The Microchip devices are pretty good and inexpensive. The USB isn't the
easiest to use and the early devices had a bug which means you are pretty
much stuck with Microchip's code or a successful port to a 3rd party
compiler.

The good thing is that Mchip offer a USB bootloader which fits within the
bottom 1K words, sits behind a protected code area and which works really
well.

Drop me a line if you need further info - I spent a happy few weeks a couple
of years ago converting Microchip's example code ! 


Robin Abbott
Forest Electronics - Home of WIZ-C ANSI C Compiler for PIC's with RAD Front
end
robin.abbott@fored.co.uk
www.fored.co.uk 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of
Marc Nicholas
Sent: 31 January 2008 17:27
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: 18F USB devices

Hi all,

Let me preface this by saying that I actually don't do much PIC
work...although I've done a reasonable amount of SX work.

For a project I'm currently planning I need the ability for users to update
the firmware of the device via USB from a host computer IN THE FIELD and
communicate via USB with a PC-based app.

Obviously an SX with an FTDI USB chip could accomplish the communications
part of the project, but the lack of in circuit programming and the
specialized programming hardware become a roadblock. As does the price.

The PIC 18F parts with onboard USB seem to be a very good fit (simple USB
design, decent performance, good amount of memory, very cheap). Am I missing
anything obvious as to their pitfalls?

TIA,

-marc
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