Another Noob question

[RatFink]

I've been learning and working with one of the CCS C language development kit.

If I were to just buy a PIC16877 what do I need to program it? Something fairly inexpensive please.

Links to info also if you could.

Thanks

[MGP]

If it were me, I'd get a CCS ICD or Microchip ICD2. That way you can program pretty much any of the flash-based PIC's and debug all those with the debugger interface (including the '877).

Kills two birds with one stone...

The CCS ICD is cheaper and (IMO) better than the ICD2, but it only works with the CCS Windows IDE/Debugger whereas the ICD2 is more expensive but works with MPLAB (which is free).

[RatFink]

I have the ICD U40, it came with the CCS development kit, but how do I use that with a seperate chip? right now I have one of these;




it comes with a little prototyping board with the chip soldered in.




I guess I need something like this that I can put the chip in for programing, then take it out and install in a circuit board.

[Woody]

Here's how I do it:



As you can see I use the CCS ICD-U, made a cable from RJ11 to a female 6-way Molex connector. Then a Molex 6 way male connector connected to 6 wires, red for +5V, black for 0V, yellow for Monitor (pin RB3), blue for PGD (pin RB7), green for PGC (pin RB6), orange for MCLR (pin 1).

At the end of the colored cables I soldered pins I pulled out of a gold-contact snap-strip, to make contact with the breadboard a little better. (Solder first, then pull the pins from the strip ;-)

Now just place your target chip on the breadboard, add 0V, +5V, a 39K resistor form MCLR to +5V and the oscillator stuff, then connect the aforementioned 6 wires to the right pins, power the breadboard, plug in the ICD and you're ready to experiment.

For me this works good. I am able to run the CCS debugger and also program the device from the IDE, which is nice. Cabling is not a problem, although I do have an issue with the ICD-U / RJ11 connection that every now and then gives me a 'Could not detect target chip' error. Apart from that this setup usually takes me all the way to my first prototype print. (Which also has the same molex male connector BTW to enable programming / debugging)

Hope this helps,

Paul

[Neutone]

[RatFink]

Thank you guys for your ideas. Do either of you have links to something that might give a more detail explanation? maybe schematics?