Which programmer supports the best range of PICs? Especially the newer ones

The PK3 is probably your best bet future-wise, but if you get one, having a PK2 around will come in handy one day when you turn your PK3 into a brick.

That's the real drawback with it. Every time you change chip families MPLAB downloads a new OS to the PK3, and that step has failed a for me a number of times. Sometimes it can be revived, sometimes not.

The stand-alone programming app isn't as good as the one for the PK2, either. Still, for some of the newer chips there's not much choice.

Hi tumbleweed,

When you say change families what exactly does that cover?

Can I use 12F and 16F without needing to download a new OS?

Also could I not use my original PicFlash to resurrect a dead PK3?

Al

bigal_scorpio said:

Hi tumbleweed,

When you say change families what exactly does that cover?

Can I use 12F and 16F without needing to download a new OS?

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It's fully automatic, MPLAB transfers the required files to the PICKit (either 2 or 3) as needed.

Also could I not use my original PicFlash to resurrect a dead PK3?

Click to expand...

As long as it supports the device in the PICKit, and you can access it.

But don't get too worried, it's a pretty rare ocurrance - I've never had any problems with either my 2 or 3.

Hi Nigel,

Cheers mate, just got a little worried about things. But if you never had bother then thats ok with me. I know your 2 and 3 will have been well tested with the amount of work you do with PICs. I think I will get the PK3.

Al

bigal_scorpio said:

Hi Nigel,

Cheers mate, just got a little worried about things. But if you never had bother then thats ok with me. I know your 2 and 3 will have been well tested with the amount of work you do with PICs. I think I will get the PK3.

Al

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I've got my PK3 at home (as I'm using the 16F1827 - which is why I bought it), and the PK2 at work.

Hi,
we do the same thing but i use GTP (win800) and another one with usbpicprog 0.42.there easy to construct,i had converter them to pcb with pcb wizard.if you want it i can post .

Thanks for all the info guys, I will bite the bullet and go for a PK3!

Thanks again........Al

tumbleweed said:

The PK3 is probably your best bet future-wise, but if you get one, having a PK2 around will come in handy one day when you turn your PK3 into a brick.

That's the real drawback with it. Every time you change chip families MPLAB downloads a new OS to the PK3, and that step has failed a for me a number of times. Sometimes it can be revived, sometimes not.

The stand-alone programming app isn't as good as the one for the PK2, either. Still, for some of the newer chips there's not much choice.

Click to expand...

I program PIC's for a living and have been for the last 5 years or so. I've never had a programmer fail during a load of a new OS and I routinely switch between PIC10s, PIC32s, and everything in between. I'm not saying it would never happen, but I am saying it should be very rare. However, I normally use an ICD3 and have a REAL ICE as a backup. I do often use the PICKit3, but mainly when I plan on telling a customer how to program one of their boards or if I need a Programmer-On-The-Go.

BTW, if you're not familiar with the programmer on the go stuff, you can load a .hex file into the PICKit3 and then program your boards until you're dizzy without using MPLAB. Just power the PICKit3 with a USB cable, plug the PICKit3 into the target, and press a button on the PICKit3. Works great if you have a customer that wants an update but didn't pay for a bootloader. Just ship 'em a PICKit3 with the image loaded, he programs it, then ships the PICKit3 back. I'm not sure if the PICKit2 has that, but I don't think it does.

I've never had a programmer fail during a load of a new OS and I routinely switch between PIC10s, PIC32s, and everything in between

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I wish that had been my experience, but sadly no.

To be fair, I haven't had it happen for a while now. I think there was an issue back with older versions of MPLAB that they fixed ~8.46

Other than that, the PK3 has been fine.

Noggin said:

BTW, if you're not familiar with the programmer on the go stuff, you can load a .hex file into the PICKit3 and then program your boards until you're dizzy without using MPLAB. Just power the PICKit3 with a USB cable, plug the PICKit3 into the target, and press a button on the PICKit3.

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microchip owe you a commision that little fact you gave has persuaded me to go get a PK3, i have been trying to decide if its worth upgradeing from a PK2. out of interest whats the advantage of real ice or ICD2 over a PK2?

The REAL ICE, ICD3, and PICKit3 are the same generation devices. ICD2 and PICKit2 are the previous generation. I haven't noticed much difference between the REAL ICE and ICD3, though the ICE has an optional high speed kit that basically lets you use longer cables to connect to the chip (I'm using about a 1 foot long cable with no trouble and no high speed kit) and I think lets you see variables in the watch window in real time (I think you need the kit for that though). To compare the REAL ICE/ICD3 to ICD2... my first PIC32 project took about 40 seconds to program the chip with the ICD2 (512k flash) and about 5 seconds with the ICE. It paid for itself in a few days of work, easily. I'm afraid I can't tell you how long it takes the PICKit3 to program the PIC32 of the same size. If I remember, I'll try it out tomorrow.

The REAL ICE/ICD3 are high speed USB vs the PICKit3 being full speed. This will make very little difference in programming small parts, but will come into play when programming and debugging larger parts. The REAL ICE and ICD3 also seem to be significantly faster when resuming from break points than the PICkit3. Lastly, the REAL ICE and ICD3 have a no questions asked if it breaks we'll replace it policy. I'm working on an electric vehicle charger and uhmm... neither the ICD3 or Real ICE really enjoy being the ground path for that. I should be getting my replacements for them tomorrow or Thursday.

I have only one complaint about the PICKit3 and it is that it will NOT program the electric vehicle charging station's main board. I suspect it is a little less tolerant of noise on the programming pins as the chip ID it reads is shifted left by either 1 or 2 bits every time I try to connect to it. The PIC on that board is a PIC32MX695F512 if I remember correctly. I've never had any problems with any other boards, including a handful of other PIC32 projects.

Microchip sells an isolater so you can use your ICE or ICD with projects like your vehicle charger. It sits between your ICE and the project board. If it's too pricey, you can also use a simple USB isolator which will let the ICE float at the level of your project board but protect it from bad ground loops.

I can say that the high speed kit for the RealICE is great. I love being able to keep the pod somewhere off my desk while programming a board many feet away from me. The high speed kit also allows you to watch variables in real time with instruction rates over 15MIPS. The RealICE also does variable trace on most PICs (except for the low end ones) and it will do instruction trace on the PIC32s. I'm hoping in the future they will add a simple logic analyzer to the RealICE in the same fashion of the PICKit-2 but with increased performance. I think that would be an extremely useful tool.

Lets throw a spanner in the works...pickit3 have released a standalone windows AANNDD programmer to go.. Seems they have listened..

Ian Rogers said:

Lets throw a spanner in the works...pickit3 have released a standalone windows AANNDD programmer to go.. Seems they have listened..

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Is this something new from the 'programmer to go' it's always done?.

Do you have a link?.

Well.. I was watching the video and both "programmer to go" and "Standalone" were not included.. but an administrator on the microchip forums revealed the new software.https://www.microchip.com/forums/m554515.aspx... I know this was back a few months but I haven't heard about it.

I have just noticed that Microchip have updated the supported device file for Pickit 2 (Version 1.62.14, November 2011). I think Pickit 3 is the product to buy if you don't have a Pickit but for those that already have a Pickit 2 it now should support several of the new devices such as 18F26K80, 16F18** .... (only using Pickit, not MPLAB).