HI speed programmer

[Tobias]

I need to program 400 18F4431 chips ISCP.

I have found Xeltec, looks like they have a high speed programmer. Any opinions on this product or can you offer alternatives?

Yes I know I could have ordered the PIC chips preprogrammed but I wasn't thinking.

Merry Christmas

[longpole001]

it the time of the year for few beers , watch a fav show on the computer - " while you hit a few keys to program 400 chips " should get through at least 20 beers for 400 chips


happy xmas

[Demon]

Tobias, use the WWII Allied approach; quantity over quality. The Tigers and other German tanks were superior in every way except one, maintenance/parts fabrication, ok, that's two.

Look for a simple DIY programmer schematic, and now make 10-20 circuit boards for them. Gang-programming can be your friend.

Robert

[Demon]

Or the relational database approach; a one-to-many design. One programmer, many output connectors. Have the programmer cycle through the connectors, you can start replacing with fresh boards as it's moving along (have a status light at each connector).

"Don't think of high-speed programming, think volume, it opens up cheaper avenues." - Henry Ford

Yup, he said that.

Robert

[Tobias]

longpole001 has the most appealing idea.

Demon,
I have found another programmer that will do eight at a time, lead time is 6 weeks. I think alot of suppliers must be taking the Walmart approach to keeping inventory anymore. Even Deutsche has a hard time keeping inventory of connectors and terminals at times.

Anyrate, do you have any links for programmer schematics? I know I can search, I just don't know what I am really looking when determining if its a good schematic and parts.

[Jumper]

Any PicKit II or PicKit III clone and then all you need to do is use the stand-alone programming button. Since they are cheap you can buy i.e 5 and then click the buttons on all 5 ... sip some beer and connect the next board of the batch.

I bet with some serious soldering you can even connect the 5 units to the same button :-)

[Demon]

Or one PK2 with a 8-pins-or-whatever-you-need multi-position rotary switch (like old display selectors).

As you manually plug a fresh board, turn the dial to that position and click PGM. Unplug the PGMed board and replace with a fresh one.

You can only do so much manually anyways, so you'd only need 1 or 2 extra outlets. This could be wired on those dev PCB breadboards.

Not at my PC, can't google right now. Wife hollering something about "pick up all your darned PC crap from the kitchen".

[Tobias]

I would really like to program mulitple boards at the same time, not cycle through.

[Demon]

There's a lot of schematics for "gang multiple pic programmer schematic circuit".

Which is better I couldn't say. This one is neat, but I'd use zif sockets from ebay instead of those pogo thingies.

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/743

Robert

[jrprogrammer]

How about having Digikey pre-program them for you?

[peterdeco1]

I don't know if this will work for ICSP but I have paralleled up to 10 DIP chips and ran a cable to my programmer socket. It programs all of them at the same time.

[Demon]

Peter, did you have verify enabled?

Robert

[peterdeco1]

Yes Robert. I use a Picstart + from Mplab. It always verifies after programming. And after paralleling the chips and programming them, they were immediately installed on the circuit boards and tested OK. I must admit that it isn't perfect. Occasionally I would find some PICs that didn't work and had to reprogram them. The easiest way to try this is to stack the chips one on top of the other so that all the pins are in parallel. Then stick the bottom chip in the programmer. If you stack say 10 PICs, and there is a loose connection between the 5th and 6th chip, then the chain is broken and the top 5 won't be programmed. Try it with a couple. It works.

[Heckler]

Here is what I use to program multiple chips... I can do one chip in about 5 sec

>drop in a new chip in the ZIF socket
>clamp the ZIF socket
>hit Enter to program
>release the ZIF lever
>drop the programmed chip into a static safe bag (I use a metalized static bag opened up on the counter and just tip the programmer over to drop the chip into the bag)

>repeat...

All in around 5 seconds

Just get yourself an appropriately sized ZIF (zero insertion force) socket and a little bit of perf board and a header strip or whatever you need for your programmer and go to town

[Tobias]

Does the PICKit2 require power from the pcb?

[Heckler]

No external power required... The PICkit2 is totally USB powered.

I can program 8, 14 and 20 pin pics with my setup.
I used the Microchip LowPinCount demo board and because the ZIF socket covered up where the header strip normally would be, I just soldered them in on the bottom side instead.

Also the PICkit2 has a PushButton on it that you can enable to initiate the program cycle (from inside the PICkit application)

or you can just hit enter to do the same thing.

There is a PICkit3 version that I do not have and can not comment on how it compares to the PICkit2 (others may be able to chime in on how they compare).
Make sure your specific PIC is supported if you are considering the PICkit 2 or 3

[Tobias]

Thank you for the info

I bought ten field programmers last week to atleast get me started on this.

Normally I would have the PICS pre-programmed but I needed to buy 1600 at once on a reel and at the time of ordering the code wasn't finalized. Microchip had a reel in stock so I couldn't risk losing the chance to buy the entire reel.

[longpole001]

is there no way microchip offer a bulk programming service after the pics have been purchased ?

[Tobias]

Yes and its cheap. The problem was the timing. Microchip doesn't have reels of 4431 chips on-hand very often. I had to buy the reel before i was complete with the code. Its pretty cheap to have Microchip do it. I had them do 300 chips before and it was a couple dollars a unit if I remember correctly.