Thanks so much for sharing this. I've been a using this kit 128 for some time and I must say, it is an extrememly good kit as it covers many PIC families, USB version, small & portable (can grapse it with one hand !), good support provided by Kitsrus and ease of use. The only drawback is, of course, no ICSP. Now, I can modify it and see whether I can program PIC chip on my PICDem 2Plus. Way to go, Bob !! cheers, Bob Axtell wrote: I wanted ICSP enthusiasts to be aware that the DIYKit128 from Peter Crawford at KitsRUs (www.kitsrus.com) works extremely well in my ICSP applications. It is available from Carls' Electronics here in the colonies. The K128, as well as the K149 and K150, are all designed by Tony Nixon, a member of our esteemed PIClist. Tony specifically states that ICSP will NOT work on his programmer, but in fact a week of testing with two different K128's have proven that with minimal planning it will work very well. The K128 works perfectly w/ 5 different processors (16F872/ 6/7, 16F628, and 12F675) mounted on boards. I have enclosed a typical schematic of how I use incircuit programming (Test3.PDF). Note that I isolate the PIC VCC with an SD101 schottky diode. If you use the lowest reverse-voltage available, at the low average currents, the drop is negligible (60-80mv). I use a .1uF bypass local to the chip, to maintain bypassing. Purists will want to replace the diode with a jumper, and that's fine, but when vibration makes the jumper fall out, don't say I didn't warn ya... . The K128 is very tiny, and comes with a standard dual-leaf 40p socket, mounted on top of a tiny black box. You'll need to trim the PCB near the USB connector end, as the intention is for a press-fit at that end. But I used self-tapping screws (#4 x 3/16" Phillips) and that made the assembly very sturdy. Since my applications are 98% ICSP, I used an OLD soldering iron to "drill" a 1/4" dia hole in the case on the end away from the USB connector. I have enclosed my splices onto the 40p connector of the K128 to handle ICSP (K128)_ICSP_connections.PDF). The only hardware gotcha on the K128 is that, while the documentation describes the needed cable as a "standard USB A-type extension cable", in fact it needs a USB A-male to USB A-male, quite a bit harder to find than a simple extension. The rest of the kit is almost pre-assembled; just the thru-hole parts need to be mounted. Very simple, done in an hour. If you are a sloppy solderer, use something to remove the solder droplets and flux. I use mineral spirits, dipping the entire board and scrubbing with a small brush WHILE IN THE SOLUTION (scrubbing the board with the brush away from the solvent might blow the chips). Finally, after quickly air drying, I remove the remaining solvent by putting the PCB in the dishwasher... it works better than anything. If all the water has not been removed, use a hair dryer to get the remainder. The software gotcha is really the old Windows driver snafu. You have to match up the right driver to the right Windows, and the K128's internal PIC (F628) has to match ITS program with the Programmer Software (MicroPro). Once its all together, its a dream. The Micropro programming software works quite well, even has a "voice" mode. Cute for a few minutes then I had to turn it off- it scared the dog and horses. The K128 was exactly what I was looking for. I have pix with an Aries ZIF socket plugged into it (not needed for ICSP) if anyone wants it. ------- ICSP Everywhere- a treatise on newer PIC-based designs: In the past, uPs were so expensive that we had to make everything funnel through a single uP. External chips handled everything else. It was a workable solution when the PICs were expensive. But now, a PIC is cheaper than ANY peripheral chip. For example, the F648 can act as a UART with 350 bytes of INCOMING or OUTGOING FIFO ram, for less than $2 ea! NOBODY sells anything like it for less than $10 ea, and because the F648 only needs to do that one task, it can do it at 115kb without a sweat. In one application, I had to create a fairly precise (2%) oscillator at 38Khz to drive a power inverter when voltage fell below a certain range (voltage divider). I can do it with a single 8pin SOIC PIC that costs less than $.75, plus two resistors and a small cap. I can't even BEGIN to do that cheaper any other way. A project I am doing now has, on a single board, 5 PIC's. All of them are fairly cheap parts, but since they are all doing their jobs IN PARALLEL, the overall thruput is incredible, even at 4Mhz clock speeds! They communicate by way of an "SPI serial port" one master and 4 slaves, all bit banged at about 8kb. AND 4 of them are SOIC14 (150mil) F676's. And yes, each one has a an ICSP programming jack on it. In production the actual jack will NOT be installed; the holes will act as guides for a spring-probe pin assembly; just hold it for a few seconds while it programs. If any Q's let me know, onlist or personally. --Bob -- Replies: NOTE-Script, EXE,BAT and COM files will be rejected by server -------------- Bob Axtell PIC Hardware & Firmware Dev http://beam.to/baxtell 1-520-219-2363 -- Replies: NOTE-Script, EXE,BAT and COM files will be rejected by server -------------- Bob Axtell PIC Hardware & Firmware Dev http://beam.to/baxtell 1-520-219-2363 -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pdf name=TEST3.pdf > ATTACHMENT part 3 application/pdf name=K128_ICSP_Connections.pdf --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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