Pic Development Board

[malc-c]

Hi

I've been thinking of getting a DEV board for some time and liked the look of the EasyPIC 4 board. However I've stumbled on what looks like a cloan from the China, offered on E-bay


This seems to offer really great value for money as it includes the graphics screens, temp sensors, eproms, SD cards etc, which on the EasyPIC4 are options and thus inflates the cost. This QL200 even comes with a load of PICs for experimentation with, which for around £80 plus £18 shipping seems extreamly good value for money - More info Here

Has anyone tried one of these boards ?

[mister_e]

Looks great to me. They understood that an ICD connector is handy for some user. This also mean you can plug a PICKIT2 to it with the right adapter. They also have more stuff on board. Would be great if their edge connector would be 100% MikroE compatible. As it is right now, you have it reverted... no big deal... just annoying if you already have MikroE plug-in boards.

They don't have USB connector available for USB PIC though... big mistake...

[tenaja]

I would like you to consider this, when buying a clone: If you were the person who had spent 100 hours or more developing a great product, for the purpose of selling and earning an income, and then one of your customers cloned it, would you want your customers to buy replacements from the clone company, or from you?

[malc-c]

tenaja,

I used the term "cloan" as it looked similar to the Easypic3/4 boards. If you actually compare the two items you'll note that there are lots of simularities, but also a lot of subtle differences between the two. I should of called it an "alternative" rather than a"cloan".

Steve,
USB - I totally agree. Given that nearly everything these days that connects to PC's tend to be via USB. I also note your comments on the compatibility between the two boards. More thinking is required...

[duncan303]

tenaja,

I used the term "cloan" as it looked similar.............., but also a lot of subtle differences between the two. I should of called it an "alternative" rather than a"cloan"...

As in "cloan" not being the correct discriptive word, perhaps.... sounds ok but.........


Board looks ok but...........


__________________________

[Acetronics2]

Looks great to me. They understood that an ICD connector is handy for some user. This also mean you can plug a PICKIT2 to it with the right adapter. They also have more stuff on board. Would be great if their edge connector would be 100% MikroE compatible. As it is right now, you have it reverted... no big deal... just annoying if you already have MikroE plug-in boards.

They don't have USB connector available for USB PIC though... big mistake...

Hi, Steve

If you look at the DEBUGGER adapters (AC162050, AC162051, + ...) you can fully use your Easypic with MPLAB ICD2 ...

for the ridiculous cost ... do not hesitate.

This Chinese card more looks like a BigPic and Easypic breed ...

A copy, with no doubt, as MkE cards schemes are furnished ... but NOT the reset circuitry !!!

Alain

[mister_e]

Yeah i know, i just never use a ICD ... Well maybe once a year.. just to know if it's still work

My EasyDsPIC board have this ICD connector built-in, not my EasyPIC 4, neither EasyPIC 5... probably EasyPIC 6 Sure, everything can be hacked/modified anyways... do you really think my board still looks like the original ???

Really nice board so far. Let's see if they will survive in the long run. I bet they will. I may decide to buy one myself one day.

[J. Mark Wolf]

Hi

I've been thinking of getting a DEV board for some time and liked the look of the EasyPIC 4 board. However I've stumbled on what looks like a cloan from the China.
Has anyone tried one of these boards ?

By all means, let's continue to support Chinese thievery.

[Melanie]

Actually we have a lot of Chinese partners who are diligent, hard-working and produce quality product at sensible prices – something a lot of folks in the USA and Europe seem to have lost touch with. You will get product piracy in any country – not just China.

[malc-c]

Well put Melanie

By all means, let's continue to support Chinese thievery.

Try reading the tread and looking at the board. To be a thief you have to steal something, and this board has enough differences that its obvious that they didn't steal it from the makers of the EasyPIC boards. If you search the net you will see that the market for this sort of product is dominated by the boards offered by MikroElektronika, so maybe the Chinese feel that there should be more competition and developed their own "version" of a development board ?

I also recal that the schematic for the easyPIC3 was available from their website as a PDF at one point, so even if this board from China is based on the same design, you can't accuse them of stealing the design as it was in the public domain anyway !

[J. Mark Wolf]

My apologies.

Caught me on an "off" day.

[malc-c]

Well I've bit the bullet and placed my order for a development board...

I opted for an EasyPIC5 board (plus a few extras), which was ordered direct from the manufactures website (the strong pound ment that it was actually cheaper than purchasing from a UK supplier !).

The main reason I opted for the EasyPIC5 board over the one on e-bay was mainly down to support. I Know that if I have any issues with the board, software etc that no only is there a good forum, the company seem to be very responsive. I found very little on the net regarding the e-bay offering and whilst it offred very good value for money, just didn't feel confident enough ordering from e-bay.

Whilst the e-bay offering had some very useful features, which the EasyPIC5 is lacking, it didn't have some of the features we all tend to talk about on this forum such as USB interfacing.

I'm now lookingn forward to learning more with this development board, but I'll still be using PBP and will not be moving to Mikrobasic

[malc-c]

I found very little on the net regarding the e-bay offering

Must of entered the wrong seach string... found a PDF of the manual plus quite a few otherh hits !

http://www.pic16.com/soft/QL200_user_a4_en.pdf

[rmteo]

I'm now lookingn forward to learning more with this development board, but I'll still be using PBP and will not be moving to Mikrobasic

Just out of curiosity (and I don't mean to start a war here), what do you see as the advantages of PBP over MikroBasic?

[skimask]

Just out of curiosity (and I don't mean to start a war here), what do you see as the advantages of PBP over MikroBasic?

I'm still wondering that same thing myself...almost out of horsepower/memory on the 18F series on a couple of projects and am wanting to partially move over to dsPICs/mikroBasic, obviously keeping PBP for the 8-bit micro's. Still can't decide whether or not to spend the $$$.
I troll the forums over at mikro-e, and they seem a bit less active than here.

[malc-c]

No "advantage" what so ever. Just that the manufactures site also offer several options for software, one of which is mikrobasic, which is included as a bundled item. For a Novice experimenter / builder both languages work fine, but for me I find PBP more logical in its syntax.

I'm sure others who are more experienced here will soon say one has better functionality for X, Y or Z. But then each to their own opinion, and whilst you will get lots of pro PBP support here, if you asked the same question on the microbasic forum it the be biased the other way

[tenaja]

Well, PBP is BS2 compatible; I don't know if MikroBasic is or not. The forum here is more active. If you really want to shop around, also view Proton+ Basic. It includes a simulator, which might help. It is 99% BS2 compatible, but has a much broader command base. They also have an active forum.

One nice thing, if you are in the States, I've called MELabs a few times and had an answer within seconds, rather than waiting for a forum response.

[malc-c]

I received my EastPIC5 board today, and what a delight it was. The board is built to a very high standard and I can't wait to get started with some of the examples, or continuing with my own PIC projects.

I've got one question for anyone else who owns one of these boards (Steve ?) - Do you use the supplied editor, or is it possible to use the USB programmer with Microcode Studio. The only option I see listed is a serial programmer rather than USB listing for the programmer.

[BobP]

Hi Malc,

I was impressed with the board. I received mine last week so here are the settings to use the onboard USB programmer with MCode.

Select the Compile and Program options (its under 'View' for some reason?)
Select the Programmer Tab then click on 'Add new Programmer'
Select 'Create a custom programmer entry' and click 'Next'
Enter any name you want to identify this programmer and click 'Next'
Enter the program filename PICFLASH.exe
Enter the file path (yours may be different) C:\program files\Mikroelektronika\PICFLASH-mikroICD
Enter the code parameters -pPIC$target-device$-f$hex-filename$
Click 'Finished'
Then 'OK'
Now its ready...........

Bob

[malc-c]

Enter the code parameters -pPIC$target-device$-f$hex-filename$
Click 'Finished'
Then 'OK'
Now its ready...........

Bob

Thanks Bob,

Shows how rusty I was, not remembering the path settings. After I posted I worked it out apart from that last bit above.

I had fun last night working on an old project, and in less than half an hour had the board configured to work with the chip, which with the old way of using a solderless breadboard took me more than twice as long to patch up.

Cheers

[Copy'nPaste]

EasyPic 3, 4, and now 5, a real pleasure dealing with mE, and their range of Add-on boards grow by the day :-)
Eensy weensy problem with heat, if you run the boards on external power, nothing a real techie can't solve.
And PicFlash is lightning fast.
Then, what do I know ?
My sig says it all !

[f_lez]

Well I finally decided to buy a board after building a few small ones of my own, and wanting something a bit morer 'all in one'.

I looked at the easypic 4/5, and the QL200's from HK etc.

I decided purely on price to go for the HK one, ignoring the 'clone' aspect as after all its a dev board, its got switches leds's and chip sockets, you cant clone that more than you could clone a torch with a battery switch and bulb......

As to the programmer on it, I dont know much about that yet otherwise than its USB, seems to create a virtual comport, and works well, you can read/write a running pic, it just stops it running, reads/writes it and then restarts the pic

I can see with that feature that developing software will be a bit quicker as I can make changes ''on the fly''

I went for the top package, got the board, an assortment of pics, 3 types of lcd screens and a stepper motor, no I dont know why I wanted the stepper motor....

Build quality seems fine, but for some one of my LCD's did not have its connector soldered on, fitted, but not soldered........

Software on cd, you get the programmer, mplab, and some examples no doubt they have pulled of the web, all in basic, and a demo version of basic.

It had one pic fitted, a 16f877a, when powered it flashes the led's, but for some reason I cant read the code, I cant see why you would want to code protect an led flasher thats given free to show the board works.

anyhow, I have not had time to play with it yet other than to test write a chip in it, more of a mini review to follow.

[tenaja]

... I dont know why I wanted the stepper motor....

Because with all the lights and electrons, it's just nice to see something with physical POWER!

[Archangel]

Hi, I have been eyeballing that unit too, please keep us posted as to how you like it and how useful are it's features, Thank You.
JS

[f_lez]

Ok I have some bad news..........


The LCD demo in PB does not work on it, the LCD is hardwired to other port pins.

Two remedies exist.

1) Change the source to a ql200 specific LCD demo

2) Pull all 14 jumpers off the QL200 connector, and using supplied jumper wires, connect the right pins to port a / b etc....

I went for option 2, I think 1 would be better, anyway the LCD showed garbage...........

At one point it did a clear screen and stayed that way for 15 minutes, I thought I broke it...

After getting annoyed at this I tried a few other pics with the simple led flash, the 57 worked, the 84a worked, the 2550 would not.....

I seem to have hit my usual 2550 issue, i cant get it to run at the right speed, in fact it ignores all the settings I changed, and even pulling the crystal off made no difference.

Wondering if I have a bad 1550 batch, or the hex is bad......(Hint for a good led flasher hex at 20mhz)

MCS will start ql-progen.exe, but I have not yet found the correct command line parameters for it, or any mention of them in the non existent help files, so playing with that and I have emailed the HK author in english, I hope he understands...........

After many hours of issues something else has gone wrong, mpasm is running without error, but I am getting no hex file output, I tried a search by date for new files created, zero..... after 30 minute of this I gave up, but today is another day....

I think I need to start a new thread for this board... (hex, wasnt joking honest!)

[Acetronics2]

Ok I have some bad news..........


The LCD demo in PB does not work on it, the LCD is hardwired to other port pins.

Same punishment with EasyPic5 ... what were you hoping ??? just think "work !" and it might work ???

Two remedies exist.

1) Change the source to a ql200 specific LCD demo

2) Pull all 14 jumpers off the QL200 connector, and using supplied jumper wires, connect the right pins to port a / b etc....

I went for option 2, I think 1 would be better, anyway the LCD showed garbage...........

At one point it did a clear screen and stayed that way for 15 minutes, I thought I broke it...

Really sure not to have forgotten something ??? Dozens of such "LCD problems" are raised on MKE Forum ... always same working solution : "RTFM" !!!

After getting annoyed at this I tried a few other pics with the simple led flash, the 57 worked, the 84a worked, the 2550 would not.....

I seem to have hit my usual 2550 issue, i cant get it to run at the right speed, in fact it ignores all the settings I changed, and even pulling the crystal off made no difference.

Config "header" just forgotten or some lines missing ( once more ??? )...

Wondering if I have a bad 1550 batch, or the hex is bad......(Hint for a good led flasher hex at 20mhz)

A led Flasher with a 1550 ??? ...possible ??? VERY GOOD HINT : Read your Datasheet, Section 2 to section 17 ...

MCS will start ql-progen.exe, but I have not yet found the correct command line parameters for it, or any mention of them in the non existent help files, so playing with that and I have emailed the HK author in english, I hope he understands...........


After many hours of issues something else has gone wrong, mpasm is running without error, but I am getting no hex file output, I tried a search by date for new files created, zero..... after 30 minute of this I gave up, but today is another day....

I think I need to start a new thread for this board... (hex, wasnt joking honest!)

When MPLAB doesn't like something ( even if it compiles ...) it doesn't save the generated HEX file ...
Only loads it into the Program Window ...

So, not surprising your "Other Brand" programmer refuses to load the generated HEX.
Only µChip programmers, driven from MPLAB, allow the programming , here ...


Sooo, .... my dear F LEZ, You did not discover anything here, just have showed us you didn't understand ( or simply read ??? ) your hardware "manual".

An EasyPic5 or else had given you strictly the same type of results ...

It's not a soft or Hard problem ...


It's a MAN problem ...

Alain ... EasyPic5 ( between others ) Happy user !!!

[jcleaver]

just must be my math but device is higher in cost us$ and higher in shipping

have used easypic and mikroe for over 2 years good product also have pbp which
has better tutorial but drives me crazy with all the efforts to config a pic


mikroe is much easier to use for a beginner and great examples


just my 2c us$

[f_lez]

1) Config "header" just forgotten or some lines missing ( once more ??? )...


2) When MPLAB doesn't like something ( even if it compiles ...) it doesn't save the generated HEX file ...
Only loads it into the Program Window ...

3) So, not surprising your "Other Brand" programmer refuses to load the generated HEX.
Only µChip programmers, driven from MPLAB, allow the programming , here ...


4) Sooo, .... my dear F LEZ, You did not discover anything here, just have showed us you didn't understand ( or simply read ??? ) your hardware "manual".

1) maybe............ got a cheap one going spare?

2) No it was a laptop problem, it was so damn fast that the error was on screen for less than a frame so i never saw it, and I had not bothered to read through the 6 screens of errors thrown up that _config has been replaced by config.....................

3) MCS works with any commandline driven programmer, used it for ages with winpic800 connected to a willem


4) It has no manual, well a pdf for the board, but no info on the programmer software.

Anyhow, something has been learned, rb6 and rb7 have odd behavior for a few seconds after a program, for odd read 'dont work'




I now have the speed issue fixed, but can only use 4mhz, also once i have the 2550 up and running at the right speed, any random amount of fuse changing makes no operational difference, i can set any clock div / pll i want and the little leds still flash the same, one assumes programmer not doing the fuses as asked, ignores setting of codeprotect fuse too...

also noticed board says programmer is v1.5, software identifies it as a 1.2 and offers to upgrade it to 1.3......(made no difference)

emailed about the rb6/7 issue, maybe its in my manual, they may send it one day....

[f_lez]

just must be my math but device is higher in cost us$ and higher in shipping

have used easypic and mikroe for over 2 years good product also have pbp which
has better tutorial but drives me crazy with all the efforts to config a pic


mikroe is much easier to use for a beginner and great examples


just my 2c us$

depends were you are on post/packing/tax's, i got a bag of pics, a 2 line lcd, a 4 line lcd, a colour lcd, stepper motor, temp sensor, cd of possibly buggy programmer software, 100 quid .


mikro, looked at it, looked for a pdf with syntax for each command, as these things are never exactly the same between languages, did not find one, while pbp has an extensive lookup in pdf and online, so i like.

[f_lez]

UPDATE **********


I have not translated..

Hello,Cannot sir, no CMD function in *.exe %filename %device


I take that as the programmer software does not support commandline switches.



update 2 ****

Fuses, ok for some reason the programmer has 4 ways to program, you can use the 'program' dropdown, or click the colourful program button, or to the right you can click the gray program button, and down near fuse selection is another program button, yes thats 4, well one thing for sure, not all program buttons maked 'program' are created equal, as only 1 of them actually programs the chip fully.............

[malc-c]

4) It has no manual, well a pdf for the board, but no info on the programmer software.

Anyhow, something has been learned, rb6 and rb7 have odd behavior for a few seconds after a program, for odd read 'dont work'

also noticed board says programmer is v1.5, software identifies it as a 1.2 and offers to upgrade it to 1.3......(made no difference)

emailed about the rb6/7 issue, maybe its in my manual, they may send it one day....

This was what made me choose the EasyPIC5. The fact that the thing came with printed manuals, has a good active forum, customer support that understands English and that some of the experienced guys here aslo use the board made me opt for the EastPIC board.

Yes the LCD example needs tweeking to work with the board, but I opted to change the port in the code (no other choice really !) - but then thats what we're her to do, learn how to program.

I feel for you. Its nothing worse having something that doesn't meet up with your expectations, and becomes hard to get working. Maybe I was lucky, as my EasyPIC board installed firts time, software loaded OK, and programming is a breeze (after I was instructed in the above post on where the exe was )

Hope you get things resolved soon

[f_lez]

Hope you get things resolved soon

I very much doubt they will bother with any of it TBH, they will make there money selling them, and see no profit in supporting them.

I still seem to be hitting my head with the fuses, but thats me, and why the software has 4 buttons marked program, and each one does program, but only one seems to set the fuses, is a joke.....

busy on the day job over the weekend so will play more from monday, I think I'll start a whole site for this board, ppl will need somewhere to go to find why it does not work.......

[Copy'nPaste]

Sometimes it is better to just get something that has support behind it, even if it doesn't have all the bells and whistles.
Quite satisfied with my Easypic 3, 4, and now 5 :-)

[Acetronics2]

Hi, F lez

For RB6 and RB7 behaviour ...

what are the other functions of those pins ??? ... especially at programming time ???

was no use to make a video to show us everything normal ...

Consider yourself lucky the programming was OK with leds attached to these pins.


Have a good cup of coffee and after that, look at what is "ICSP" ...

Pics are not exactly Toys ... or they are somewhat advanced toys.

Alain

PS: you can download [freely] the EasyPic5 manuals : there are lots of info to help you understand what you consider as " problems " or " misfunctionning ".

[f_lez]

Hi, F lez

For RB6 and RB7 behaviour ...

what are the other functions of those pins ??? ... especially at programming time ???

Well at programming time I'd expect them to be programming the pic......

was no use to make a video to show us everything normal ...

Thats ok, I didnt do that, I made a video showing abnormal behavior, if you watch it again, rb6 and r7 do not go logic high for some time after, even though rb0 to rb5 work ok.

Consider yourself lucky the programming was OK with leds attached to these pins.

Yes I have fell foul of that before, and expected to have to disconnect them, but it seems the inbuilt programmer does not have an issue with it.

Have a good cup of coffee and after that, look at what is "ICSP" ...

Been their done that, but its not exactly as ''on the fly' as this board provides.

PS: you can download [freely] the EasyPic5 manuals : there are lots of info to help you understand what you consider as " problems " or " misfunctionning ".

Well it would if the hardware was the same maybe, and as this issue is with the inbuilt programmer, I doubt it will shed much light. easypic does seem to have better/more docs though.


As to the rb6 rb7 issues, they have admitted its a ''feature'' that after usb access the inbuilt programmer does not release them for a few seconds, as shown in my video.



I know you all say ''should have got an easypic5'' well, I must admit, I do kind of wish I had, but it was going to cost more, and did not come in my favourite colour...........

[jetpr]

just make one board and leer some electronics at the same time

good lock

[camolas]

Hi,

Tacke all j14 jumpers and use the jumper wires to conect the port and lcd

Conections:

J14 - PIC PORT

PIN2 - PortB.2
PIN3 - GND
PIN4 - PortB.3
PIN11 - PortB.4
PIN12 - PortB.5
Pin13 - PortB.6
PIN14 - PortB.7

*************************************************
@ Device HS_OSC ' High Speed Crystal
define OSC 20

Include "modedefs.bas" ' Include serial modes

' Define LCD registers and bits this time not use it for later apps..
Define LCD_DREG PORTB 'Lcd D 4-bit parallel register starts at PortB.4 to PortB.7
Define LCD_DBIT 4
Define LCD_RSREG PORTB
Define LCD_RSBIT 2
Define LCD_EREG PORTB
Define LCD_EBIT 3
Define LCD_COMMANDUS 2000 ' Command Delay (uS)
Define LCD_DATAUS 50 ' Data Delay (uS)
DefineLCD_LINES 2 'Number lines on LCD

DEFINE HSER_RCSTA 90h ' Enable serial port & continuous receive
DEFINE HSER_TXSTA 24h ' Enable transmit, BRGH = 1
DEFINE HSER_SPBRG 129 ' 9600 Baud @ 20MHz, 0.16%
DEFINE HSER_CLROERR 1 ' Clear overflow automatically


LCDOut $FE, 1 ' Clear screen
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

LCDOut "Ola Paulo Filipe Santos" ' Display "Ola Paulo Filipe Santos"

End
************************************************** ******

Have fun.

[ARQuattr]

Hi,
Sorry for bringing back this old topic, but there seems to be a lot of knowledgeable users of these products. I've been looking at both the EasyPIC6 and QL200, and I have to say I'm leaning to the EasyPIC, mainly for support and documentation reasons. But I've had a hard time trying to determining a couple of things about it.

Firstly, is the MCU shown in the photos included, and what type is it? It doesn't seem to explicitly show this information on their site or in the documentation.

From what I've read, I can use MPLAB (and Hi-Tech C or Microchip C18, etc.). I usually use Pickit2 or 3 to program my PICs, but I assume the board will come with drivers for the mikroICD interface for MPLAB? I'm wrong on these points?

Also, will it only drive the MCU and peripherals at 5V, or can other voltages (eg. 3.3V) be used/selected?

Thanks in advance,
Angelo

[gadelhas]

Hi,

I've got an EasyPIC6 Board. The board comes with 1 PIC16F887. I think you have ane option on MikroEkektronic site, that you can purchase the board with 1 - 2X16 LDC and 1 GLCD with touchpanel. Mine, was purchased with this items.

[malc-c]

I have an EasyPIC5 and it came with a 16F877 (or 877A - can't remember). I comes with it's own software for loading the compiled HEX which can be generated through MSC and MPASM (the latter being part of Microchips MPLAB]

Personally I would recommend the any of the EasyPIC boards for most of the reasons you mentioned plus there are loads of additional boards that simply plug onto the headers, and example is shown below



I've been happy with my EP5 board and feel it's been well worth the investment. Yes the downside is that it runs at 5v and there is no 3.3v regulation - but then maybe the EasyPIC7 is just around the corner ????

Interestingly having revisited the LQ site they have a board that features support for a range of 16bit chips http://www.pic16.com/en/wzcapi/dsPIC3.htm



It also has some nice features like serial over Ethernet on board