Pic Development Board

[malc-c]

I received my EastPIC5 board today, and what a delight it was. The board is built to a very high standard and I can't wait to get started with some of the examples, or continuing with my own PIC projects.

I've got one question for anyone else who owns one of these boards (Steve ?) - Do you use the supplied editor, or is it possible to use the USB programmer with Microcode Studio. The only option I see listed is a serial programmer rather than USB listing for the programmer.

[BobP]

Hi Malc,

I was impressed with the board. I received mine last week so here are the settings to use the onboard USB programmer with MCode.

Select the Compile and Program options (its under 'View' for some reason?)
Select the Programmer Tab then click on 'Add new Programmer'
Select 'Create a custom programmer entry' and click 'Next'
Enter any name you want to identify this programmer and click 'Next'
Enter the program filename PICFLASH.exe
Enter the file path (yours may be different) C:\program files\Mikroelektronika\PICFLASH-mikroICD
Enter the code parameters -pPIC$target-device$-f$hex-filename$
Click 'Finished'
Then 'OK'
Now its ready...........

Bob

[malc-c]

Enter the code parameters -pPIC$target-device$-f$hex-filename$
Click 'Finished'
Then 'OK'
Now its ready...........

Bob

Thanks Bob,

Shows how rusty I was, not remembering the path settings. After I posted I worked it out apart from that last bit above.

I had fun last night working on an old project, and in less than half an hour had the board configured to work with the chip, which with the old way of using a solderless breadboard took me more than twice as long to patch up.

Cheers

[Copy'nPaste]

EasyPic 3, 4, and now 5, a real pleasure dealing with mE, and their range of Add-on boards grow by the day :-)
Eensy weensy problem with heat, if you run the boards on external power, nothing a real techie can't solve.
And PicFlash is lightning fast.
Then, what do I know ?
My sig says it all !

[f_lez]

Well I finally decided to buy a board after building a few small ones of my own, and wanting something a bit morer 'all in one'.

I looked at the easypic 4/5, and the QL200's from HK etc.

I decided purely on price to go for the HK one, ignoring the 'clone' aspect as after all its a dev board, its got switches leds's and chip sockets, you cant clone that more than you could clone a torch with a battery switch and bulb......

As to the programmer on it, I dont know much about that yet otherwise than its USB, seems to create a virtual comport, and works well, you can read/write a running pic, it just stops it running, reads/writes it and then restarts the pic

I can see with that feature that developing software will be a bit quicker as I can make changes ''on the fly''

I went for the top package, got the board, an assortment of pics, 3 types of lcd screens and a stepper motor, no I dont know why I wanted the stepper motor....

Build quality seems fine, but for some one of my LCD's did not have its connector soldered on, fitted, but not soldered........

Software on cd, you get the programmer, mplab, and some examples no doubt they have pulled of the web, all in basic, and a demo version of basic.

It had one pic fitted, a 16f877a, when powered it flashes the led's, but for some reason I cant read the code, I cant see why you would want to code protect an led flasher thats given free to show the board works.

anyhow, I have not had time to play with it yet other than to test write a chip in it, more of a mini review to follow.

[tenaja]

... I dont know why I wanted the stepper motor....

Because with all the lights and electrons, it's just nice to see something with physical POWER!

[Archangel]

Hi, I have been eyeballing that unit too, please keep us posted as to how you like it and how useful are it's features, Thank You.
JS