Wouter,

I guess that figure is not far from the truth, but as Igor said for a
hobbyist, solving problems and learning from mistakes is often of far more
value than you would expect from a purely financial point of view.

A major part of my job (I'm not self employed, as I guess most people here
are) I have to solve problems to fix complex broadcast transmitter faults,
often alone; so problem solving and logical thought processes come easy! My
programmer was certainly not without it's problems, but I could fix them
quickly. Other people would have struggled, and I have to agree with you,
that ready built or kit programmers would suit a lot of people, as the
programmer is otherwise the first PIC project they would have to undertake,
which could be a lot to ask.

With hindsight, I might well have bought a programmer, but when I started, I
hadn't found the PIC list, and the programmers which were available (to me)
were upwards of $200. The Chairman of the fundraising committe (wife) would
not have stood for that!

I have to say, that when I migrated from 16F to 18F, I had trouble with the
MC C18 compiler, and wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong with the
code, or if the programmer was working properly. So I downloaded one of your
LED blinker hex files and programmed that. It was me and my misunderstanding
of the compiler syntax, and your LED blinker was invaluable - thankyou!

Whilst I'm on the subject of thanks etc, if I had not joined the PIC list, I
would not have thought it possible for me to use an 18F part. I was about to
start on a project with a 16F877, and it was thanks to Olin Lathrop that I
decided to use an 18F452.  Thanks Olin.

Have a good Christmas,

Mike.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wouter van Ooijen" <wouter@VOTI.NL>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 6:51 PM
Subject: Re: [PIC:]FPP Can (was cannot) cannot erase the A part pic16F628A


> > As an RF engineering professional with a digital / analogue
> > background and
> > hobby - most importantly hobby, I knocked together my simple
> > serial port
> > programmer from scrap and had it working with icprog in half a day.
> >
> > At $100/h this is an expensive programmer, but at 0$/h, very cheep. It
> > happily programs 16f84s and now I've grown up a bit, 18F452s as well!
>
> OK, that is a figure. I guess the correct figure would require averaging
> over N people, most of which would have spend a few hours or less, but a
> few of them having spend many many hours. I have no idea what the
> average figure would be.
>
> Assuming
>
> - half a day is 4 hours
> - my Wisp628 build-and-tested wou have cost you $40 and half an hour of
> your time
> - you will never run into problems with this (at least not into more
> problems than with my Wisp628)
> - your programmer has cost you $5
> - the choice between your programmer and buying Wisp628 is a break-even
>
> The conclusion is that you value your (hobby) time at $35 / 3.5 = $10.
> Does this feel about right?
>
> Wouter van Ooijen
>
> -- -------------------------------------------
> Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
> consultancy, development, PICmicro products
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
> mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu

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