Homicidal 877 user needs help

[mister_e]

i remind some bread board brands have some break in the middle of their +/- line too

Unless you hit the wall or you do a simple continuity test when you buy it, you don't know...

Crystal or Resonator? Some resonator may don't have the built-in cap. 15pF-22pF

Seems weird.. it's more a matter of crystal and capacitance to me.. unless the crystal is defect or totally out of spec... Some 4MHz could be lazy so far.. what happen if you set HS osc mode?

Some may require an external resistor in parrallel.. never meet one of those 'till now.

One thing is sure... when you touch it, you modify capacitance to the OSC line... it speak loud to me.

[DavidFMarks]

Back in harness after the Brussels trip. The light show in the city square was absolutely fantastic.. bet they weren't using 877's. I have spent another fruitless day finally junking the 877 circuit and deciding to use a 16F 628A which is what successfully controls my smaller Xmas star (which is flashing even as we speak). You kow what the &*(*^)(& 628A didn't work either. I then programmed it with the program which is operating the other star and that doesn't work either. So ..... Jerry it looks as if you may have hit the nail on the head and this wretched EPIC programmer is the cause of the problem. It seems to be programming OK there is certainly hex code there which I can read back and verify OK. Is the Epic programmer really that bad that it can apparently program and verify but still screw up the code in some way. Being retired I am not keen on going out to buy another programmer (they seem to be a hell of a lot dearer now). The only other thing I can think of is that the transformer I am using to power it is inadeque. It is nominal 15 vdc but the multimetwr tells me it is 21.9 volts on no load and drops to 20 when connected to the EPIC

[mister_e]

mmm, if you don't have any programming error, this should work, unless the configuration fuses are not programmed. Are you sure the EPIC is set to program the configuration fuses?

Can you post your compiled .HEX files here?

[DavidFMarks]

Thanks Steve.. I,m now going to demonstrate my ignorance .. I'm not sure I understand about programing the config fuses, just produced the program the way it seemed to work in the past. I will now try to find where the system has stored the hex file and then find out how to add it to a post !!
Cheers David

[mackrackit]

I will now try to find where the system has stored the hex file and then find out how to add it to a post !!
Cheers David

It should be in the directory where you saved the project.

[DavidFMarks]

I am attaching the hex file for the 16f626A which is currentlt running my old star but which when (apparently) programmed into a new chip doesn't run. Can't see how to add a hex file so have converted it to RTF Is that OK ?

[DavidFMarks]

Whoops, finger trouble, I meant 16F628A !

[b1arrk5]

David,

My old EPIC programmer served me well, but whenever I made any change in WindowsXP I started having programming problems. The guys here help me narrow it down to Windows poor driver/memory management. No one uses printer ports anymore I guess. I upgraded to the MeLabs USB programmer, and it works great. If your EPIC was the same as mine you could try two 9 volt batteries instead of the transformer. Have you looked under the View menu at the memory to see if it changes after you program a chip? It should look like the hex file that you attached earlier. You might also try downloading the Beta loader software from MeLabs website, it should work with your EPIC programmer, and if you haven't already, take a look at http://www.melabs.com/support/epicfixs.htm

Of course I might be leading you astray, but Darrel or Steve or one of the other gurus will figure it out. I don't mind being wrong, I still learn something!

Merry Christmas to all!

Jerry.