PIC Programming

[Cynic-al]

Got some projects to do in the garden and have decided a little pic would be the best way to control it but I havent used any since college. Saw the below item and thought it seemed pretty reasonable, anyone got any opinions or better alternatives?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/k8048-pic-microcontroller-programmer-kit-37192

[FridgeFreezer]

These days the MSP430 boards ($4.30) or (groans) Arduino seem to be usurping PICs, although the arduino community seems to be 99% muppets and the MSP430 IDE download is 1.1Gb to program a 4k chip, and it refused to work for me after a lot of faffing.

There's been quite a few write-ups on chinese knock-off PIC programmers etc. on Hackaday, have a peer over there, you may find some useful stuff. Also Seeedstudio and dangerous prototypes.

For minor tinkering projects, Arduino may work out easiest as there are boards for almost anything, from relay outputs to video capture. Can get a bit spendy though.

To be honest, I've not found a really good micro & development environment combination yet - they all have faults or shortcomings. I haven't tried NXP yet but have heard good things about them.

[HoSS]

I have a PicKit3 programmer, works well. even debugs reasonably fast.

I've also just started experimenting with the MPLAB X IDE it looks promising.

Oh and these days i'm not sure id bother with a 16 series, 24 series have way bang for the buck...

[Cynic-al]

Thanks, I'll do a. Bit of research based on your suggestions

[pete3000]

Maplin kit looks o.k, for basic pic programming. Think it's a veleman kit derivative.

I built my first one, a willem programmer. Well supported with adapters and such not much it wouldn't do. Think the design finished although you can still get the boards and the icprog software. does eproms pics flash etc etc.

If you want a bit more in terms of a dev kit/programmer/modules have a look at flowcode www.matrixmultimedia.com *Can waste over an hour or so looking at shiny goods *CAUTION*

As an aside you can make a budget eprom eraser cheaply using a 9w uv-a/b nail art lamp off ebay £10, and buy a hozelock uv-c 2 pin tube for it. £7 ish.

Pete

[TSD]

For easy examples to borrow code from, and a gentle learning curve, a PIC is still hard to beat. MSP430 is a real contender, but the amount of work needed before you get past 'hello world' is much higher than the PIC, because there's less beginner level support.

My current favourite is the STMicro ARM dev board 'STM32-VLDISCOVERY'. You get a 32bit ARM processor with 128K flash and 8k RAM, and a built in programmer, for about £10.

Ignore all the recommended dev systems, and google the free 'CooCox' IDE. You still won't find much entry level help online, but the dev environment is really easy to set up and fairly bug free, leaving you free to swear at the code instead of the IDE :-)

[gordonendersby]

Not all Arduino users are muppets.

There are a lot of american high school kids on the forums that drag the quality down though.

There are a lot of libraries and existing projects you can copy/adapt to your uses.

Garden watering systems and monitors seem to be quite popular with Arduino's.

Once youve made something useful you can easily distil the hardware down to just whats necessary.

Im also one of the many waiting for a raspberry pi but thats probably overkill for what you want.

Gordon

[elbekko]

I have the Velleman one you linked, and I'm not too happy with it. It's pretty outdated, serial only (that doesn't play well with converters), ...

I can't recall the name, but there's a simple and cheap PIC programmer available that does everything you need it to do without any hassle, and is pretty easy to build yourself if you feel the need to.

[Cynic-al]

ok thanks, i'll work through all the suggestions