What needs to go in a PIC24 development board?

[RGV250]

Hi John,
18F25K83 / 18F26K83 which I think are pin compatible.

Bob

[JonW]

It would be good to get bootloaders for all the supported devices. 

[John Lawton]

Indeed, thanks Bob.

28 pin devices compatible with standard board:
18F25K20,
(18F252), 18F2420,  18F2520,
18F23K22, 18F24K22, 18F25K22, 18F26K22,
18F24Q71, 18F25Q71, 18F26Q71,
18F27Q84,
18F25K83, 18F26K83,

After providing alternative pin links for UART:
18F24Q24, 18F25Q24, 18F26Q24

Any more possible contenders please?

John

[John Lawton]

It would be good to get bootloaders for all the supported devices. 

Indeed, the hardware comes first, I'm hoping to get help with the bootloaders...

John

[tumbleweed]

Any more possible contenders please?

John - What criteria are you using to determine if a device is compatible?

Except for a few odd-ball devices (like the Q24), I would think most all 28-pin PIC18's should work (with the exception of the J series).

[John Lawton]

I was mostly concerned over compatibility of the UART1 and of course power pins and you are right, all(?) 28 pin parts (without USB) are compatible with the original Amicus 18 design, apart from the new 18F24/25/26 Q24 devices.

I am thinking of adding a select link between RC7/RC5 to accommodate the Q24 MVIO parts, my reasoning is that Microchip might continue to go this way in future, who knows?

Anyway for completeness I've decided to create a list of compatible devices which I'll post shortly.

Some devices with less than 28 pins would need adaptor boards which will also get my attention in the near future.

[RGV250]

Hi John,
As I didn't want to hijack the JonW thread, what software did you use to design your boards or is it expensive.

Bob

[John Lawton]

For the past - I can't remember how many years - I've been using Easy-PC from Numberone Systems. https://www.numberone.com/

Not too expensive, since for these designs the 1000 pin version would suffice.

The RS PCB CAD package on DesignSpark is very similar and the basic version is free.
https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/pcb-software

John

[top204]

Did you get the board done with the USB to Serial chip on them John?

I have programmed the boards you sent, and they are excellent, but without the serial coms, they are difficult to work with because they do not give the ability to see what is going on without connecting LCDs etc to the board.

[John Lawton]

Hi Les,

thank you, good to hear that the boards work okay. I've held back on manufacturing the updated versions with the USB-Serial chip fixed because I thought I'd wait to see whether there are any other issues. For instance I wonder whether fitting the 6 pin SPI connector is worthwhile, but I can leave the footprint in the layout anyway.

I'll get a batch of pcbs manufactured and assembled.

John

[See_Mos]

looking forward to seeing some pictures and more details John

[John Lawton]

Sorry, I only built a couple of prototypes and sent them to Les without taking any photos of them!

I posted an image of the prototype pcb artwork here: https://protoncompiler.com/index.php?msg=16440

I've also revived the Amicus 18 board, now the Amicus 8 which is similar to the other boards. There is some preliminary information here: https://easy-driver.co.uk/Amicus/

John

[John Lawton]

Batches of Amicus 16A, Amicus 16B and Amicus 8 are currently being assembled. All being well they should be back in my hands in a week or so and I'll then put them on sale on the above website link.

I've also designed some 28 pin SSOP-SDIP adaptor boards so SM PIC's for instance the dsPIC33CK range can be adapted for the Amicus 16B board DIP socket.

John

[Fanie]

My 2 C

Other micro's have a variety of "development boards".
And there are various "shields" too, the board that plug in on top of it for various options.

The idea is that you buy the development board with your choice of micro,
Then you buy a shield for it from where you can connect your what-evers.

It is popular because for a once off and in some cases production, the user does not have to do the board development ($$$$) and most of all, you have an instant something to work with.

For instance, my one brother (fitter and turner  ) use Raspberry pi and Arduino boards, stacked with shields and Lora transceivers to maintain and monitor a water plant for a chicken farm over some distances.  It offers an easy and usable solution vs PCB design and the development of that.

I have long ago sat down to try and develop the ideal universal board usable for most needs.
It did not work, for starters the pic pins are too shuffled through the various series. If only they were consistent, it could have offered at least one easier part of the idea.
A breakout or shield board could then be used for further expansion.

I have one board that I have used for a heck of a lot of apps.  For some reason it just seems to work for most of my needs, and I will expand on it to make it more usable.

Sorry, I want to add.  I have around 6 ESP32 development boards, each offers various options for different apps.  I have one board I designed, i got a programmer for it and it worked flawless the first time.  But consider how easy they have these boards work - you plug the USB in and you can go...

[Fanie]

Another thing I would like to mention.
I grew up with pics, have been at them since they became available here far back in the old Afrikaner's Sick Africa.  The ability to program your own little intelligence doing various things is fantastic.
I like the pics.

What made the biggest difference for me was when I went from assembler programming to using the Pic Basic, WOW !, it was now super fast and easy to have the pics work even faster and better is such short time I felt guilty about it for a while...
I got my dongle and software the afternoon and that evening had my first program working already, which I was going to do in assembler and would have taken a LOT longer.

Comparing Pic Basic to other high level languages, which is basically (pun) C that is used for all the other micro's... and pics.
The limiting factor here for the Positron is it targets only pics.

Yes yes I know, BUT

IF, and just IF, other series of micro's were included with the Pics, then immediately Positron may be up there as an alternative to C.

I can then buy any of the boards already available and use Positron to program them instead of using the (for me) dreaded C.  This will open a huge possibility for the Positron Basic to expand wildly.