Phillip Coiner wrote:
> Seems to me the best way to figure out what is going on is to look the
> rise/fall times

This is something I want to see, if only to eliminate it as a possible
source of the trouble.

> of my
> programmer in comparison to the rise times of a working unit with the
> same type of devices.

I don't really care, nor is it relevant what other programmers are doing.  I
know what the rise and fall times *for my programmer* need to be for it to
work correctly.  As I said before, the fact that this works with the ICD2
only means the lines are hooked up correctly.

> The PGD and PGC pins are next to each other on the device so I'm
> surprised the designers would not expect them to wind up side by side
> in a programming cable.

I don't think these two things were designed with each other in mind.  You
are assuming a lot more deliberate intent than I think is there.  Putting
PGC and PGD next to each other on the ICD2 cable was unfortunate, and I have
found cases where crosstalk between the two was definitely the issue.  As I
said before, this and other ICSP issues are discussed in my circuit design
guide for ICSP at http://www.embedinc.com/picprg/icsp.htm.

> I have no problems with building a different cable that uses the other
> header on the programmer instead of the RJ-12.
> I can use a twisted pair with ground around each signal as kind of a
> shield or put the signals on a pair together for cross talk
> cancellation.
> What would you suggest?

As I said in a earlier private message to you, use the P21 header "PGM Out"
on the ProProg instead of the RJ-12 jack.  Use a ribbon cable with the lines
in the same order as on P21, which is the easiest way to build the cable
anyway.  Then permute the wires as necessary as close as possible to the
target board end of the cable.  And also put about 47pF of capacitance to
ground on both PGC and PGD close to the target PIC or at least on your
board.

I don't know if this is the problem, but I've proven it to be the problem in
some other cases.


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