USB pic thingy like Ladyada's USBtinyISP

[Davo]

I'm very impressed with the USBtinyISB dongle from Ladyada.  See http://www.ladyada.net/make/usbtinyisp/.  It even has clean support for Linux.  Has anyone here used it?  Does anyone here know if it's possible to come up with something like this for use with PICs?  I have a hard time dealing with Windows and I can't seem to find any other decent burners.  I'm still looking for a decent general eprom solution.  A dongle like this for PICs would be very very nice.

[stryd_one]

PICKit? Not sure if there are similar, I've had a good run with my JDM... But that's known to work, and IIRC does EEPROMs too.

[lylehaze]

A good bootloader (like we have in MIOS) means you don't need a programmer very often. But when you do need one, I like the http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en023805PICKit2.

It works with a lot of PIC devices, connects by USB, is small enough to be convenient, supports some Microchip SEEPROMS (I have not tried that), has support built in to MPLab, can be used for debugging, has a command line program for use outside of MPLAB, is USB powered, and it's cheap.

Hard to beat.

When I was using a parport programmer, I "made up" my own 5 pin header for plugging in the programmer. By pure luck, it matches the first five pins of the 6 pin PICKit2 header, so I can just plug it straight onto any of my existing project boards and I'm ready to go.

Last time I plugged it into MPLAB, it detected newer software and updated itself automatically. Cool feature.

Of course, the MIOS bootloader is still more convenient, because I don't even unplug my MIDIBox from the rack, I just dump a new program by SysEx. But a programmer is still needed for the first time on a new PIC.

Have Fun,

LyleHaze

[nILS]

After years with my old burner it refused to burn my PIC12Fs (8 pin) so I cracked and got a new one which works really well. Not USB but pretty cheap and working extremely well :-)

[ping-]

I use the pickkit2 myself..its quite good! :)

Its fast, easy, small, and i never had any trouble with it :)

[madox]

That PIC Kit 2 looks pretty decent. I used the Microchip MPLAB ICD2 in my last job, and found it pretty flakey. When they work, they work well enough, but we had a lot of programmers die inexplicably.

I use a Willem programmer from Sivava. These are also affordable, and do a wide range of chips, including many EPROMs. The one I bought from Sivava is essentially a parallel port device though (it has a USB port, but this is only for power, in the absence of a separate DC supply), and I believe it will not work with Windows Vista. It requires a patch for Windows XP to allow direct access to the port hardware.

There are USB Willem programmers available too, from willem.org, and probably other suppliers as well. willem.org's USB version is quite a bit more expensive than the one I bought, though.

One thing to be aware of with the Willem porgrammer, is that it is open source, and there are different layouts in use from the various suppliers. For the older parallel port generation which I use, one really needs documentation to identify the PCB jumpers. Cheaper suppliers don't always provide this. I had a quick look at the latest USB programmer, and it doesn't appear to have all these jumpers.

I have found the Willem to be reliable and versatile.

[Sasha]

I'm very impressed with the USBtinyISB dongle from Ladyada. ... Has anyone here used it?

I`m using it, and I`m very satisfied. Very reliable and cheap programmer. Only thing I don`t like is avrdude software i need to use with it. Even copying command instead of typing in the prompt for programming and again for changing each fuse is tedious job. I burned 10 Atmega162 chips last night and I wouldn`t call it fun.