Basic Stamp 2

Occudus

Howdy,

I'm a electronic engineering student. Just started working with microcontrollers, and I am curious..... If I buy a BS2 module, I'm assuming I need a carrier board to program and debug the module, but do I need to use the carrier board in my circuit?

Thanks in advance for your information.

garyg

Simple answer is maybe.
I've used a BS2 Homework board in my last project.
Since the Homework board is surface mounted including voltage regulator, breadboard and 9V battery connector.
I did not have to build power supplies and such.
It worked for me.
I've done a couple of projects using BS1 and Super Carrier board, then made the necessary circuit to use the BS1 without the
carrier board.
Parallax has quite a selection of BS1 & BS2 products and a selection of Propeller products.
It would be a very good idea to look in the Parallax store to see exactly what is available.

It would be to your advantage to look at the Parallax offerings in the store.
Also, look at the downloadable information for some of these products.
I believe you need to get a feel for what is available.

I hope my ramblings here helped you out.

stamptrol

Any of the BS2 carrier boards make life much easier for development.

The chip itself can also be used in a custom built board.

Cheers,

Zoot

No, you would not need a carrier board, though you will need a way to connect your PC (serial port or USB with converter). The Stamps are actually small printed circuit boards in and of themselves and contain the microcontroller, a 5v regulator, some signal conditioning circuitry for the serial connection to the PC and brownout detection, and a reset button. The 5v regulator supplies power to the microcontroller and associated circuitry when using Vin (but the on-board regulator can not really power outside circuitry -- it's not very big).

What the carrier boards give you is a DB-9 (or USB converter) port, a 1a 5v regulator, reset button(s), prototyping space, etc.

For my own Stamp projects, I made a little DB-9 to 4pin header cable -- on my own custom boards I use 4-pin header to access the Stamp programming pins. Takes up very little space and then I don't need to buy DB-9 or USB hardware for every board.

Tim-M

I really like the OEM Kit version of the Basic Stamp II... here:

http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/21/Default.aspx?txtSearch=oem+stamp

It's a great value:
- Costs less than a standard BS2 because you do the assembly yourself.
- The programming connections are included.
- The voltage regulator has a higher current capacity.
- They go on sale once in a while too!!

The OEM BS2 is only slightly larger at 2"x2"

Occudus

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been messing around with my Homework board I got a while back. My confusion lies in the fact that without a homework board, or a carrier board, I won't be able to program it. I was curious, if the Basic stamp can be applied to a circuit without the board after I program it.

Zoot

My confusion lies in the fact that without a homework board, or a carrier board, I won't be able to program it.

Not true -- you only need to provide the proper connector (either serial DB-9 or some other scheme like .1" headers and a converter cable). But it is easier, clearly, to use a carrier/stamp board that has those connections already set up.

I was curious, if the Basic stamp can be applied to a circuit without the board after I program it.

Yes, absolutely. You could program the Stamp on a Homework board or BoE on your PC, then remove the Stamp and insert it in your project. Then you would need no external programming connections (though you still might want to wire up a reset button).

HOWEVER, you will NOT be able to use DEBUG on the actual project -- DEBUG/DEBUGIN depend on a correct serial connection to the PC.

Occudus

Thank you. That answered my question completely.