A long time ago, I wanted to use a microcontroller to show an image on an LCD screen.
I didn't need it for anything specific. It was just that I originally thought that I would never be able to do that in a million years. But accidentally, I came across a tutorial explaining how it could be done. And I started believing that maybe it would be possible after all.
So I bought the microcontroller and the LCD. And I found some example code for the microcontroller.
It was in something called Assembly language, which looks like this:
…
mov ah,25h
mov al,23h
int 21h pop ds
...
(It was, of course, many more lines of code.)
The code was intimidating, but for a geek like me, I liked the challenge.
I spent hours studying the code.
Little by little, with the help of a reference guide to the Assembly language, I was able to understand how the code worked.
And I was able to understand enough to start modifying the code to my liking.
The problem was that I was still coding in a text editor on my computer.
I was lacking a crucial part to continue the project:
Connecting the components to each other.
The LCD screen had a tiny flat cable with lots of pins. So I started soldering all the pins necessary.
It was a mess of cables.
And it was so fragile that if I just looked at it the wrong way it would fall apart.
I was able to get my code into the microcontroller, I connected the power, and…
Nothing.
It did not work.
I made a few attempts at trying to find the issue. But there were just too many wires going everywhere. And if I fixed one, another came loose. And eventually, I just gave up :(
Thinking back on it - that horrible rat's nest of wires going here and there was pretty much doomed to fail.
Luckily, somewhere along my learning journey, I came across how to design a printed circuit board (PCB). Now, whenever I need to connect lots of wires and small components, I just design a PCB for it.
Designing a printed circuit board is a process that looks complicated from the outside. But as soon as you've gone through the process once, you see that it's actually pretty straightforward.
So if you don't know PCB design yet, I highly recommend you learn it.
As an Ohmify member, you can learn how to make Printed Circuit Boards from our course Make Your First Printed Circuit Board.
But it's definitely possible to learn on your own as well.
Keep On Soldering!
Oyvind @ build-electronic-circuits.com
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