I think I fried my first PIC last night.

It was siting in a PCB running normally, but later I noticed a test LED
was only half lit.

I went to touch the 16F873 after removing power and heard a 'Tssst'
sound as the Microchip logo got branded into the tip of my finger. I'd
swear it was so hot, I could have lit a match off it.

The bootloader failed to work after that, so I assumed it was dead, but
after cooling off it worked again. For about 3 minutes, the PCB was
ticking like chrome exaust pipes cooling off. Unfortunately, the PIC
seems to run a bit warm now, so I don't think I'd trust it for work
anymore, especially not for development when you don't need a cranky
chip.

The problem:  A floating test lead with 12VDC wiggled it's way over to a
VCC test pin and made contact.

--
Best regards

Tony

mICro's
http://www.picnpoke.com
mailto:sales@picnpoke.com

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