On 12/3/06, Breesy <webmaster@breesy.com> wrote:
> On the flip side, what is the advantage of using a wallwart? I cannot
> think of any..
>

Many advantages. They are cheap and readily available. They make
your product design much easier.

Even USB powered programmer might need external supply. For
example, PICkit 2 does not work well with 16F7x7 since often the
USB supply will drop below 4.5V to proper erase 16F7x7s.

Actually you will need a wallwart anyway for your other things. Most
of the programmers will need one. ICD2 has one. Promate III has a
big one. Many demo boards need 9V supply or 5V.

USB power is in general not well protected, not well defined, not
so reliable. It is good to be used to power the programmer. But it
will have problems to power the target. Many PICkit 2 users
managed to blow their PICkit 2 with short-circuit target.
http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=192175

Regards,
Xiaofan
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