Comment by halyconWays
3 days ago
I'd love to see a design that uses a dirt-cheap uC, because the PIC16F1782 chips he had laying around are $2.50 each on Mouser!
Edit: Tried to buy these (either PCBs, the BOM, or ideally fully assembled boards) and holy shit I've never seen a worse website than oshwlab/easyeda. So far: clicked 'purchase parts,' had to sign up, captcha was at max strength and had to agonizingly select slowly fading in cards over four times; clicked to send code; code took a while to get here and captcha expired; entered code but it had ambiguous "i" vs. "l" vs. "1" and I entered the wrong one; repeat captcha, this time only two pages of slowly fading cards; click to send code again; enter code; captcha expired; enter captcha again, enter code again; told I already have an account (I do??); go to forgot password; solve another long captcha; click to send code; captcha expired; enter code and captcha; password reset; get taken to generic landing page; go back to main site and click 'purchase parts' again; says I'm not logged in. log in again; taken to generic landing page; go back to main site and click 'purchase parts'; page loads...takes me to "lcsc" and tells me to make an account. JFC.
I agree, it shouldn't be that hard. Ironically I keep using EasyEDA over the other CAD programs as it is quite intuitive to use and, if you use the LCSC stock parts, it has a 1-click button to order the assembled board from JLPCB. A simple "re-order link" for JLPCB I could have given out would have been too easy I guess!
I have just added a link on the project webpage with the Gerber/pick and place files zipped up and any good PCB shop should be able to manufacture a board from this.
$2.50 is a bit steep, I guess Microchip are probably running down this older chip and have far better 28-pin SOIC PIC16F's starting at $0.70, any PIC16F/18F should run the code with a few tweaks. My current uP of choice is the RP2040 and I will put out a design using that when my normal work quietens down a bit.
I had better luck going to jlcpcb.com and uploading the files. I did modify the BOM for U5 but they didn't have any in stock, so I ended up getting them from mouser and will hand-solder those. I'm super excited for the project, I've wanted something like this for a long time...though the next step would be functional switches!