Just received the JTAGICEMKII!

I am the proud new owner of the new JTAGICEMKII! I consider it to be a present to myself for taking up this job. It was very expensive, but very awesome. You could look at it as an investment, since its use covers nearly all the AVR devices. This thing both programs and debugs in real-time. When running AVR Studio 4 you simply choose the jtagicemkii as your debugger platform and the rest is done automatically. Instead of the usually debugging which is done all in a simulator on your computer, this thing works in real time single stepping through your program and displaying each step on your microcontroller. I am just amazed at this thing. No more worrying about whether or not it will run correctly after loading the entire thing onto the flash. With this I can manually guide the microcontroller through its functions and see for myself what is going on (instead of hoping that a 50mS blip of port changes worked correctly). I'm thinking about buying myself one more toy over the summer, the STK600. The STK600 will allow me to expand my options to the SMD world, and give me access to the AVR32 line of microcontrollers. I definitely want to have a good go at trying 32 bit processors, especially since I have a programmer (the jtagicemkii) that will work for the AVR32. This programmer/debugger cost me about $300, and the STK600 costs $200, not including the two socket adapters I'd buy for it. All together I'll probably need to spend $400 on it to get the best selection, opening up my options to most of the ATMegas, the CAN AVR, the AVR32 Flash microcontrollers, and finally I expect it to come with the TQFP-100 socket allowing me access to the ATXMegas coming out soon. Is it worth the investment? Well, $700 for the ultimate AVR setup should be worth it.

The only reason I'm planning on getting all this stuff is that it does dramatically aid my education in the field I am majoring in (Computer Engineering). Knowing this stuff will give me an edge over other people. On top of that, it seems as though I may be working more than I originally expected. Lately I have been working full time hours, and have been working late and through my lunch. This all equates to cash that I can use for both school and my personal hobbies. To put it simply, this past week more than covered the cost of the device I'm using now. I'm still saving the majority for school, but buying things like the jtagicemkii gives me an incentive to work and grows my hobby options. The unfortunate drawback to working is that it heavily cuts into my hobby time. I figure if I'm going to sacrifice so much time for work, I might as well make up for it. Hopefully my boss hires another part-timer so I can have more time for my personal work. I love my job, but it is taking up so much time.

Working Now

I now am an employee of SHA INC, an assembly company that takes printed circuit boards and adds the components to them. My job so far seems to be operating the machines that place the components onto the boards. I'm very happy to have this job, and the pay is good (although if gas goes high enough it may not be so great haha). Although this job is in a different area of electronics than what I'm going into, I still enjoy the first-hand experience I get from this. I've always wondered how they produced these things. The company has one location and is family owned, and seems to do mainly prototyping (but not always). They take jobs ranging from 1 to 300 (and even more) PCBs to assemble. My only concerns about working there is that they may want me to work more than I first expected, which could mean a lot less personal time for my hobbies. I was really hoping to get started on my K&R and haven't read that much due to work. I usually fall right to sleep when I get home. This seems like a good job though to keep through school until I am ready for a higher level job (something along the lines of design and engineering). In addition to operating the machines, I also help around with odd jobs and even have the opportunity to use Visual Basic, which coincidently I decided to take last semester as an optional class. Visual Basic is used in Macros for Excel, and they seem to use quite a lot of Excel.

I also received my grades for the Winter Semester. I am glad to say that I was able to get all A's. All the A's I received were expected except for Sociology. Sociology was a wild card, and I was pretty confident I was going to receive a B in the class. Oh well, all for the better. This Thursday my Spring semester starts, I am taking Technical Writing as an online class. I really hope that with my job and class I will find a good amount of time for my personal studies, I really hate to sacrifice my education at this point.

Good News!

Sparkfun's GLCD

The other day I was awarded, by Mr. Harrill, the "Outstanding Student Award" for Electronics and Computer Technology. I was honored by him two days ago at the Meyer theater and my family attended (including my sister's boyfriend). This honor is definitely a resume booster. On top of that, I received a call the same day for a potential job. I was out when I was called, and had to call back. I go in for an interview on Thursday, after all my finals are finished. I'm really excited, if I am able to get the job this will be my first real job in electronics. I also receive my Electronics and Computer Technology Associates Degree after I finish this semester, and I expect to have at most one B for this semester (in Sociology). This has been a great week, and I'm really happy.

In addition to all the important things, I also have finally gotten a GLCD to work properly. Mr. Harrill purchased one a few weeks ago and unfortunately it only came with a single page for a datasheet that gave a potentially wrong pinout. The darn thing wouldn't work after 3 hours, and after extensive debugging of the program I checked the wiring over again. I happened to touch the controllers on the back of the GLCD and noticed they were extremely hot. After that fiasco I went and bought my own off of Sparkfun since they provided heavy documentation (to note I was the one who told Mr. Harrill to buy the faulty GLCD from Mouser). The Sparkfun GLCD used the same controllers and after plugging everything in the program worked great. As of now it is a very simplistic program that displays a line (simply to test the thing). I intend on making a quick picture displaying program for it after I finish with finals this upcoming week. It should be great for the presentations we (Mr. Harrill, Alex and I) do for the Electronics section at various High Schools. Mr. Kelly and Alex suggested a simple game, which I probably will end up doing. A simple scroller where you control a horizontally stationary sprite that navigates through a path, similar to this.

Over this weekend I have to wrap up studying and any leftover homework. If we manage to box up most of the lab (for the lab renovations) before the weekend I will be able to finally start reading K&R. Ugh, 8 classes with 8 tests next week. Thankfully I only have 19 credits next Fall semester, the free time for personal projects and a possible job will be amazing. Below is my schedule for the Fall,

ART-155-01 (13466) Art Appreciation
MECH-102-01 (13902) Manufacturing Processes
MATH-162-02 (14052) Introduction to Statistics
PHY-251-01 (14065) Engineering Physics I
MATH-271-01 (14061) Calculus III


Don't mind the Art Appreciation, that's for the Computer Engineering Degree. After all, I need to be "well rounded." :)