Mikroelektronika mikroICD clone - does exist and/or is it legal?

[DexterLB]

I know that Microchip give circuits for all their ICDs and PicKits. And i've made a picKit2 clone, and it works. How about the mikroICD? I searched, but couldn't find a circuit anywhere... So, can a mikroICD clone be made?

 

[3v0]

I know that Microchip give circuits for all their ICDs and PicKits. And i've made a picKit2 clone, and it works. How about the mikroICD? I searched, but couldn't find a circuit anywhere... So, can a mikroICD clone be made?

The question I have is why you would want to.

If you need/want and ICD2 clone you can build Bill's Inchworm and Unicorn.

 

[AtomSoft]

There PDF has all the info and when you buy it it contains all schematics.

Its the firmware that will get you stuck lol

 

[AtomSoft]

I clone the mini boards they have and make them my own with my own pinout and stuff. I just clone the connections and thats how i learned alot lol

 

[arhi]

I know that Microchip give circuits for all their ICDs and PicKits. And i've made a picKit2 clone, and it works. How about the mikroICD? I searched, but couldn't find a circuit anywhere... So, can a mikroICD clone be made?

Good question .. as MikroC (MikroPascal, MikroBasic) can be debugged only with MikroICD .... The schematic is available (you can take it out of easypic schematic if nothing else) but the firmware is not public nor open source. I tried to read the mikroICD fw from pickit4 and but it was code protected so I gave up (did not try to hack it). I do not believe the firmware will ever be public as mikroelektronika close pretty much everything (all libraries you get with mikroC are closed source for example).... I know they were working on cli compiler and that they were in some negotiations with microchip (at least they said so) to make mikroC debuggable via mplab envinronment but they posted info that "they did not manage to find common language with microchip and they will continue with existing mikroICD" ... that's the info from mikroe forum .. maybe there are some news now, I have not visited it for some time now...

I still use MikroC from time to time and I'm pretty pissed off every time I need to debug anything ...

 

[arhi]

atom, yeah, the amount of boards they have is immense ... those are really helpful little thingy's ... on top of it, you get example in mikroC with them (right of the site) ... the dev boards are also very good, I have easyPic4 and it is great dev tool...

 

[AtomSoft]

yeah i read the schematics for the dev board and learned a lot about I2C, SPI, CAN and LCD(Glcd) Connections and POWER (Contrast) and such. Its very useful.

I might clone there dev board for use with a pickit 2. And just have a Pickit 2 clone on the board like take the part from bills schematic of the Junebug and place it on board of the new clone and there you have it a nice PICkit 2 clone Dev board.

 

[DexterLB]

Good question .. as MikroC (MikroPascal, MikroBasic) can be debugged only with MikroICD .... The schematic is available (you can take it out of easypic schematic if nothing else) but the firmware is not public nor open source. I tried to read the mikroICD fw from pickit4 and but it was code protected so I gave up (did not try to hack it). I do not believe the firmware will ever be public as mikroelektronika close pretty much everything (all libraries you get with mikroC are closed source for example).... I know they were working on cli compiler and that they were in some negotiations with microchip (at least they said so) to make mikroC debuggable via mplab envinronment but they posted info that "they did not manage to find common language with microchip and they will continue with existing mikroICD" ... that's the info from mikroe forum .. maybe there are some news now, I have not visited it for some time now...

I still use MikroC from time to time and I'm pretty pissed off every time I need to debug anything ...

So... I can't make a mikroICD clone legally. Thanks for the replies anyway!

 

[blueroomelectronics]

You can't even make one illegally since the firmware is protected.

 

[arhi]

@blueroomelectronics with regards to "illegally" I had pretty good success (few years back) with extracting the code from 16F84 and some 12F* that were protected ... (althoe, in 30% cases - you kill the pic) ... not sure if microchip worked on the security ... so illegally it might even be possible with some luck


@atom, yeah I was thinking about making a easyPIC like dev board that works with pickit2 but abandoned the idea ... I moded my easyPic4 to accept pickit2 and that's it .. moving slowly to TI (msp430) as pic is not that interesting any more...

@dexterLB, why were you interested in mikroICD clone? You use mikro* compilers or some other reason as you have olimex in the neighbourhood, they have some nice tools and prices are more then ok. MPLAB is kinda standard with microchip uC's so I really hope mikroelektronika will become compatible with MPLAB soon...

 

[blueroomelectronics]

More modern PICs are pretty secure plus you'd need to dismantle a working mikroICD (or a few) in the hopes of breaking the code.

I agree using MPLAB supported tools is a better idea.

 

[arhi]

More modern PICs are pretty secure

I'm very glad to hear that

regarding mikroICD and ICD2 from microchip, it is fairly easy to mod mikroe boards to become mplab compatible. The boards are really good, easyPICx, bigPICx .. pretty great boards, better then anything I saw on the market... I moded my easyPIC4 to be usable with pickit2, I still have original mikroICD part but I do not remember when I used it last time and I do use mikroC fairly often. That's where the problem lies, if you want to use mikroe compiler and to debug them, you need mikroICD ... and, I paid money for that compiler ...

 

[bryan]

=arhi;696088. I moded my easyPIC4 to be usable with pickit2,..

Interested in a pic of your mod for the Ep4 and PK2. I have my PK2 hanging off the end of the PORTB edge connector on my EP4, it's fine but always interested in what others are doing.

 

[arhi]

@bryan, no camera, wife out of town, she took camera ..

what I did was not "smart" at all, jp3/jp4 on pk2 are ICSPDAT/ICSPCLK (or other way around I forgot), I just soldered the wires to jumpers and heatshrinked them. I connected GND and left VPP(MCLR) pin on a wire that I plug into "similar socket" (i connect to pin1 of dip28 if programming dip40 for example (I was unable to find where the darn vpp is comming from the mikroICD programmer, but as they use PGD, I assume they use LVP).

I'm using the external power for the EP4 (VDD from pk2 is not connected) as that's how I use that board anyhow.