Current Part:
PIC 18F452 Microcontroller
20 MHz Crystal
Spare Wire
Breadboard
ADXL320 Accelerometer
Parts List Details
You may or may not be familiar with the parts above so a picture of each item has been included to help give you an idea of what they look like. I'll go through and explain each part briefly below.
PIC 18F452
This is the microcontroller or the 'brains' of this design. A program will be created to tell it what to do in terms of taking data from the sensor and displaying proper output using the flashing led.
5v Power Supply
The sensor and microcontroller we're using in this project require a +5v input. This power supply will give them what they require. It can be a battery or an AC adapter that plugs into the wall.
20 MHz Crystal
This is the clock speed that the PIC will be run at. It was chosen arbitrarily based off of what parts were laying around. You could definitely run it at lower or faster clock rates if you desire but the timing in the code would need to be altered appropriately.
ADXL320 Accelerometer
This is the sensors that we're taking data from. It detects both tilt and acceleration. It has a +/- 5g range so it is limited in that aspect but if you are pulling more than 5g's wherever you are...god help you. That's dangerous man!
Wired & Breadboard
These will be used for connecting everything together. If you'd rather use a development board that you have, go ahead, the breadboard just creates a versatile platform that anyone can duplicate this work on.