Creating a minimum kit of 8051 microcontroller.

                Now to start up with designing the minimum kit of 8051, There are 3 ways either 

1. Designing the whole system by yourself.

2. Getting a Hobby kit which provides you with all the components and the PCB. The only thing you have to do is to solder the right component at the right place.

3. Getting a ready made 8051 kit. Which contains hex keypad interfacing, 7 segment display etc.

1. Designing the whole system yourself.

                    For designing the whole system you will need a circuit diagram, list of components, soldering iron and wire.

Circuit Diagram:-

List of Components:-

1.       89v51RD2 microcontroller.

2.       MAX232 IC (Used for serial communication with PC).

3.       7805 voltage regulator.

4.       5nos  10micro farad/25V capacitors.

5.        1 100microFarad/16V capacitor, 1 1000microF/16V capacitor.

6.        12V,2A socket.

7.       power switch.

8.        4 serial 10 pin connector.

9.        1 crystal of 11.0592Mhz.

10.    2 non electrolytic 33pF capacitors.

11.    reset switch, 4k resistors ( as seen in the pic, these are not normal resistors).

12.    1 bridge .

13.    1 0.1microfarad box.

14.    and one serial 9 pin connector for RS232 connection. I think this is it.

            I must say, this can be tedious. Finding all the right components and designing the whole PCB. But if you want to get experience in PCB layout designing then its OK.

            For building the minimum kit with METHOD 1 you need to have knowledge about PCB layout designing and Soldering.

2 Getting a hobby kit

                      This is easy and the best way to move on with the learning process. You will get acquainted with the components used for building the kit, on the other hand it is not as hard as METHOD1. There are few hobby kits available in the market which provide you with each and every component and the PCB. You are just supposed to solder the right component at the right place and you are done. The hobby kit which I have used is Vegakit. 

Note:- If you are using vegakit, buy microcontroller 89v51RD2. They don’t supply microcontroller with the   kit.

3 Ready made 8051 kit

                You have to do nothing just buy 8051 programming board, and start to flash your code on the microcontroller. I will not suggest this, unless and until you are a not an engineer, or you belong to a stream other than Electronics.