Pickit3 from Microcode Studio

[Gusse]

I ended up also to purchase PicKit 3, but I'm not very satified with it (I have had it now 2 days). In MPLAB mode (MPLAB IDE & MPLAB X IDE), operation has been poor. So far I have not managed to program any hex succesfully. I have tested old and new MPLAB's (GUI & command line), but always there have been some issues. With GUI prommers PicKit is detected OK, firmware downloads OK, but when I try to read, write, erase, etc.. there are problems. With command line (e.g via MicroCode Studio) I managed to erase, flash and verify, which was kind of promising event. Anyway, there was issues to run flashed hex in PIC.

I downloaded PICkit 3 v3.10 standalone prommer software, which started to work OK when bundled firmware files were installed. Now it auto-detect PICs, read & write & verify OK and works otherwise fine.

I read recently MPLAB mode (in MicroCode Studio) programmed PIC with standalone prommer and surprisingly part of code did not match with original hex. That was the reason why PIC did not work.

I thought that Microchip tools (mine is from Sure's) would work a little bit more reliable way. Even my old handmade serial port flashing prommer is more reliable and better working that Microchip commercial one.
I'm not really happy, but happy enough that it is working. My old serial port (COM) prommer had issues with some of the laptops (docking station with com port) so that I had to purchase USB based prommer.