Purchasing Microchip´s ICD2 or CCS´s ICDU-40

Guest · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 6:05 am

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For the last three days I've been seriously considering the purchase of the CCS compiler tool. But about 5 months ago, I bought the ICD2 product not realizing I'd need C capability. The CCS compiler sounds great and certainly has a great price. But I suspect that I cannot use the ICD2 within the CCS IDE. Anyone care to comment on whether I am correct or not?

Also, can anybody identify the strengths and weaknesses of the two IDEs? I'm quite familiar with MPLAB, but I will be starting cold with the CCS IDE. How is its debugging features as compared to MPLAB? Does anyone know how debugging of floating point values is supported in the IDEs? (I have read of some correctable problems in the FAQ with MPLAB 6.5 and the plug-in.)

Humberto · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 7:39 am

Go back to CCS Forum Index and you will find a General discussion about
CCS brand debuggers and programmers (ICD-S, ICD-U, etc) where you will
find your question answered.

Humberto

Mark · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 2838 Location: Atlanta, GA

You don't have to buy or use the CCS IDE. You can stick with the MPLAB and ICD2 solution and save yourself some $$.

Will Reeve · Joined: 30 Oct 2003 Posts: 209 Location: Norfolk, England

I have used both. It IMHO simply boils down to which IDE you prefer. I like the CCS one so now use ICD-U40 almost exclusively. In fact I've just got another one so I can debug two PIC's trying to talk to each other at the same time!
CCSIDE has some nice features like the bracket highlight facility which is handy, it just feels like a nice Windows application to me. MPLAB always felt a little hobbyist if you get what I mean. Just my opinion.

Will

Douglas Kennedy · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 755 Location: Florida

Many will remember Microchip dropped ICD1 like a brick and it was CCS that continued to support it and even provided firmware for the 18 chips. Just as well for ICD2 was full of bugs at that time. I now use ICD_U and CCS IDE. Microchip could support ICD2 into the future but for me "once bitten twice shy" is the rule.

Haplo · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 659 Location: Sydney, Australia

ICDU is excellent but I'm having major reliability problems with it. The PIC18F252 in my ICDU keeps losing its code for some reason, and I need to hook-up my Microchip ICD1 (running CCS code) and a lot of mini-grabbers to it every once in a while. The CCS tech support hasn't been able to help me. You can see my posts on this here:
http://www.ccsinfo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19262

Although ICDU is great I can't trust it. I go on overseas business trips very often and I can't afford this thing happening to me while on the road...

Guest · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 4:31 am

I have my two ICDU-40's working. One is perfect, works all the time, the other can only be described as flaky. Both have the same firmware loaded. I have interchanged ALL cables so it IS the ICD itself. Sometimes it just loses communication with the target, with the only check oscillator / MCLR dialog. If I swap ICD's it does the same with the other target... It does this say 1 out of 10 re-sets.