david hasselhoff said:
So I think I'm going to go with the CK1710A, which includes a ZIF socket for $59.95 at **broken link removed**
I'm also going to go with the 16f84 PIC
Is this a good start for a beginner?
NO! It's a very poor start.
That programmer is
very poorly supported. I have one of its cousins (from the same K series of programmers) from the same company. It's pathetically slow! There are many PICs that it won't program. Firmware updates from the company are miserably few and VERY far between. After much frustration I finally chucked it in a box and bought a good programmer.
Also, I'm pretty sure the CK1710A does not do ICSP programming, which is something you very much want/need. Without it you have to pull your PIC out of its circuit, put it in the programmer, program it, put it back in circuit, run it, pull it out, program it, put it back... and so on. It's a horrible way to work.
With ICSP (In Circuit Programming) you have a wire from your programmer to your target PIC board or breadboard. To program the PIC you just hit a few keys or click a few mouses
and it's done. No tedious jacking the chip in and out constantly.
What you want is something like a
Microchip PICkit2 or ICD2. Either a Microchip one or a clone of either programmer is fine. They're VERY well supported by the manufacturer of PICs.
A very good PICkit2 clone is
Blueroom Electronics Junebug. I'm not sure where to buy one of these right now. Harass Bill at Blueroom I guess. I have one (Bill sent me a sample board and I bought the parts) and I'm very happy with it.
A very good ICD2 clone is
Blueroom Electronics Inchworm+, available at
Dipmicro Electronics. I have one of these as well (with the Unicorn USB board) and it's excellent. (NOTE: Dipmicro is closed till January sometime, so if you want an Inchworm+ before then harrass Bill again
)
There are some other good clones out there as well. Sparkfun Electronics has
one. I don't know details of the rest, but there are others.
I'm also going to go with the 16f84 PIC
That's an antique. Get a modern PIC. There are several that are pin-compatible with the old 16F84, but much better (more memory, more features, etc.), like the 16F628 or the newer 16F88.
Another nice 18-pin PIC is the 18F1320. It's not pin-compatible with the 16F84 though (not that that's a big deal anyway). The 18F PICs are easier to program than the 16F's.