think I could find PID routines in the PIC
libraries. Some info is available on the web but in C or similar.


Here's a page with a list of PIC's supported by PicBasic Pro compiler.
http://www.melabs.com/products/pbp.htm

I wrote a program in "C" to integrate rate gyro information to make it a
position gyro, got it to fit in a PIC 16C84 with only 1K of instruction
memory. The $6 PIC I'm wanting to use has 8K instruction memory plus much
more ram, eeprom, etc.

MicroChip has application notes for servo motor motion control, the PID
routines are used in those application notes.

Looking at the communications capabilities of the temperature controls has
given me an idea of another possibility. Use a PIC to read and command the
temp. controller. That the temperature control would control the
temperature, but the PIC would change the temp control settings for what you
wanted to do. The Basic and C compilers for the PIC's have good serial
communications capabilities. I have a PIC right beside my computer that I
can plug in to RS-232 to read the A/D converter WITHOUT using any kind of
level converter.