newbee question about pic and robots

I just got the pickit 2 and the low pin demo board with the 16f690 chip and I have the mechatronics board with the 16f917 chip. I want to build 2 different projects:

1. I would like to build a light sensing base that will follow the sun. I want to mount solar panels on it.

2. I want to build a robot out of an r/c truck that will drive around and avoid walls. Or something similar.

Now I have searched alot and have not seen any robot made with either of these chips and not many robots with any of the "pic" chips. Why is this?

The 917 is a nice PIC but sort of specialized as an LCD controller. It's otherwise similar to the very popular 16F877A

duct996 said:

1. I would like to build a light sensing base that will follow the sun. I want to mount solar panels on it.

Now I have searched alot and have not seen any robot made with either of these chips and not many robots with any of the "pic" chips. Why is this?

Click to expand...

Here is a mock up idea, for a solar sensor, to be made up of four Taos light to voltage sensors. The enclosure is a small Serpac with the gray translucent cover. Even with the semi opaque lid, some electrical tape, or perhaps a small piece of welding mask glass will be needed to keep the chips from saturating at full sun. Not the cheapest, but dead easy to hook up to an analog input. The main idea is to use the center post as a shaded pole, which will in effect tell the micro when it's not normal to the sun.

Have I tried it yet, no. This, or some similar configuration, should work tho.

If you are using a high level language, like C or Basic, what device you use should matter little, as long as it has the peripherals needed like a-d, PWM etc.

You may find this page useful. It's rather slow to load because the author has just added new stuff to the bottom of the page and so it's now about 3 miles long.

Mike.