Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

good PIC programmer?

Status
Not open for further replies.

gimmix

New Member
Hey,
i'm pretty new to this forum aswell as the world of microcontrollers. I do have a background using hte 8051, but want to move into PICs aswell

can anyone recommend a decent PIC programmer they have used, that is realtively cheap (CAN$65 and under)? and if so, can u tell me the website and cost u paid?

USB interface would be preferencial, though Parallel ports are fine too. Potential ICSP capacity would also be good.

Thanx in advance for any help/advice
 
Hi,

I use a picstart plus but that is a bit more than you wanted to pay (over here anyway), I initially got a pickit 1 but soon after I sold it on Ebay, it would only program the "smaller" pics, otherwise it was ok, comes with a few LED's and a couple of switches onboard so you can get started without any additional hardware.

I also tried a velleman kit, but I had problems with it, so I went and got the picstart plus.

There are plenty of DIY ones on the net, which will probably work out a lot cheaper, if my picstart ever broke then I'd probably make one.
 
Ohhh, I was in such a rush when I replies, I forgot about Nigels ! I havnt used one myself, however if the programmer is as good as his tutorials then I cant imagine there being a better one around.
 
eggplant said:
Ohhh, I was in such a rush when I replies, I forgot about Nigels ! I havnt used one myself, however if the programmer is as good as his tutorials then I cant imagine there being a better one around.

The P16PRO40 isn't my design, but it's how I would have designed one myself :lol:

It's basically an upgraded David Tait design, David Tait is the 'father of parallel port PIC programmers', the majority of homemade programmers are offshoots from his original design.

I suspect David Tait is probably more responsible for the popularity of PIC's than any other individual - he actually works at Manchester University in the UK - but no longer maintains his PIC archive.
 
I use this one **broken link removed**

It works great.
 
Why not to Build an ICD2 ?!
It's a cool programmer and also a debugger! It uses MPLAB so you can program *any* PIC you want. This is a nice ICD2 Clone:
**broken link removed**

Enjoy! :D
 
Excellent!

Jay.slovak said:
Why not to Build an ICD2 ?!
It's a cool programmer and also a debugger! It uses MPLAB so you can program *any* PIC you want. This is a nice ICD2 Clone:
**broken link removed**

Enjoy! :D

Very nice link. I'm sorry I did not visit this forum earlier. I broke down and bought an ICD2 from Microchip. I'm not sad about it though, it works great.

I wanted to get started with PIC development and also experiment with USB. I considered getting a PICDEM USB board but decided an ICD2 was a better investment in the long term. Microchips 2 free samples in 40 days is a great deal that I've already taken advantage of: just received a PIC18F2550 in a DIP package! Works great so far. I'm just waiting for an assortment of crystals and other miscellanoeus parts to arrive so I can actually load and run the PICDEM USB code from off Microchip's website.

Here's a picture of my current development setup:
**broken link removed**
 
I'm using RCD programmer, based to the JDM programmer.

So far it give me no problem to program F628, F88 and F688.

**broken link removed**, this site give full of list supported PIC..

you may try it...work fine with IC-Prog and WinProg..
 
Hey

sorry haven't been able to check forum in a while.. school is killing me. Anyways, thanx for the suggestions. I have come across the many "build your own" programmers. I tried one but it didn't work. So ithought I'd buy one instead to get started. There is too much doubt for me, when i build the programmers, b/c i dont know whats goign wrong, whether its s/w or h/w or whatever. Thats why i went with buying one. Since i'm just starting i didn't want to spend alot until i'm comfortalbe with them.

I saw the DIY programmers. Been eyeing the K128, and K149. its areasonable cost with lots of support for many models. But they've been updating them as they go thru h/w and s/w methods.
Any feedback on these updates?

I also noticed the K128 only programs flash PICS (the one with 'F'). Is that a problem? dont most applications use Flash PICS? When ever is it advantagous to use CMOS (the ones with 'C') over the FLASH? I think i'll do another thread for that question.
 
K149BC is the best kit to buy since it supports Serial & USB interface and it programs using high voltage voltage programming method. Update to this kit is supplied in the form of HEX file which you need to burn in another 16F628A and replace it with the one on the programmer. Other plus point of this programmer is that it performs all operations with a blazing speed.
P.S: K149BC is same as CK1708 which I mentioned in my previous post.

K128 uses low voltage programming, so it can program only limited number of devices.
 
gimmix said:
Hey
I also noticed the K128 only programs flash PICS (the one with 'F'). Is that a problem? dont most applications use Flash PICS? When ever is it advantagous to use CMOS (the ones with 'C') over the FLASH? I think i'll do another thread for that question.
C PIC's are old and not used anymore. C does not stand for "CMOS", it stands for EPROM Program memory (the one that has to be erased using UV). So don't worry about it. F "FLASH" versions are used in 99%...
 
Jay.slovak said:
gimmix said:
Hey
I also noticed the K128 only programs flash PICS (the one with 'F'). Is that a problem? dont most applications use Flash PICS? When ever is it advantagous to use CMOS (the ones with 'C') over the FLASH? I think i'll do another thread for that question.
C PIC's are old and not used anymore. C does not stand for "CMOS", it stands for EPROM Program memory (the one that has to be erased using UV). So don't worry about it. F "FLASH" versions are used in 99%...

It's never really been clear WHAT the C stood for - but it certainly wasn't for UV eraseble ones!.

As far as I know there have been three types of PIC's using 'C' as a designator:

1) OTP EPROM chips, these can only be blown ONCE, so are generally used for final production devices.

2) Eraseable EPROM chips, these are essentially OTP chips, but with a quartz window so you can erase the device and reuse it - these are designated by JW on the end of the device number, the JW signifies a UV eraseable device. One word of warning! - NEVER EVER set the code protection on a JW device, all relatively modern CANNOT BE ERASED once the code protection bit is set (this is a safety feature, to prevent possible reading of the code.)

3) The 16C84 - these was the first EEPROM processor, and still used the same C designation as all the other PIC's. Later on it was re-engineered and renamed the 16F84 - however, it was still EEPROM, and not an actual FLASH device.

As kinjalgp says, if you're wanting a 'proper' serial port programmer (which includes a USB/Serial adaptor on board) the 149BC would be a good bet. However, you should be aware that the 628A processor used is pretty well full - new processor updates will probably result in older devices been dropped from the supported devices - but you could always keep an older firmware chips for the odd occasions you might require an older chip.
 
Nigel Goodwin said:
Jay.slovak said:
gimmix said:
Hey
I also noticed the K128 only programs flash PICS (the one with 'F'). Is that a problem? dont most applications use Flash PICS? When ever is it advantagous to use CMOS (the ones with 'C') over the FLASH? I think i'll do another thread for that question.
C PIC's are old and not used anymore. C does not stand for "CMOS", it stands for EPROM Program memory (the one that has to be erased using UV). So don't worry about it. F "FLASH" versions are used in 99%...

It's never really been clear WHAT the C stood for - but it certainly wasn't for UV eraseble ones!.

As far as I know there have been three types of PIC's using 'C' as a designator:

1) OTP EPROM chips, these can only be blown ONCE, so are generally used for final production devices.

2) Eraseable EPROM chips, these are essentially OTP chips, but with a quartz window so you can erase the device and reuse it - these are designated by JW on the end of the device number, the JW signifies a UV eraseable device. One word of warning! - NEVER EVER set the code protection on a JW device, all relatively modern CANNOT BE ERASED once the code protection bit is set (this is a safety feature, to prevent possible reading of the code.)

3) The 16C84 - these was the first EEPROM processor, and still used the same C designation as all the other PIC's. Later on it was re-engineered and renamed the 16F84 - however, it was still EEPROM, and not an actual FLASH device.

As kinjalgp says, if you're wanting a 'proper' serial port programmer (which includes a USB/Serial adaptor on board) the 149BC would be a good bet. However, you should be aware that the 628A processor used is pretty well full - new processor updates will probably result in older devices been dropped from the supported devices - but you could always keep an older firmware chips for the odd occasions you might require an older chip.
Thanks Nigel for clearing this out :D
With UV erasable ones I ment that EPROM COULD only be erased by UV. Ofcourse when there is no window you can't erase it...

BTW: JW devices look so cool in their ceramic package and window on top... :lol:
 
thanx all this info is very inciteful.
Hmm.. soo it seems like i'm gonna be gunning for the K149BC..

I did read that thing about the updates on the KitsRUs webiste (ppl that make the DIY kits). What I understood from it, was that the current processor is nearing its limit and a newer processor with more capacity will have to be inserted instead to keep up with all the newer models + the old ones.

Oh one more thing.. for those using the K149BC programmer, did u have to any hardware modifications to get it working (eg. change the crystal to 6MHz, add a resistor) ?
 
No I don't think you need to change any hardware. The kit comes with 6MHz crystal.
If the new firmware goes beyond 2k words, I think they will use 16F648A which has 4k code memory and is pin compatible with 16F628A.
 
PICKIT1

The PIC KIT1 programmer specified in microchip Aplication notes is designed for programming 8/14 pin devices. Can it be used for programming larger PICs like 16F877A. Currently i am using a JDM based programmer with ICPROG which works perfectly. I build this programmer few months ago, but the thing is it is using the Com port. So now i want to build a progammer with a USB interface so i can use it with my laptop too.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top