Click Board™ Analyzer

Product Code: MIKROE-2956

The Click Board™ Analyzer consists of two MCUs, labelled as PIC18F26K42 and PIC16F1454, both from Microchip. These 8-bit MCUs both have their specific features which allow fast, reliable and accurate readings of the mikroBUS™ pin states, offering the output data in several formats. PIC18F26K42 offers several powerful peripheral modules best suited for the analysis and fast data transfer, such as the Direct Memory Access (DMA), Configurable Logic Cells (CLC), Signal Measurement Timers (SMT), Numerically Controlled Oscillators, and more. The second MCU labelled as PIC16F1454 is best suited for the data communication via the USB, so it is used to format and output the analysis data. When connected via the USB port with the micro USB cable, the device will register itself as the serial adapter on a specific COM port, assigned by the operating system of the host computer. The data will be transferred between the Click Board™ Analyzer and the host computer by using this port. Click Analyzer has a message format autodetection feature and is able to set itself to a specific mode, depending on the incoming message format.

Click Analyzer supports several communication protocols, each used to define the input and output data format: Web mode, a default mode that offers JSON formatted data on the output Terminal mode, a minimalistic GUI for a direct human interface for ANSI terminals Binary mode, best suited for the M2M communication with highest data throughput In addition, depending on the specified serial communication parameters, the device can operate in three operating modes: Baud Rate ≤ 4800 - starts the XBOOT bootloader 4800 < Baud Rate ≤ 115200 - resets the Click Analyzer and send the welcome message 115200 < Baud Rate - connects the device in the current state The simplest form of communication is the Terminal mode. This mode allows to use of a standard modem terminal application (such as PuTTY), formatting the message responses according to the ANSI/XTERM protocol. The terminal application should be able to provide the support for the CP437 character set, in order to display the Click Analyzer output and command responses without any glitches. This mode offers basic functionality for building HMI (Human-Machine Interface) based applications. However, this mode is not recommended to be used for the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications, as there are other, more complex and robust communication modes, such as the Web mode and Binary mode, which offer responses encapsulated in the CRC protected response structure, a properly JSON formatted responses, or a combination of the two (JSON messages, encapsulated in a CRC protected response structure). This allows building reliable and fast M2M applications or powerful JSON based web applications with a customized interface. The Click Board™ Analyzer has one stackable mikroBUS™ slot, so it is able to have any Click board™ equipped while being installed in the mikroBUS™ slot of a development system at the same time. This allows so-called "data sniffing" or capturing the data as it is being transferred between the equipped Click board™ and the development system. In this scenario, the Click Analyzer acts as the "middle man", exposing the communication to the user via the serial COM port of the host computer. By sending a specific command, the analyzer is able to display the logic states on each mikroBUS™ pin, acting as the Logic Scope. The Logic Scope (LS) function performs sampling of the logic states on all pins with the configurable sampling frequency, which can go up to 4 MHz. It is also possible to specify the number of samples before the analysis is sent out. The Logic Scope function allows to monitor states of the pins, while the Click board™ is exchanging data with the development system, or to simply analyze if the development system sets the expected states on its mikroBUS™ pins, regardless if the Click board™ is connected to it or not. This simplifies troubleshooting and debugging a lot, offering a unique opportunity to monitor and analyze the functionality in a real-life usage scenario. Another important function of the Click Analyzer is the Digital Voltage Meter (DVM). This allows accurate voltage level monitoring for up to 5V. This can be used to monitor voltage levels on the pins or to log the pin voltage values during a specific time interval. The voltage can be monitored on each of the 14 mikroBUS™ pins, including the +5V and +3.3V power rails. Pin state change can be visualized by utilizing one of the four differently coloured LEDs. Each LED can be assigned to any of the 14 available mikroBUS™ pins. A LED will be pulsed on the rising or falling edge of the pin, indicating the state change. It won't be lit if the state of the pin is constant (unchanged). This can be used to visually inspect the state changes on the pins, and thanks to the different colouring of the LEDs, the state change can be noticed instantaneou