20th October 2009
A nice introduction to the picaxe system - its very satisfying to see a program you made working on a PIC for the first time. Its a shame the PCB comes pre-assembled - it would be even more satisfying to see it working if Id been able to build it myself. Also, the actual tutorial itself was hard to find at first, but in the end I found it by opening the CD (right click and click open, dont autorun), going into datasheets and selecting axe050.pdf. Kudos to REV-ED though for making a linux-compatible programmer :) Its a bit buggy, but overall it works quite well. The tutorial also mentions a few components not included in the kit: a piezo buzzer (such as product number 35-3596) and a motor (they recommend a solar motor, 37-0440; but I dont see any reason why one of 37-0146 shouldnt work, especially since the circuit has built in darlingtons). Theres a section about stepper motors too, but they can be pretty pricey. If you just want one for fiddling around with, you might get lucky if you take a CD drive apart - they have stepper motors in them to move the laser.