Two years ago I installed a countdown timer at my sister's apartment. The user can set the time anywhere from 1 to 99 minutes. After the countdown is over a Sonalert buzzer will blare. The alarm has three stages, each with successively higher duty cycle. It begins with gentle fractional-second beeps so as not cause a heart attack. Each stage runs for approximately 10 seconds.
The engine that drives the timer is a 20-pin Microchip PIC 16F785 microcontroller. For user interface the time has a two-digit 7-segment LED display and two momentary contact buttons. Pressing the UP/DOWN button for a fraction of a second will increment/decrement the readout by one; keeping it depresed will increment/decrement the reading by 10. If the readout is not zero and no button is pressed for around 4 seconds, countdown begins. Once countdown has started either button will abort the count and readout will be zeroed. If countdown is allowed to run its course and the buzzer starts sounding, either button will turn the alarm off. When readout is "0" for some 16 seconds, readout will be blanked and MCU will go to sleep. Pressing either button will wake it up.
Although my sis has almost never used the timer (all that effort soldering the dang thing for nothing!) I just found out it doesn't work! The only reason I discovered it's on the blink is that I took it down and was going to give it to my aunt. She found out I have a timer in my home (practically the same design but has some improvements) and she says she needs one too.
To cut to the chase, it turns out the power supply is dead. The PSU is an Ericsson cell phone charger model AA21990 which has an output of 5.1V 450mA. To add to the trouble, while testing the timer using a working PSU (not an Ericsson) I discovered that the MCU was running very warm. Now that's bad! The timer was working fine, meaning the MCU was still running the firmware, but somehow or other there was a short or a quasi short somewhere. I inspected the solder side of the board but it was fine. I cleaned the board just to make sure. Finally in desperation I took out a new 16F785, burned in the firmware, and dropped it in the DIP socket. Well, what do you know? The original MCU was fried as well!
My guess is that the PSU must've taken the MCU with it when it burned out.
I tried reprogramming the MCU. This PICkit2 says it has a Vpp problem. At some point it couldn't even detect the device. Guess that's it for that chip. Its time is up!
I'm modifying the circuit before installing it in my aunt's home. Instead of being powered by 5VDC the buzzer will now be operated at 12 volts. That increases the alarm volume considerably so it can be heard even in the next room with the door closed. It's going to be earsplitting in the kitchen.
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