....go!

Exciting stuff this PC device building. I soldered a few wires onto a bit of copper strip board and built a portable USB socket (it's in the photo on the right) so I can re-use it on different projects in future. I've not waved a soldering iron around for a few years, so the joints were good and blobby - like a high-school design and technology project!
I put a 9k resistor and 3mm LED in series across what was to become the +5v and 0v rails and plugged the USB cable in.
Nothing.
D'oh.
I plugged the other end of the cable into the PC.


A simple LED tells us that something is getting power...

The LED came on (yay!) but Windows said that there had been a malfunction in the USB device and it was not recognised (boo). I downloaded the latest virtual com port drivers from the FTDI website and installed them. I double-checked the USB signal wires (which I've coloured yellow and blue) and found I'd got them the wrong way around. After flipping them over this suddenly appeared:


Yay! Windows recognises my new device

Apparently you can use an application from the FTDI website to change the descriptors so that it displays your actual device name, but I was just thrilled to see this message:


Windows says "bring it on, I can talk to your new device"

That's right - installed and ready to use! Wow.
Except it's not really: I haven't programmed the PIC yet. But knowing that I got the simple USB-serial interface working is good enough for one day. And the Chinese buffet (that I bought with the money I'd saved building my own board) was fabulous...