Why use a bootloader?

[mister_e]

In theory yes it has to work. Now the small timing issue you may have is the latency of the USB to serial converter. But I do remember to have successfully used some in the past.

Finger crossed.

One thing I would suggest to be really careful about is if you use ICSP later... MCLR have to go somewhere 'round 13Volts... not sure if your converter will like it... As Mackrackit says... "Always wear safety glasses while programming. "

[Fredrick]

Now i have a jumper from MCLR to the FTDI DTR pin via 100Ohms resistor and now the Microcode Loader works whitout any problems but the programming time is very slow about 10 sec for a 994 byts program, is there any way to speed that up?

But Microloader has a bug, if your computer does´t have any real serial ports you will not be available to change the COM port becouse the dropdownlist is locked and empty, however if you connect only one USB<-->Seriel cabel and then start the loader program the right com port will be selected and it work´s but the dropdownlist will still show "None" COM ports.

If you have a computer with a real serial port you will se both the real one and the virituel port in the dropdownlist.

And whitin MicroCode studio plus you will not be available to select the com port unless you change the device to a ICD compatibel PIC and then change the port and back to the PIC you are useing (in my case 18F2550.)

My Microcode Studio Version is 3.0.0.5

[mister_e]

Did you tried by changing the port and baudrate speed in the Mcloader application?

As far as i'm aware of, it set the baudrate to 9600, should work faster with higher speed OSC. It's been a long time I used a bootloader though

[Fredrick]

I have set it to the maximun speed 115200, the standard value was 19200.
And yes it´s a bit faster now and it still works ok, no programming errors.

Is the author of Microcode Studio on this forum?
Mayby he can release a bugfix for the COM port issue.

[mister_e]

Well it's not a com port issue, it's not even an issue, it's a hidden feature, and it's probably like that for reliability rather than for speed

If you want to speed up a bit the process, you may uncheck some Verify options in MicroCode Loader option.

This said, the COM setting in MCSP is for ICD, not bootloader.

[Fredrick]

Yes, but I mean the issue with selecting the COM port in the loader app.

and in the help file for MCSP it says

Using the Loader with MicroCode Studio Plus

Connect a serial cable between your computer and development board. Apply power to the board.
From the ICD toolbar, select the serial port you will be using to communicate with the development board.

i can´t select any COM port there becous it´s locked, until i select an ICD compatibel PIC then i can change the port and then i have to change back to the PIC I´m using.

[mister_e]

Ah, I see, well let's forget the help file then

Not sure how bad some Virtual Port could be, but It may cause some problem with some Chipset/Driver combination.

Real serial port have their place, but agreed, not a big majority release serial product now... Even some PCI (or whatever else PC slot) are just silly priced now.