I tried to take the pins out one by one with a pair of pliers, unfortunately some of the pins snapped since they are somewhat brittle. I hope only having a single pin in some of the columns doesn't affect anything. I do have a backup 10pin IDC connector, but I don't want to start ripping some of its pins out just yet. Anyway, here are a few screens of what I set up:
(I also tried just putting the ribbon connector right on top of the pins so I wouldn't get the added width of the header).
Now, I think a I maybe having the reverse problem. The wire going into the bread board is long enough, but it isn't long enough for the ribbon cable connection. The pin length itself it just too small to satisfy both the bread board and the ribbon cable. I measured the pin length and it comes out to 1.2cm. The width of the header shaves off about 2.5mm. So I only have a little under 1 cm to play with. That's less than 5mm for the bread board and the ribbon cable Unless anyone can recommend an alternative, I think I am going to have to purchase and solder on a dual header as Promme's suggested.
Prommie if you don't mind, would you be able to link me to where you purchased that particular header? It would be a big help to me. Thank you.
EDIT:
I tried this method again with a bit shorter wires, but I still don't have any luck. The wires are longer and of about the same consistency as the pins, so I don't quite understand why it isn't working. Here's a few other pictures of what I tried:
It still get the same error message in the output window, which fails to identify my PIC18F4685 microcontroller. I'm now wondering if it could be something else, but I am unsure of what that might be. I still may go ahead with the dual header method, but I am not so sure that the connections are the problem.
It Works!
It ended up being something really simple. One of the sides of the microcontroller was loose. I guess after all of the fiddling it became loose so I just popped it back in and it now works. Thank you all for your help I really appreciated it.
The picture above with the green wires is the current connection setup I am using (for anyone starting out like me).
Output window now displays:
Code:
Found PICkit 2 - Operating System Version 2.32.0
PICkit 2 Unit ID = Junebug
Target power detected ( 4.99V)
PIC18F4685 found (Rev 0x1)
PICkit 2 Ready
and
Code:
Programming Target (1/30/2010 3:25:42 AM)
PIC18F4685 found (Rev 0x1)
Erasing Target
Programming Program Memory (0x0 - 0xFF)
Verifying Program Memory (0x0 - 0xFF)
Programming Configuration Memory
Verifying Configuration Memory
PICkit 2 Ready