Tobias Gogolin wrote: > well so far I don't like the answers I got > I see no reasons why a well designed simple programmer shouldn't work > but of course I understand where the wind is blowing from, you guys want to > sell! No, they built WELL DESIGNED programmers. The ones you're looking at... aren't. If you'd review the circuits and also the PIC datasheets for the programming requirements, you'd already know that. > Thanks but I have neither time nor money to order from you, sorry! If you're that hard-up, you're going to find that electronics might be disappointing unless you have a lot of dead hardware you can "accumulate" parts from. Your first order of a list of standard parts for building real circuits (including shipping, or from a local dealer with mark-up) will run as much or more as one of their programmers. > Besides I am not working only for myself, i am defining the path for a > future open source community that is going to adopt the hardware I evaluate! > People from all around the world! Nifty doo... personally we're just sitting around smoking rainbows and farting lollipops, no one here has _EVER_ attempted anything to help open-source or the world! (That's sarcasm...) Actually I'm planning to take over the world too. Want to borrow my "Fembots with a penchant for evil"? Reference: http://www.ubergeek.tv/switchlinux/ Okay now that you've had a laugh... You seem to think that you need to evangelize open-source here, and have made an assumption that people here aren't already involved in such projects. Perhaps you might want to hang around a while and find that... well, here, let me rephrase your own words: "Many people here (including Olin and Wouter) are not only working for themselves, they've defined a path for PIC users to program their respective PIC chips without pain and suffering, people from all around the world!" > My philosophy is consume only the bare necessities, what if somebody wants > to build the tracker and that is going to be the only PIC he will ever > program and update? Gee, wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper for them (and more reliable) to have someone pre-program the chips (if they're truly that popular) and sell them at cost of chip, shipping, and time to program a batch? > We'll have to do better than that! > The objective is renewable energy, not outfitting a lab... Bwahaha... a $80 programmer is "outfitting a lab"... wow, you're out of touch with true costs of such projects, friend. You also might hang around long enough to notice that others here have already posted that they're working on or have already finished such projects. Your enthusiasm is great, but you really need to stop and look at what's already been done. If you're into "open-source" you understand the value of knowledge reuse... and there's quite a bit of it here already. You may have already turned off multiple people with an interest in your particular application though... barging in with a "I know best how to build things with PIC's" attitude. You only hurt yourself doing that. Be cautious. Anyway... Hopefully that'll save Wouter and Olin from having to say all of the above... they don't deserve your scorn. They're pros, yes... and they've offered up VERY affordable programming solutions for everyone. Those programmer designs you're looking at, suck. I know. I built one and fought with it until it worked. Then I bought a $40 programmer from a reputable company (that's not as popular anymore as newer PIC devices came out, but still works for the stuff I do), and found that it worked directly out of the box, and EVERY time in the last five or six years since I bought it. I threw the improperly designed programmer circuit in the trash (after pulling useful components off of it) and never looked back. You can learn from other's mistakes or repeat them -- your call. Either way, hope you're having fun with it. Nate -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist