PIC16F18446 Curiosity Nano and QT7 Touch Board Example

Introduction

This article guides you from start to finish on how to use the MPLAB® Code Configurator (MCC) mTouch® Sensing Solutions module to create two touch buttons, one slider, and enable the Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) debugging interface on the PIC16F18446 Curiosity Nano Board, Curiosity Nano Touch Adapter, and QT7 Xplained Pro Extension Kit.

CuriosityNano_QT7.jpg

 Materials

Hardware

PIC16F18446 Curiosity Nano
Curiosity Nano Touch Adapter
QT7 Xplained Pro Extenstion Kit

Software

MPLAB X IDE
XC8 Compiler
MPLAB Code Configurator
Data Visualizer

 Procedure

1

Create an MPLAB X IDE Project for the PIC16F18446

  • Choose Project: Standalone Project
  • Select Device: PIC16F18446
  • Select Tool: PIC16F18446 Curiosity Nano (PKOB nano)
  • Select Compiler: XC8
  • Select Project Name and Folder
00_createProject.png

If you are not familiar with MPLAB X IDE, please visit the "MPLAB® X IDE" Developer Help page.

2

Open MCC in MPLAB X IDE

04_openMCC.png

If you don't see the MCC logo, please check that you have installed the MCC plugin. More information on MCC installation can be found on the "Install MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC)" page.

3

Configure the System Clock

Open the System Module from the Project Resources menu. Select HFINTOSC with 2x PLL from the Oscillator Select drop-down box, and select 16_MHz from the HF Internal Clock drop-down box. This will result in a 32 MHz system clock.

07_configureClocks.png

To ensure the performance of the mTouch button/proximity, the system clock is required to be at least 8 MHz. If you select a system clock slower than 8 MHz, the mTouch module will generate a warning in the notification window.

4

Load the mTouch Module

Double click on the mTouch button in the Libraries list inside the Device Resources window.

05_addTouch.png

After loading the module, the mTouch button will appear in the Project Resources pane.

06_touchAdded.png

5

Select the mTouch Sensors

After loading the mTouch module, all available mTouch sensor pins will be shown in the Pin Manager: Grid View pane. You will need to select the physical sensors and shield based on the sensor pinout information in Table 1.
Pin Name Function
RA5 Button0
RA1 Button1
RC2 Slider1_Seg0
RC3 Slider1_Seg1
RC6 Slider1_Seg2
RC5 Driven Shield
Table 1
08_mTouchPinManager.png

6

Add mTouch Buttons and Link to the Sensors

Go to the Buttons configuration view, click Create New Button. Type "2" into the Number of Button text box, then click Add.

09_addButtons.png

Then, click each button name to go to the Button Settings view and select the corresponding sensors shown in Table 1.

10_selectButtonSensor.png

7

Add mTouch Slider and Link to the Sensors

Similar to the process of adding the mTouch buttons, go to the Sliders configuration view and click Create New Slider. Keeping 1 as the Number of Slider and 3 as the Number of Segments, click Add.

11_addSlider.png

Then, click the slider name to go to the Slider Settings view, and select the corresponding sensors shown in Table 1.

12_selectSliderSensor.png

8

Enable Debugging with Data Visualizer and Configure Enhanced Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (EUSART) Module

Go to the Debug tab within the mTouch module. Check the Enable Debug box, select EUSART1 to be the EUSART module, and select Data Visualizer as the debug method. The EUSART module will be automatically added to the project and should appear in the project resources window.

13_enableDebugging.png

Click on the EUSART module in the project resources window to check that it is configured correctly.

14_eusartSettings.png

Check that the RX and TX pins are properly selected in the Pin Manager: Grid View. The RX pin should be RB6 and the TX pin should be RB4.

15_eusartPinManager.png

9

Setup I/O Pins to Control LEDs

There are eight LEDs on this board, and we want to use them to indicate the button and slider states. The pinout is shown in Table 2.
Pin Name Function
RA4 LED0 Button0 Touch Indicator
RB5 LED1 Button1 Touch Indicator
RC4 LED2 Slider1 Position Indicator
RB7 LED3 Slider1 Position Indicator
RC7 LED4 Slider1 Position Indicator
RC0 LED5 Slider1 Position Indicator
RA2 LED6 Slider1 Position Indicator
RC1 LED7 Slider1 Position Indicator
Table 2

Use the Pin Manager: Grid View to select the LED pins based on the pinout table.

16_gpioPinManager.png

Go to the Pin Module, and rename the pins as "LEDx". Because the LEDs are active low, we need to set up the pin starting high to turn off the LEDs.

17_pinSettings.png

10

Generate Code

Click on the Generate button.

18_generateCode.png

11

Call mTouch Service and Enable Interrupts in main.c

Open up the generated main.c file. Place MTOUCH_Service_Mainloop() into the while loop as shown in the following code block and uncomment the functions that enable interrupts.

12

Set Up Your Own Callback Functions

We have seen how to use the polling method to obtain the button state in the Curiosity Development Board Example. In this example, we will use callback functions. The mTouch library allows you to set your own callback function when a press/release event happens to bypass the function pointer to the setter function.

First, we implement the press/release callback functions for the button and proximity sensors and then pass these function pointers to the setter functions for each event as shown in the following code block (highlighted):

13

Use the mTouch Buttons and Slider to Control LEDs

Once you have setup the callback functions, you will need to implement the logic to control the LEDs based on different events from the buttons/slider. The complete main.c code is shown in the following code block:

14

Program the Board

After you connect the board to the PC with a USB cable, click the Program button to program the board.

19_program.png

15

Connect to Data Visualizer

Open Data Visualizer and select the appropriate COM port in the drop-down box in the Serial Port Control Panel window. Then click on the Autodetect protocols link to select the folder within the project where the protocol files are located.

20_dvSerialPort.png

The protocol files should be located in the mtouch folder within the mcc_generated_files folder. You can check this by locating the files of type *DB, DS, and SC.

21_selectPath.png

Now click the Connect button. When a successful connection is established you will see the live touch data appear in the mTouch Data Visualizer window. This data can be useful for debugging and tuning a touch project.

22_dataVisualizer.png
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