Hi again Flotul,
"I highly appreciate your help and I won't make you waste your time anymore until I am sure about the display I use. I cannot believe it still doesn't work after all your suggestions."
You are not wasting my time. I have been a troubleshooter for a long time and I enjoy challenges. That's why I'm here. AND I also learn from what we are doing here. I can't believe it's not working either so we should go back to square one.
Do you even know if you are able to get a program into the PIC and that the PIC is even working?
Disconnect the LCD completely and put a simple Switch/LED program into the PIC and see if it works. First put a program into one of the PORTA pins and if that works now you know your programmer is working and you can get PORTA to respond to activity. Then re-wire the PIC to get it to work with PORTB.
Example:
Hardware setup:
Put a 10K pullup between PortA.0 and +5vdc
Put a 10K pullup between PortB.0 and +5vdc
Put a normally open switch between ground and PortA.0
Put an LED between PortA.1 and a 470 ohm resistor to ground (remember
the LED is polarity sensitive so plus side to PortA.1)
Make sure you have a 4.7K or 1K resistor between MCLR and +5vdc
Software setup:
TRISA = %00000001 'All pins on PortA are outputs except PortA.0
PortA = 0
TRISB = %00000001 'All pins on PortB are outputs except PortB.0
PortB = 0
SwitchA var PortA.0
LEDA var PortA.1
SwitchB var PortB.0
LEDB var PortB.1
Start:
If SwitchA = 0 then LEDA = 1
LEDA = 0
Pause 1000
If SwitchB = 0 then LEDB = 1
LEDB = 0
Pause 1000
goto Start
This little program will cause the LEDA to lightup only if SwitchA is pressed.
If this works then disconnect the switch wire from PortA.0 and put it on PortB.0, then disconnect the LED/Resistor from PortA.1 and put it on PortB.1.
Retest the program.
If this little test setup doesn't work on either port then perhaps your problem is in your programmer. You'll have to check it out then.
I use commercially produced programmers, MELabs USB programmer and their EPIC parallel port programmeralong with their software and Microcode Studio IDE. There's nothing wrong with making your own but by buying a commercial product you get their support.
Perhaps you could post the code you were using so we can see if there's a problem there also.
I was looking back at my collection of notes from this site and found other people that have gone through the same problem. That's why I think we need to go back to square one and start troubleshooting the basics. Let me know!
HTH,
BobK
I just got to thinking about something Mister E has brought up alot. If you are using a breadboard where you just plug things into the little holes then you could possibly have a problem with the crystal and its capacitors. Sometimes the contacts on the breadboard put too much of a load on the crystal so try removing the capacitors. Thanks Mister E!!
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