Breadboarding for the CDHS and measurement subsystems has been underway for some weeks now. We have recently connected breadboards of these two subsystems and started to conduct tests on the measurements prototype board.

Breadboarding for the CDHS and measurement subsystems has been underway for some weeks now. We have recently connected breadboards of these two subsystems and started to conduct tests on the measurements prototype board. We have created a breadboard to house microcontroller that will control the measurement and read-out the measurement circuitry. The programming of the PIC was completed just before Christmas 2005 and the same goes for the measurements prototype breadboard. In the picture below you can see an overview of the test set-up. This test-setup actually is the first integrated prototyping and testing effort by the team and marks an important milestone on our way to a complete breadboard model of the satellite.

The following components can be seen in the picture.

1. Interconnect breadboard. Facilitates the linking of the PIC breadboard to external systems using wires instead of soldered connections. Male headers are in place to make connecting the I/O lines easier. Two shift registers are present to increase the number of outputs that the microcontroller can control. Inputs for the microcontroller's Analog-to-Digital Convert are also present on this board.
2. PIC breadboard. Contains an PIC16F876A microcontroller by Microchip. The board has a USB connector to connect the PIC to the computer so its output can be seen by using a serial port monitor. Contains an ethernet socket to connect this breadboard to the programmer breadboard.
3. Programmer breadboard. Contains one PIC microcontroller to program the microcontroller on the PIC breadboard. Also contains a RS-232 connection chip from Maxim to allow the computer to communicate with this breadboard and to program the PIC from there.
4. Measurements prototype breadboard. Contains a rough version of the electronics that will perform the measurements of the I,V curves of the Thin Film Solar Cell (TFSC) payload.
5. Solar cell simulator. This is power supply that acts as a stand-in for the TFSC payload and generates power to perform measurement with some sensible data.
6. Power supply. Supplies power to the microcontroller and measurement prototype breadboard.

Except for the measurements prototype breadboard, all breadboards have been tested and are working correctly. Unfortunately, we have not been able to perform any succesful measurements with the set-up yet. Testing and debugging will continue in the coming week(s) and we will report progress on this website.