Very Simple ICSP Programmer

[rabidgoalie]

Like Ramonetnet, I tried to use the Stolz LVP cable design with no success, and then I rooted around the Internet to find a way to get a PIC programmed quick and easy. Luckily, I found this thread. I am going to construct the Stolz ICD2 clone, and I didn't have any type of programmer before I found this thread and without a programmed PIC16F876A I wouldn't be able to construct the ICD2 clone (obviously ). I read through this thread about five times to make sure that I did not confuse any information, and then I breadboarded this simple programmer (using the setup below, exactly how Squibcakes illustrated in the first post) and everything works great!

I made sure to test the levels on my serial port to make sure that they were within the range that seemed to be working for everyone (~11.25V), and they checked out fine. I am using Win98 as the OS because I have an old (but still good) Packard Bell 880, and I am very pleased to say that IC-Prog seems to program much faster under Win98 than under XP. For some reason, I was getting an error from WinPic800 (similar to the one that charudatt was getting from IC-Prog), but I switched to IC-Prog and used the recommended settings and it worked great. Hmm, don't really know what is going on with that but IC-Prog works for me so I will worry about it at a latter date (i.e. I will never think about it again after tonight ).

I was able to program the PIC16F876A, verify the programming, and then just to be thorough I closed down IC-Prog and restarted it and read the data back and it all worked flawlessly. Thanks Squibcakes!


TXD (3) ------[4.7k]-------VPP (PIN 1)

GND (5) --------------------VSS (PIN 8 or 19)

DTR (4) -------[4.7k]------DATA (PIN 28)

CTS (8) ------------------DATA (PIN 28)

RTS (7) -------[4.7k]------CLK (PIN 27)

+ (5V power supply) -------VDD (PIN 20)

- (5V power supply) -------VSS (PIN 8 or 19)

P.S. sandeep, when I programmed this PIC16F876A I left PGM unconnected (floating), and I had no problems at all programming, verifying, and reading back the programming inside the PIC. Others could probably help more on the PGM pin than I could (I am still a newbie at this). Hope this helps someone.