Real Ice and PBP

[MikeBZH]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your answer.

Yes, I did an upgrade recently and the 18F26K22 is now supported by my Pickit 2 but for the stand alone application only.
I can read, write, program the PIC from outside MPLAB8 but I cannot use Pickit 2 as a debugger inside MPLAB8.

Best regards
MikeBZH

[pedja089]

I have REAL ICE. I use MPLAB X. From MPLAB side it is same as if you are using PK3, except it CAN NOT power target, unless you buy additional adapter board. It is little more reliable than PK3.
It is pain to install, and you must install everything before you plug it in USB. If you plug it, and drivers are not installed then... Good luck getting it to work without system reinstall.

[tumbleweed]

I have all of them, except for the new SNAP debugger.

The REALICE isn't a real ice, and for what it costs it's not worth the money. Mine mostly sits gathering dust.
For most chips you don't get any real benefits. IMHO, if you're looking for something more powerful than a PK2/PK3 then your best bet is the ICD3.

It's faster, can supply up to 150mA for the target VDD, has a stopwatch feature for timing code execution between two breakpoints, and works with both MPLAB and MPLABX. You could buy two of them for less than a REALICE.

The newer PK4/ICD4 would force you to use MPLABX, and for the K22 I'd stick with using MPLAB 8.92.

Debugging PBP code using the ICD tools isn't all that great anyway, so I wouldn't waste a lot of money on it.

[mpgmike]

I currently own a PICkit2 knock-off, PICkit3, and ME Labs U2 programmers. Because it was so cheap, I just ordered the new Snap (under $20 US including shipping!). The Snap is supposed to work on anything in the 8- and 16-bit PIC line, as well as AVR products. I doubt you got your PICkit2 for less than the price of the new Snap.

[tumbleweed]

The SNAP is on sale until the end of the month so you can get one right now for about $12 US (plus shipping)

You can't use it to power the target, it's LVP only, and you're stuck with MPLABX.
If you don't mind all those limitations it's an ok deal.

[towlerg]

@Dave Hi, where did you get that list of supported devices from? There a couple of updated (by non-Microchip) version of PK2DeviceFile.dat around but none that I know of as complete.

Your list includes 18K27K42 and 40, my personal holy grail, bugger I even bought a PicKit3 and had to use IPE - still smarting from that one.

[tumbleweed]

Dave - do you have the DAT file that goes with that list?