Instruments
In July 2003 I began experimenting with Microchip's PIC micro controllers. These inexpensive, versatile, and powerful chips are programmable and may be programmed to to cary out simple or complex tasks. I use a simple setup at home to write the programming in PIC Basic Pro, burn the PIC chips with EPIC Plus, design the electrical schematics and circuit boards in EAGLE, and engineer the physical box for the project with graph paper. Feel free to look through my material and ask questions.
I have used the following PIC chips in experiments and projects: PIC16F688, PIC16F84A, PIC16F88, and PIC16F876A. I have used the I/P packaging of these chips for ease of handling and versatility.
For suppliers, I use Mouser, Jameco and Spark Fun.
The latest instrument I created is a 5-string electric violin with a unique, magnetic pickup system. The violin amplifies the vibrations of each string. Magnetic pickups typically work by vibrating a metal string over a magnet surrounded by a coil this technique is not as effective at duplicating the sound of the violin.