OpenLab makes the testing and debugging process easier. It has support for official and third party debuggers including PICkit3 and ICD3. Using these in-circuit debuggers, you can debug the board from within MPLABX IDE. In addition to debugging support, each section has some unique features built-in especially for the ease of testing and debugging.
All the boards including IO board, 7 segment board, motor relay board have additional headers for testing purposes. There are two types of headers, one for power and other for microcontroller port pins.
Usually, power headers are the 4-pin female header, but if more than one power supply is available on a board, then the number will change. For instance, on a motor relay board, there are two power headers: one for 5V and other for 9V.
The arrow indicates the first pin of the header and each power line is given in two pins.
Port headers are usually 8 pin female headers; this is useful for testing the board. For example, the seven segment board has two port headers available. One for control port and other for the data port. It can be used to test the functionality of the board by connecting a jumper wire like the one below.
The port header’s first pin can be identified by an arrow and the subsequent pins are numbered in increasing order.
By connecting the pins from power header to port header, you can test the functionality of the board during debugging.
OpenLab uses 20 pin FRC standard box headers wherever there is a board to board interfacing. An FRC connector is arranged in 10 pins of two rows. Similar to other headers, the arrow indicates the first pin of FRC connector.
Out of the 20 pins, 8 pins are for the port pins and other 12 pins are for ground connections. Note that the FRC first pin and port first pin are different. You can use this pins to test other boards or modules if the port headers are not available.
PIC board has some on-board modules which can be enabled by using the jumper pins. Since each jumper is a direct connection to the corresponding module, they are useful for testing individual sections and modules.
Consider the case of the USART pins: you can debug the MAX232 module by shorting the TX and RX pins of MAX232 and sending data from the computer terminal. Likewise, the PIC controller can be shorted to test the module using the code.