Pic Development Board

[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

[f_lez]

Ok I have some bad news..........


The LCD demo in PB does not work on it, the LCD is hardwired to other port pins.

Two remedies exist.

1) Change the source to a ql200 specific LCD demo

2) Pull all 14 jumpers off the QL200 connector, and using supplied jumper wires, connect the right pins to port a / b etc....

I went for option 2, I think 1 would be better, anyway the LCD showed garbage...........

At one point it did a clear screen and stayed that way for 15 minutes, I thought I broke it...

After getting annoyed at this I tried a few other pics with the simple led flash, the 57 worked, the 84a worked, the 2550 would not.....

I seem to have hit my usual 2550 issue, i cant get it to run at the right speed, in fact it ignores all the settings I changed, and even pulling the crystal off made no difference.

Wondering if I have a bad 1550 batch, or the hex is bad......(Hint for a good led flasher hex at 20mhz)

MCS will start ql-progen.exe, but I have not yet found the correct command line parameters for it, or any mention of them in the non existent help files, so playing with that and I have emailed the HK author in english, I hope he understands...........

After many hours of issues something else has gone wrong, mpasm is running without error, but I am getting no hex file output, I tried a search by date for new files created, zero..... after 30 minute of this I gave up, but today is another day....

I think I need to start a new thread for this board... (hex, wasnt joking honest!)

[Acetronics2]

Ok I have some bad news..........


The LCD demo in PB does not work on it, the LCD is hardwired to other port pins.

Same punishment with EasyPic5 ... what were you hoping ??? just think "work !" and it might work ???

Two remedies exist.

1) Change the source to a ql200 specific LCD demo

2) Pull all 14 jumpers off the QL200 connector, and using supplied jumper wires, connect the right pins to port a / b etc....

I went for option 2, I think 1 would be better, anyway the LCD showed garbage...........

At one point it did a clear screen and stayed that way for 15 minutes, I thought I broke it...

Really sure not to have forgotten something ??? Dozens of such "LCD problems" are raised on MKE Forum ... always same working solution : "RTFM" !!!

After getting annoyed at this I tried a few other pics with the simple led flash, the 57 worked, the 84a worked, the 2550 would not.....

I seem to have hit my usual 2550 issue, i cant get it to run at the right speed, in fact it ignores all the settings I changed, and even pulling the crystal off made no difference.

Config "header" just forgotten or some lines missing ( once more ??? )...

Wondering if I have a bad 1550 batch, or the hex is bad......(Hint for a good led flasher hex at 20mhz)

A led Flasher with a 1550 ??? ...possible ??? VERY GOOD HINT : Read your Datasheet, Section 2 to section 17 ...

MCS will start ql-progen.exe, but I have not yet found the correct command line parameters for it, or any mention of them in the non existent help files, so playing with that and I have emailed the HK author in english, I hope he understands...........


After many hours of issues something else has gone wrong, mpasm is running without error, but I am getting no hex file output, I tried a search by date for new files created, zero..... after 30 minute of this I gave up, but today is another day....

I think I need to start a new thread for this board... (hex, wasnt joking honest!)

When MPLAB doesn't like something ( even if it compiles ...) it doesn't save the generated HEX file ...
Only loads it into the Program Window ...

So, not surprising your "Other Brand" programmer refuses to load the generated HEX.
Only µChip programmers, driven from MPLAB, allow the programming , here ...


Sooo, .... my dear F LEZ, You did not discover anything here, just have showed us you didn't understand ( or simply read ??? ) your hardware "manual".

An EasyPic5 or else had given you strictly the same type of results ...

It's not a soft or Hard problem ...


It's a MAN problem ...

Alain ... EasyPic5 ( between others ) Happy user !!!

[jcleaver]

just must be my math but device is higher in cost us$ and higher in shipping

have used easypic and mikroe for over 2 years good product also have pbp which
has better tutorial but drives me crazy with all the efforts to config a pic


mikroe is much easier to use for a beginner and great examples


just my 2c us$

[f_lez]

1) Config "header" just forgotten or some lines missing ( once more ??? )...


2) When MPLAB doesn't like something ( even if it compiles ...) it doesn't save the generated HEX file ...
Only loads it into the Program Window ...

3) So, not surprising your "Other Brand" programmer refuses to load the generated HEX.
Only µChip programmers, driven from MPLAB, allow the programming , here ...


4) Sooo, .... my dear F LEZ, You did not discover anything here, just have showed us you didn't understand ( or simply read ??? ) your hardware "manual".

1) maybe............ got a cheap one going spare?

2) No it was a laptop problem, it was so damn fast that the error was on screen for less than a frame so i never saw it, and I had not bothered to read through the 6 screens of errors thrown up that _config has been replaced by config.....................

3) MCS works with any commandline driven programmer, used it for ages with winpic800 connected to a willem


4) It has no manual, well a pdf for the board, but no info on the programmer software.

Anyhow, something has been learned, rb6 and rb7 have odd behavior for a few seconds after a program, for odd read 'dont work'




I now have the speed issue fixed, but can only use 4mhz, also once i have the 2550 up and running at the right speed, any random amount of fuse changing makes no operational difference, i can set any clock div / pll i want and the little leds still flash the same, one assumes programmer not doing the fuses as asked, ignores setting of codeprotect fuse too...

also noticed board says programmer is v1.5, software identifies it as a 1.2 and offers to upgrade it to 1.3......(made no difference)

emailed about the rb6/7 issue, maybe its in my manual, they may send it one day....