Middle East Technical University Department of Computer Engineering

CENG 336
Introduction to Embedded Systems Development
Spring 2025
THE1.5 – Board Test
due: 31 March 2025 23:59

This THE will serve as an introductory THE, preparing you for the rest of the semester
and ensuring that you are familiar with the tools now. Overall, you are expected to;

• acquire your MCDEV Development kits,

• test them with the supplied test code boardTest.hex,

• have a working MPLAB X IDE,

• exchange your kit with another one if you encounter any problems during the test,

• have a workflow with all of the above

1 Hand Out Instructions

Along with this homework text, you will receive a demo program boardTest.hex which
you will use to get familiar with the tools listed above and a log file. Documents such as
programming manuals and user guides are available on ODTUClass.

• boardTest.hex, demo program you will be using to test your board.

• group xx.log, log file you will be updating during Board Test and submit to ODTU-
Class at the end. You should start by changing the “xx” in the filename with your
group number and update it with your group information.

• switchSetting-BoardTest.jpg, the proper switch setting in order for the demo pro-
gram to work.

Any clarifications and revisions to the assignment will be posted on the ODTUClass
discussion forum.

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2 Acquiring the MCDEV Development Kit
Distribution of the kits will be done by Erol Öztaş in Z-05. He will be available in his
office most of the time in weekdays. Please do not postpone this step until the last moment.
Remember that it is your responsibility to acquire your board in a timely manner.
In order to acquire your kits, all group members should contact Erol Öztaş, together.
During this process, all group members will need to sign a waiver form. Please read the form
carefully. If all group members are not present, you will not be given your development kit.
If you have any legal excuse not to be present when acquiring the development kit, please
inform the teaching assistants.

3 Testing the MCDEV Development Kit

After acquiring your kit, you will need to test it to ensure that all of its features you need
for your THEs are functional. For this purpose, you will first upload the boardTest.hex file
to the microcontroller and then test your board following the steps detailed below. If you
encounter any errors during programming or execution of demo program, please make sure
to do the following:

• record and explain the error(s) you encountered to your log file,

• inform the teaching assistant in charge with THE0 and exchange your kit with a new
one by contacting Erol Öztaş,

• apply the test procedure to your new kit.

Please make sure that you follow all instructions carefully. We have tested all the exper-
imental kits before they were given to you, so it is very unlikely that they will be broken.
Note that you should use your log file to keep an accurate and detailed log of your work
history. We will rely on these notes to diagnose any possible problems with the boards and
fix them later.
In order to upload the demo program to the PIC18F8722, please carefully follow the
procedures explained in the MCDEV Programming Manual. If programming is suc-
cessful, update the log file accordingly. Do not change the switch settings on the boards.
Switches control the some functionalities of the boards. Therefore, if you change the state
of the switches, some part of the demo program may not work. The proper switch setting is
provided as switchSetting-BoardTest.jpg with this homework. Please control the switch
settings if some part of the demo program does not work.
The demo program should start to execute after you upload it to the microcontroller.
The list below outlines what you should expect to see as the demo program executes. Record
your experience and observations to your log file.

3.1 Step-0
At first, the following message should appear on the LCD. If the message does not seem
to appear or is very faint, adjust the LCD contrast by turning the contrast potentiometer

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(located on the right side of the LCD). If you still cannot see any results, you should try
uploading the test code again, and then contact us if the problem persists.

STEP − 0
LCD

If everything is fine with this step, the program will automatically switch to Step-1 after a
brief period. Just wait, you do not have to do anything.

3.2 Step-1
This step checks your 7-Segment displays. First, you should see the following message
on the LCD:

STEP − 1
7 Seg. Disps.

Then, the 7-Segment displays will show 88.:8.8., flashed three times. If everything is fine
with this step, wait for Step-2.

3.3 Step-2
In this step you will check the Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC) on your board. This
step starts with the following message on LCD:

STEP − 2
ADC

Then the 7-Segment displays are updated with the current analog ADC value obtained from
the potentiometer placed at the upper right corner of the 7-Segment displays. This value
should be around 0 and 1023 when you turn the ADC potentiometer to its leftmost and
rightmost positions, respectively. A range somewhere between 5 and 1018 is acceptable for
the ADC value.
You have to turn the ADC potentiometer stick to its leftmost and rightmost positions
and observe the acceptable range on the 7-Segment displays to pass to the next step. If you
cannot observe the acceptable range, your ADC could be faulty and you should request a
change for the board.

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3.4 Step-3
In this step, the program will first show the following message on the LCD:

STEP − 3
LEDS

and then flash all the LEDs (except 21 of them) three times. It is normal that LEDs
corresponding to RA6, RA7, RF8∼RF15 and RG5∼RG15 (a total of 21 out of 72 LEDs)
will not blink. If there is non-working LED(s) except for the mentioned ones above, report
them in the log file and change your kit. Otherwise, wait the program to switch to Step-4.

3.5 Step-4
In this step you will check the push buttons except for RG1∼RG4 on the board. This
step starts with the following message:

STEP − 4
BUTTONS

In this step, you should press all buttons except RG0∼4 one by one and observe the cor-
responding LED turn on. If you press RG0 anytime, this will take you to the next step.
Therefore, you should press RG0 only after you have checked all of the buttons (except for
RG1∼RG4).
We should also note that RB2, RC6, RD4∼RD7 LEDs will already be turned on with
low brightness. But, when you press the corresponding buttons their brightness will increase
and you will still be able to control the buttons. Also, some of the LEDs can be on with full
brightness preventing to observe button press, which is normal.
Some of the LEDs (such as RC4 LED on some boards) can response the button press
with low brightness change; this is normal as long as you observe a brightness change on
the corresponding LED. Also, RE6 button could active both RE6 LED and RC4; this is a
known issue and it is not problem.

3.6 Step-5
This step checks the serial communication with your board. But, before this step you
should connect serial communication cable, you are supplied, between a PC’s USB port
and the board’s USB UART 1 port (above 2x16 LCD, leftmost USB port). It is not
recommended to plug or unplug the USB cable while the board is powered on,
the board or your PC can be damaged. So, be careful about this issue!
The Cutecom program is installed on Inek machines in the labs to be used in this step
to observe characters sent to the PC and to send a character from PC to the board. If you
want you can install it on your own machine.

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3.6.1 Cutecom
You can start it from command line by using the cutecom command. Here is a screenshot
of the program, but GUI could be different according to the version you installed:

You will use the same settings (baudrate, data bits, etc.) during your test. Before
starting the Step-5, open the settings of Cutecom and make sure that all settings are same
with the ones in the figure. Serial device in the above settings is /dev/ttyUSB0. This device
name is obtained from the output of dmesg command using terminal as seen in the following
figure. You may need to change it if you observe a different device using dmesg command
output upon plugging the USB cable. (It is very likely to be /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1
)
Now coming back to your test, we assume that you safely plugged the serial cable, powered
on the board, and Cutecom is open, its settings are properly adjusted and Open button is
clicked.
After repeating Step-0, 1, 2, 3 and 4, the demo program proceeds to Step-5, giving the
following message:

STEP − 5
UART1

Then the program goes through the following steps:

• It updates the LCD with the message:

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 STEP - 5

• It sends ‘Send a character!’ string to the PC (and you should see this string on Cutecom
windows),

• It waits a character to be sent over serial port.

When you type, for example 2 to input line of Cutecom and then press enter, 2 received!
message should appear in LCD screen and also in the Cutecom below Send a character!
string, since the character is sent back to the PC. After receiving the character, your LCD
screen should look like the following:

STEP − 5
2 received!

Now you can wait for the program to switch to Step-6.

3.7 Step-6
This step checks your Piezo Buzzer. First, you should see the following message on the
LCD.

STEP − 6
Piezo Buzzer

Then the Piezo Buzzer will start playing some melody. After playing the melody, the test 6
should restart from Step-0. If you come to this step and complete it successfully, it means
that your board passed the all the tests and ready to use!

4 Hand In Instructions
You should submit your log file through ODTUClass. Only one group member must
submit the log file by considering the naming issue explained in Section-1. It should include
all of your history during Board Test. This is one of the most crucial point of Board Test
since the log files will be used to repair non-working boards and to electronically store the
information about which group has taken which development kit.
Take your development kits as soon as possible; please do not postpone it to the last day!

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5 Grading
Board Test constitutes 2% of your total grade stated in the syllabus. To be able to get
a full grade (100 points) you should

• acquire your development kit on time, before the deadline,

• test it,

• exchange it in case of a problem until getting a fully working development kit again in
time,

• submit a log file properly filled with all of your Board Test history and explanations.

Groups who did not acquire their boards on time, or did not submit their log file will get a
zero grade.
If you acquired the kit, but did not submit your log file, your grade will be reduced
substantially, probably very close to zero.