Making Devices NightUSB – A PIC18F14K50 Dev Board for USB Experimentations

Making Devices NightUSB is a tiny PIC18F14K50 powered dev board designed mainly to experiment with the USB capabilities of the Microchip PIC18F family of controllers. The PIC18F14K50 is an 8-bit PIC with a single core running at up to 48MHz,  it also includes 512B of static RAM (SRAM) plus 256B of dual-port RAM (DPRAM), 16kB of program flash, SPI, and I2C buses, and a nine-channel 10-bit analog to digital converter (ADC) with two comparators.

The main feature of this tiny chip is that it includes support for USB 2.0, which can act as an HID device like a keyboard mouse, or any other controller. Designed with a minimal footprint,  this device slides into your USB port and giggles the mouse as an example. There are also some 0.1″ headers broken out, if you are playing the other GPIO features of the MCU.

Making Devices NightUSB Specifications

• Microcontroller: PIC18F14k50 (USB 2.0 compliant)
• Crystal: 12MHz
• LED: 1x RGB LED
• Connections:
  • Header pins for all I/O
  • Tag-Connect 6-pin cable for ICSP
• PCB Design:
  • No extra USB connector is needed (PCB acts as the connector)
  • It is recommended to order a thicker PCB for a better fit
• Functions:
  • It simulates a small mouse movement every 15s
  • LED blink to indicate activity
• Dimensions – 24 x 12 mm

The project is completely open-sourced and all the schematic and board layouts along with 3D files can be found on Making Devices’ GitHub repository. In the same repository, you will also find a .hex file and source code for you to get started with the controller easily.

The device is open source but it is not available for purchase in any store. but more information on these tiny and coll little devices can be found on the Making Devices’ Instructables page.

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