The CCS ICD and the Microchip ICD, which is good ?

[arunb]

Hi,

I saw the ad for the CCS ICD in the website. I know that the ICD offered by microchip has some restrictions , does the CCS one have the same restrictions ?? Also does it support other mcus like PIC 16F628 etc.

Do you think an ICE is better ??

cheers
arun

[Haplo]

In my opinion CCS ICD is better.

http://www.ccsinfo.com/faq/?46

[vaneenbergen]

i think ICD is better then an ICE, because your not workong on a bound out but the device it self at the cortrect speed. Further a ICD is more cost effective than an ice, acccept for the download times they can take up to a minutoe for very large oprograms (using 64k on a 18F8720).

CCS / microchip. the micro chip version is more expensive, but for the CCS version you need the PCW software. i stepped from microchip to CCS because the PCW enveroment is made for the compiler and will handle is better. and also the ICD can be used standalone for production.

joost

[Vector Research]

Except if you live in canada, then the Microchip ICD is much cheaper if you add on the cost of shipping (assuming you are buying it from Digikey where you only pay $8.00cdn for shipping)
I do like the Specs of the CCS ICD compared to the Microchip one, however it is as much for shippping as the unit costs to get it to canada..

that my $0.02

Vince

[Douglas Kennedy]

Now I thought the Canadians were buying the hockey puck microchip ICD2 for its shape alone forgeting that the CCS is the better matched product for the CCS compiler. But it was the postage costs all along. If Digikey can post /mail to Canada for $8 CCS ought to be able to do it as well. I bought the microchip ICD2 a year or two back and returned it for a full refund of $200 ( Microchip had no working software for it in MP lab at that time). The CCS supported the microchip ICD1 into the new 18xxxx chips. In contrast, Microchip dumped everyone using the ICD1 to market the hockey puck ICD2 when it didn't even work.
Anyway the ICDU-40 I got for $35 from CCS is the best priced and the most capable product.

[Jeff King]

See:

http://www.ccsinfo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17981&highlight=

and CCS does claim they are working to make the program uploads faster, but I don't know the current status.

[mooseo]

I am also trying to chose between the ICD2 and the ICD-U40. As a student, I can get the educational discount, but that package appears to only work with the c16f876/7 chips. I am working on a class project that uses a c16f818, but we are coding it in assembler.

Is there any way that I will be able to use the ICD-U40 to load code on this chip (not necessarily write C-code for it) if I don't have the upgraded software that supports more chips?

thanks,
mike

[user1]

If the icd _u is working well,
it would be better, but

In my advice for assembler would be
better to use icd2 from Microchip,
with the last Mplab, icd2 from microchip
is better than icd-U. and the technical support
is better with Microchip.
If you email a problem to CCS, it
will take a life for an answer.

The technical support of CCS is the worst!

[dyeatman]

I am running the ICDU under XP on a 2.8 GHZ laptop and the upload time for a program using 65% of a 16F876 is 11 seconds (bulk erase mode) which is extremely fast!

The debugger is also working well and I am very pleased.

I have used the Warp13 and ICD1 for years and was happy with that combo but this seems to be much better so far. The chips supported by ther ICDU are listed on the tools page. The 16F628 is one of the few that is not supported by ICDU for debugging mode but most all the rest are.

[Jeff King]

[dyeatman]

One thing that really speeded things up on mine was to set the programming mode for 5V only rather than 5V or 3V. This appeared to increase the speed by 50% or more.

Dont have the ICD2 so I can't address that question unfortunately. Maybe someone else can...

Dave