About Learning Microcontrollers

[min2max]

Thank u. i will , ....
Please tell me the common faults that may come during developing hardware of Controller, on PCB and on vero board.

Mmm, I'm sorry for not being so able to give you a list of the common faults while playing with uC stuffs for the time being - I'm also a beginner in this area . However, since you have a very good related education background, and according to my experiences of learning things, I think paying a revisit to your textbooks (I mean relevant ones) from time to time while doing actual projects would be very helpful. That often can give you a new understanding of something, and sometimes answers to your some longstanding questions, etc.

Hope you have fun!

 

[Qaisar Azeemi]

Thank you min2max my books are my best friends but they are also for beginners ;-)
i often study them but they can't help me during my practical work.... i've experianced.
practical work mostly depends on Experiances.......
Thanks again

 

[poorchava]

For microcontrollers themselves most faults come from insufficient datasheet reading. Most of the time something doesn't work as intended the reason is that you forgot to set some register. Modern MCUs are very complex devices with tons of options and it's very hard to remember about them all. Moreover - they often collide with each other. So the most commom failure mode is IMO software bug.

Another vital thing is powering. Most MCUs have several power and ground pins, all of which have to be connected. They also should be decoupled well, according to the datasheet. Analog voltage supply, if the device has one has to be properly conditioned (ideally whole separate power supply for analog purposes). Datasheet usually contains detailed info about minimal operation setup. Example: https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/39897c.pdf page 27 and forth.

Another common problem are wiring mistakes. While on veroboard this is not a problem, if you order a pcb made or etch it by yourself the connections are hard to change. In some cases you can apply some hack involving rotary tool, sharp knife, fine magnet wire etc, but not always.

PCBs can have manufacturing faults, like a break in a track. Such breaks are often microscopic and almost impossible to spot with bare eye. If your board is somewhat experimental you may want to place large number of test points which make testing, debugging and development easier. Some mistakes also come from erroneous libraries in cad software. They can have pins mixed around or (more likely) you will choose wrong footprint, which may render whole board impossible to assemble.

On veroboard most common failure mode are cold joints, broke leads and so on. I personally don't use veroboards, other than for really simple things (like 5 buttons forming a keyboard).

 

[Qaisar Azeemi]

Thank you very much poorchava. you really helped me a lot. this is really the required thing that i want. thank you very much again

 

[poorchava]

If you aim at PIC, then you might want to read that:

https://www.edaboard.com/threads/227129/

I wrote this short guide some time ago, but it didn't get very popular for some reason. A