First off, my thanks for a very-well designed and rapid programmer with support for all manner of devices.
I built this some time ago, and after eventually getting the voltage multiplier to work (dead transistor) was very pleased with the rapidity of programming. The initial etch quality was poor, and having no wish to make another pcb I built the main pic expansion board on stripboard (horrible stuff) and used it a few times, both with the sockets and via ICSP.
Today, however, I have a rather strange error. The board passes hardware test fine, on sockets, ICSP header and board connected via ICSP, with VPP = 12.7-12.9v and a large homemade inductor (~260uH; vpp=9.5v via ICSP but still worked). I am, however, unable to prgram anything, either by placing the chip on the expansion board or via ICSP. I have tried both 18f4450s and 18f4550s, some new (the only PICs I possess), and am unable to write at all. Initially I got write errors ('wrote 0000 read 3fff' etc), now I get 'can't find CONFIG' and a refusal to write at all. Resistance between protection resistors and header pins is less than an ohm on all tracks, and there are no measured or observed shorts or breaks.
Any Ideas??
Thankyou very much,
John 2E0BYO
P.S. would .debs of opgui be any use to save debian/ubuntu users compiling? Only I have some I built to save compiling on multiple machines.
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Okay... I can't tell you how stupid I feel. It has just occurred to me that for the last n times I had forgotten to set the chiptype. set it to 18f4550 and it worked fine..... I shall post back with the number of destroyed pics once I've tested.
I think that's solved it, if anyone is having similar sudden problems, don't rule out the stupid options.
Thanks again for a very useful device. I shall go and see if I can figure out how to write the silly code in the first place now.
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Don't worry, quite often the solution is so evident you can't see it.
I'm sure you didn't destroy any device; the 18F4550 needs 12V as any other PIC16.
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I used checkinstall after compiling, but there are better ways. I got reasonable at this a while ago when packaging a python program (nothing much; just a test really). I'll put together an explanation of how I do it and email it to you with the .debs I made.
Thanks very much
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
First off, my thanks for a very-well designed and rapid programmer with support for all manner of devices.
I built this some time ago, and after eventually getting the voltage multiplier to work (dead transistor) was very pleased with the rapidity of programming. The initial etch quality was poor, and having no wish to make another pcb I built the main pic expansion board on stripboard (horrible stuff) and used it a few times, both with the sockets and via ICSP.
Today, however, I have a rather strange error. The board passes hardware test fine, on sockets, ICSP header and board connected via ICSP, with VPP = 12.7-12.9v and a large homemade inductor (~260uH; vpp=9.5v via ICSP but still worked). I am, however, unable to prgram anything, either by placing the chip on the expansion board or via ICSP. I have tried both 18f4450s and 18f4550s, some new (the only PICs I possess), and am unable to write at all. Initially I got write errors ('wrote 0000 read 3fff' etc), now I get 'can't find CONFIG' and a refusal to write at all. Resistance between protection resistors and header pins is less than an ohm on all tracks, and there are no measured or observed shorts or breaks.
Any Ideas??
Thankyou very much,
John 2E0BYO
P.S. would .debs of opgui be any use to save debian/ubuntu users compiling? Only I have some I built to save compiling on multiple machines.
Okay... I can't tell you how stupid I feel. It has just occurred to me that for the last n times I had forgotten to set the chiptype. set it to 18f4550 and it worked fine..... I shall post back with the number of destroyed pics once I've tested.
I think that's solved it, if anyone is having similar sudden problems, don't rule out the stupid options.
Thanks again for a very useful device. I shall go and see if I can figure out how to write the silly code in the first place now.
Don't worry, quite often the solution is so evident you can't see it.
I'm sure you didn't destroy any device; the 18F4550 needs 12V as any other PIC16.
Yes, they were all fine. Are those .debs of any use?
Thanks
Actually it would be useful to have the procedure used to create them.
After that you use dpkg to install right?
exactly (dpkg -i).
I used checkinstall after compiling, but there are better ways. I got reasonable at this a while ago when packaging a python program (nothing much; just a test really). I'll put together an explanation of how I do it and email it to you with the .debs I made.
Thanks very much