On 12/22/98, at 11:54 AM, James Cameron wrote:

>I've built a DT-001 too.

In my case, building it wasn't too hard, understanding it and using it
will be the real challenge, then again, isn't that what it's all about?

>Power it up without the chips plugged in, and without it being plugged
>in to the computer.  Measure the voltages at every point you can get
>your probes into.  Check the 5V bus first, then the 13V programming
>voltage.  If they are not right, turn off and figure out why.

You probably read my reply to Don on my little experiments, so I won't
get into that again, but yes I checked everything I could. I don't really
know WHERE I should check the voltages but I put those probes to
work and stuck them everywhere and nothing was ever over 13volts.
(Actually, is it possible I got 18 volts somewhere? The AC adapter I
got with my Kit is rated at 16 volts.. is there any component there
that could actually boost it abit more? cause I think I saw 18 volts for
a  split second somewhere).

>Run it from two nine volt alkaline batteries rigged in series if you
>don't have any known isolated power supply.

Uhmm I read this on the Dontronics page too, but unfortunately, I don't
have any 9v batteries in the house and didn't feel like trodding through
the cold to get some :) So I took my chances and plugged the sucker in.

>I would also manually raise and lower the inputs to the board and verify
>that the corresponding PIC programming line goes the right way.

I would too, if I knew how :) Is there a version of the above two lines for
the really electronically impaired so I could try it?

My current goal would be to establish that the dt001 is working and
that I could start trying to program it by following the instructions in the
very interesting "Programming and Customising the PIC Microcontroller"
book.

Thanks for your time and the warp speed of your last reply!

Andrew