Which PIC do you use

[HankMcSpank]

I started on the 16f690 ...for no other reason than it came bundled with the PICkit2 starter kit - but as many have pointed dout it's not really a beginners chip....whilst more features is good from a 'value for money' perspective, the added complexity of register settings, can really inhibit you doing simple stuff in the early days.

So while you find your feet I'd recommend a simple PIC (alas, I'm past those early days, and never used a simple PIC... & therefore have no specific recommendations to offer wrt a simple PIC!)

What I would say is once you do get in the swing of things, to leapfrog the likes of the 16f690 and similar (which are a couple of years old now) and go with the bang up to date ICs, which are - on the whole - just that little bit nicer to work with....I'm presently having great fun with the 12F1822 & the 16F1824 (of which there are numerous similar variants....16f1828 etc depending how many pins you need).

I also find this selector invaluable...

http://www.microchip.com/productsele...tSelector.html

[Heckler]

These are the three PIC's that I keep on hand...

8pin - 12F683
14pin - 16F688
20pin - 16F690

They are all footprint compatible, are pretty much in the top of their category for the pin count, in terms of memory capacity, ram, eeprom.

Each jump to a larger package just adds 6 more I/O pins while maintaining similar footprint.

[mister_e]

I haven't done much PIC stuff since awhile, so I haven't follow the most recent news and stuff, but the one I prefered for their built-in feature were PIC12F683, PIC16F690, and PIC16F887... Not sure why I don't have any 18F one in the list... weird ... add PIC18F4431 then.

Those models above allows you to do lots of stuck but USB. 3 size, many built-in feature, really decent codesize too.

If you don't have any programmer, I always suggest to grab a PICKIT 2 + Development board package (PICkit™ 2 Debug Express or PICkit™ 2 Starter Kit).

Sure PICKIT 2 is obsolete now, but cheap and still quite handy and capable of. It's standalone application provide some great features such as Terminal (to test your serial communication without having to use any extra hardware or PC serial port) and a 3 channel logic probe (ok not a really fast one, but still handy).

[HenrikOlsson]

Hi,
For (semi) advanced motor control applications you can't beat the 18F2431/4431. It's the only 10/12/16/18 series PIC with a QEI module and it has a wicked ADC with double S/H, 4 sample buffer and "semi automatic" operation. Add to that the PCPWM module. I'd love to see a new K device with those peripherals, faster, more flash and more RAM - that would be so cool.

My latest "real" project (16 in, 16 out MODBUS slave) was with a 18F25K22, a real nice 28pin device with two USARTs, 32k of flash and pretty cheap for what you get.

[HankMcSpank]

These are the three PIC's that I keep on hand...

8pin - 12F683
14pin - 16F688
20pin - 16F690

They are all footprint compatible, are pretty much in the top of their category for the pin count, in terms of memory capacity, ram, eeprom.

check out the newer versions...

12f1822 instead of the 12f683
16f1828 instead of the 16f690

eg the latter 16f1828 has all the feature set of a 16f690, but for about the same price gets you better/more features (capacitive touch module, more timers, the option to set the +ve & -ve ADC references, faster internal osc, better IOC options, etc etc)

[johnbond]

Thanks for this valuable advice. I like the idea of passing the 16F690 by. I have already bought a rail of the 690 ICs but they,ll get used somewhere, sometime.

Here in SA, the 16F1828 is just US$0.30 more expensive than the 16F690. Seems a good deal to me!

Kind regards
John Bond

[Charles Linquis]

For hobbyist use, cost really doesn't matter. I would rather spend $10 more for a chip that has all the functionality that I need than work a week trying to get around the limitations of the part I had chosen.

Use an 18F part for certain. If you can deal with surface mount, use something like an 18F87K22.