PIC starter question

[cwickham]

hey,
i have got lots of help already about choosing a programmer, thanks for all your help so far.

im gonna get the PICkit 2 debug kit, but im wondering what i would need to get to be able to program the 18F series of PICs.

DV164121 - PICkit 2 Debug Express

thanks,
craig

 

[3v0]

hey,
i have got lots of help already about choosing a programmer, thanks for all your help so far.

im gonna get the PICkit 2 debug kit, but im wondering what i would need to get to be able to program the 18F series of PICs.

DV164121 - PICkit 2 Debug Express
craig

The DV164121 comes with

44-pin demo board with PIC16F887 Midrange PIC microcontroller
The PIC16F887 may be debugged directly without any additional hardware.

This demo board is not for use with 18F's.
But you can program 18F uC's using ICSP, the uC will need to be on a target PCB or on a breadboard.

 

[AtomSoft]

If you would have gotten a Junebug you could have had a PIC18F1320 on board. I own both so no complaints here.

Check out the: DM163022 - PICDEM 2 PLUS
**broken link removed**

The PICDEM 2 Plus is a simple board that demonstrates the capabilities of many of the 18-, 28- and 40-pin PIC16XXXX and PIC18XXXX devices.

Also if you want to read up on some others; check out :
PIC18 Development Tools

 

[cwickham]

mabye i should get that one? looks pretty awsome, wat can the PICkit2 do that it cant?

 

[AtomSoft]

If you are referring to the Junebug; it cant do as much as the PICkit 2 without some mods. But it can do from what i have seen most pics which the pickit 2 can that are not Low Voltage pics. You need to have a small mod in place to do low voltage pics; the mod is in the manual tho

 

[cwickham]

is there a board that i can order that works with PIC2kit and supports the 18F series

 

[richard.c]

Hi,

Have a look at these video tutorials - very easy and informative.
**broken link removed**

As mentioned above it's really presonal preference between the Pickit2 debugger and Junebug - but with either you will need to add things onto them like lcd displays etc - its really down to if you want to do that or buy one of the complete larger development/ programmer boards - all of which have some pros and cons - which others here can comment on from experience.

Don't forget you can learn to program before you buy any hardware - almost all the Microchip code and tutorials can be downloaded for free - and in Mplab there is a Simulator so you can see the code running - if you have access to Proteus VSM, say at college, then you can create and program a virtual model of the hardware from Mplab.

A lot of C compliers have free or trial versions, but many people will suggest that you might be better starting with assembler as it gives you a better insight to the Pic chips - equally many of the Pic higher functions such as USB etc need C.

 

[cwickham]

thanks for your help again. I recently finished a 2 year electronics diploma, so i have done a fair bit of microcontroller programing in both assembly, c and c++. I guess one majour thing they left out was how to select hardware.. hahaha...

thanks for all your help and patients with my newb questions, i think ill end up going with the PICkit 2.

thanks again
craig

 

[AtomSoft]

Good choice.