What dev board are people using?

[TimB]

These days I tend to go from concept to custom PCB with no in between.

I do have a couple of dev boards, They are an old Amicus board and a firewing. They are fine but The boot loader always gave me grief so used my Pickit2 Using the new software, it works well. However these days I'm yearning to make life as simple as possible. Compile and bootload, rinse/repeat.

So I'm looking to see if there is a better board system to use.

Hence my question. Looking to see if I can improve my set up.

Cheers

Tim

[joesaliba]

When I first started writing code for PIC, I ended up doing several boards for a final product. I found it to be too much time consuming doing so and so expensive.

Although I do not make too many commercial products, I needed a faster way to at least develop a board rapidly, by first prototype very fast when an urgency occurs.

So I invested in an EasyPic board from MikroElektronika. I have it for several years now and wouldn't regret the money spent.

   

[okmn]

https://protoncompiler.com/index.php/topic,198.msg1047/topicseen.html#quickreply_anchor

Quote from: Gamboa on Mar 19, 2021, 05:11 PM
Les was designing new Positron8 and Positron16 PCBs. I don't know if he already has them available.

Quote from: okaman on Mar 19, 2021, 08:29 PM
it is realy avaialbale  this is super news!
i can wait him ,
becaouse i realy want to work orginal boards whic has support fully compatible for positron complier 8 and 16 bit versions
(i wish he will  has support for 32 bit  pic also)
dear Les ;
could you hear us please are  there new boards ?
i want to buy them.

[John Drew]

Tim, I use the Amicus board but program directly via the 5 pin connector and PICkit3. Compact, plenty of pins but no fancy peripherals of course. I do wish it had a switch to change to and from 3.3/5V. I might add that.
I don't like bootloaders but then again I don't make field programmable equipment.

PS I haven't forgotten your project. Too many things on the to do list at present but I have had a look at the references.
John

[RGV250]

Hi Tim,
I have several Amicus boards which I use a lot but for some reason they do not respond to the bootloader anymore (may be the FTDI chip) so I use PicKit 2 with ICSP.
I also have an EasyPIC6 but have to say it is less than easy. It is an incredible thing but had to keep referring to the manual for setting the correct DIP switches etc.
Other than that I use stripboard with header pins and then jumpers with male or female connectors on.

Regards,
Bob

[joesaliba]

I also have an EasyPIC6 but have to say it is less than easy. It is an incredible thing but had to keep referring to the manual for setting the correct DIP switches etc.

EasyPic 7 is a brilliant development board. EasyPic 4 was a bit so and so.

What I have done is a PDS template for LCD etc... and use that as a base to start coding. Make life so much easier:)

Regards

Joe

[rick.curl]

I have several Mikroelektronika boards, Amicus, Firewing, Picstart, Discovery, and Olimex. The crazy thing is that over time I have stopped using all of them. Since proto PCB's are so cheap, and turnaround time is fast, I just go straight for the first pass at a finished product. I know I'll end up making a rev or two before I get it right, but for me this seems to be the most efficient way to get it done.

-Rick

[TimB]

Hi Rick

It's good to know I'm not the only one. I tend to require special wiring to match a special peripheral. I'm not a great fan of breadboards and wire nests. Also the pic I want to use is rarely available on a dev board.

I consider that it will take at least 3 attempts to get the PC right. 1st board is always covered in wires correcting mistakes. 2 Corrects those mistakes and 3rd if I'm lucky is verification the board is ok for bulk production.

As you say proto PCB's are dirt cheap.

Saying that though I have a need to do some coding to connect to a external module using i2c. It's not worth yet making a special board and was hoping a simple dev board has come onto the market so I could treat myself to it

I dug out a Firewing board so will use that with my PicKit2. I should have a spare blank shield somewhere if not I will buy one. The module I'm using is very expensive and do not want to kill it with a lose wire or fat fingers sticking the VDD it in the wrong slot.

Cheers

Tim

[RGV250]

Hi,
Just found somewhere with a couple of Amicus18 clones left, just ordered one at £22.40+vat.
http://www.mmselectronics.co.uk/picshop.htm

Bob

[m.kaviani]

hi Tim,
it's about 21 years since I'm working around the industry jobs. This led me to the conclusion that design my own board because something is essential to consider
Modbus
Canbus
Analog Inputs
serial communication
4-20 mA input/output
look to the market can you find a board contains them? Certainly NO! board like amicus or easypic could not handle all of a project's needs.
https://protoncompiler.com/index.php?msg=1015

[Silicon-swamp]

Just spent a full day getting my head around a used EasyPic6, Checked out everything and all is well, so for once a superb "auction site" purchase.  Yes, as mentioned by RGV250 the many dip switches can be fun.....  Thankfully the supplied .pdf support files and user manuals explain everything in some depth for the novice. Ditto all the jumper settings of which there are many. (just shout if anyone needs these files), so like everything in life, a bit of a learning curve, but nothing too stressfull,no tears, no tantrums, Infact, quite a buzz when stuff starts to happen.  OK, so flashing the leds, scrolling some text,and drawing on the touchscreen display is not rocket science, but having all the toys available on the same board is very handy, well worth owning.     

[ken_k]

Hi Tim
Like you I normally go from concept to a PCB, the first iteration is often a quickie with a fair bit of autorouting

In the past I have used an Explored 16/32 Development Board from microchip,
https://www.microchip.com/developmenttools/listing/1af0842a-3fc4-4776-8ff4-77d0ee515282
https://www.microchip.com/developmenttools/ProductDetails/PartNO/DM240001-3#additional-summary

Quite good, they do the job, I have one with a set of micro boards around here somewhere, it seems to have gone to the same place that my reading glasses and pens go, I swear there is a planet somewhere covered in ball point pens and reading glasses.

Ken

[TimB]

I'm really amazed how there are no Amicus type boards available for the 18 series Pics 

As per another post I'm stumped using the Firewing board at 3.3v in that I cannot program it.

I'm looking at something like the MPLAB® Xpress PIC18F46K42 Evaluation Board but that does not have a standard programming connection.

It talks about Mplabs which I will never use as its so complicated

Sigh

 

[Gary Scott]

As per another post I'm stumped using the Firewing board at 3.3v in that I cannot program it.

Have you inquired on the Swordfish forum about this issue? Great folks over there

[TimB]

Hi Gary

I sent an email to Mecanique. I looked on the forum but the last post on the Firewing section was from about 3 years back so did not bother.


I found an Amicus board in a pile of previous projects so am up and running now. It has a 25k22 not the 25k20 but managed to fix the fuses etc
Tim

[RGV250]

Hi Tim,
I believe there is an issue with the diode, I gave both of my boards away as I could not get them to work. I thought it was my programmer but built one on stripboard from the Microstick II schematic (which does not have the diode) and it works all the time.


Bob

[Tenaja]

I have been using Labcenter as a dev board...Proton introduced me to it, and I love it!

[TimB]

Hi Bob

Going to try that, many thanks

Tim

[RGV250]

Good luck, I looked but it is in an array which will be really fiddly to bridge. I will be interested how you get on.

Bob

[tumbleweed]

The diode on MCLR shouldn't cause any problems. It's there to prevent the HVP programming voltage from back feeding into the VDD rail.

If you can, it's better to use LVP. That way the MCLR voltage (which connects to the USB pic for bootloading) isn't so much of an issue.

BTW - that's from the schematic of the board for PIC24/PIC32. The FW18 board has a different schematic.