Pic programmer

Which PIC?

Note this programmer is specifically for EPROM based PICs. So "which PIC?" is a really important question.

Cool.

TxD is a serial port pin. This is a serial port programmer.

You've probably picked a poor programmer for the job.

The diodes are used to clamp voltages between 0 and 5 volts. The serial port can theoretically output upwards of 25V for outputs. In reality for a PC serial port you'll probably get somewhere between -5V and 5V or maybe even 0V and 5V.

That's one reason that serial port programmers are a dicey proposition. There are simply no guarantees as to the specifications of the port anymore.

OK. Now you've answered my question. Ditch this programmer and work on something a lot simpler. Since you thought this was a parallel port programmer, let me suggest one of my Trivial Programmers:

The High Voltage Programmer will service all of your needs. And by design it's a lot simpler than the serial port programmer your are proposing to use.

Clamping diodes. The PIC has internal ones but it's a bad idea to use them. If you plan on building that programmer, then keep those diodes in place.

Not good. Technically the PIC Vpp voltage is supposed to be 13V. A lot of PIC chips will accept a Vpp as low as Vdd+3.5V. However, to be on the safe side, you should build a 13V supply.

If you are using a LM7812 regulator you can get closer to the target by connecting the GND pin of the regulator to GND via a 1A diode. The diode will drop an addition 0.6V and raise the Vpp voltage to about 12.5V which is better.

Oh. You have a variable. Set it to 13V and use it for Vpp.

Yes you can. Be sure to connect the PC, PIC, and Power supply grounds together. Is your power supply fused? You should have an inline fuse just in case.

Nope. This is the specific reason for the Trivial Programmers design. The

Yes. But a single HCT chip can accomplish the task much more easily.

Yes. In fact the high voltage Trivial programmer has just about that same circuit for MCLR. But ICs have a much more compact package than individual transistors.

Take a read of my page, then come back and talk about it. It'll get you going faster than you've been going so far.

One addendum to the Trivial Programmer design. I've had troubles with long cables in the past. The currently posted design attempts an AC termination scheme using a cap and resistor to ground.

One of my users figured out that all that's necessary to use a long cable is to ground the cable shield to ground using a small value capacitor. Take this into account if you plan to build a trivial programmer.

BAJ

I would avoid using a LVP (you need to tie RB3 to gnd after it's programmed) and lose that I/O pin. A very good programmer by Myke Predko and been around for quite awhile is

It has software, supports lots of ICs and if you want a PCB you can order his book (an excellent reference on PICs) I still read it.

Bill

yeah, I was just using it as an example. Basicaly with WinPic you can easily use the serial or parallel, the main difference being that the parallel port has more pins and and serial port has different(higher I guess) voltages.

heh, well, I wasn't plan on making it but just trying to figure out what its trying to do.

yeah. I think I was getting 14V from mine or something.... another thing is that, atleast I think, they can only provide about 25mA.

ok. I happen to have some type of buffers like the

SN74S241J---Octal Buffers and Line Drivers with TRI-STATE Outputs.pdf

I hooked it up to my breadboard and ran some parallel port pins to it and tried it.

On inputing of 3.2V I get out 3.8V's ;/

I'm not sure how these work ;/ I thought buffers/drivers where suppose to "fix" the voltage so it would be the rail of the chip? (which is about 5V)

I looked at the chip that you use and I don't see much of a difference(I tried the SN74ALS240AN too, same thing.).

I mean, it seems to work but doesn't "fix" the voltage like I thought it would... like a schmitt trigger would?

So is my chip any different? I can't seem to make to much sense of the data sheets as they don't really explain what it does... although I think I do understand it, its just not doing exactly what I expect(it does act like a "short" when I have the "latch" open(or maybe it was off) and High Z when it is "open".... but hte voltages are not fixed like a schmitt trigger).

Sure, but I don't happen to have that chip availiable ;/ (I do happen to have a bunch of logic stuff that I got in a grab bag... might be able to find something that will work... lots of multiplexers, flip flops, and gates).

yeah, but I'm merely trying to get a pic programmed at the moment... just need to get something to work so I can get over the anxiety of screwing up the chip ;/ (cause unfortunately I don't have any way to "visualize" whats going on and it makes me worry alot that I might be screwing something up).

well, if I have that problem I might just cut the cable in 2 and splice them back together to make it a little shorter.

Is there any type of schmitt trigger like 3-State buffer that can be used for this? Or are these buffers schmitt triggered but I just happen to have one that is "fixing" it(whatever you call it) at 3.8V?

Thanks, Jon

What I mean by Schmitt Triggers is that ones that "rail" the voltage at 5V or so. I'm not sure if all digital logic IC's have schmitt triggers on there inputs to drive them better or not though. I tried some hex inverters and they upped the voltage from 3.2V to 4.2V so I was thinking I could use one of them to increase the voltage a little but seems like a waste to do it unless I have to(I tried to chain two and see if it would up the voltage past 5V but still gave me 4.2V.

hmm, I have a CD74HCT14 which seems to give me about 5.06V(which is what my VCC is for the thing... not sure if this is coincidence or what) that I should be able to use in front of the 3-State to give more drive? What I'm confused on is that I've tried several logic devices and they all seem to give me varying voltage outputs which could be several volts below VCC... is this normal?

I found a 74HCT125 which gives me about 4mV on low and 5.06V on high... much better than the other ones I have... maybe it is comparable to your

Jon

It seems to work, I wrote some small code and programmed a pic and then read it back and it was the same code.... the circuit I used was basicaly exactly what you had except I didn't use the 1k resistor on the data line. Now I just have to write some code to do something so I can really test it. Much easier than I thought. Supprised it works ;)

Thanks, Jon

Nope. It's not HCT. And in this instance the family of the part is important.

As you can see it's close but no cigar.

Nope. Buffer/drivers are often about adding sufficient current to drive a line.

The family is the import issue here. the HCT family is specified with TTL inputs (high is at 2.4V) and CMOS outputs, which are nearly rail to rail.

Schmitt doesn't fix voltage. It has hysterisis so that you get clean edges out of junky input signals.

Yes it's different. See above explanation.

You can use the 240 or 241 you have. You'll just have to put pullup resistors on the outputs so that the output is pulled to the rail. Since it's what you have in your grab bag, I'd suggest taking a stab at it.

As long as you don't exceed the absolute ratings you'll be OK. That means nothing other outside of 0-5V to regular pins and 0-13V to MCLR. Also be sure to limit your current to any single pin to about 20mA.

Grounding the shield with a cap is easier. I've spent a lot of time splicing to get smaller cables.

Use pullup resistors on the output of your drivers. That will get the job done so you can program the parts.

BAJ

That a family issue, not a Schmitt Trigger one. The HCT family is specifically designed to facilitate that type of level translation.

As I posted in my other post, you can get away with adding pullup resistors on other families such as LS and ALS.

What family was the inverters? 4.2V is sufficient. You can simply use the inverters to do the job. You just have to make sure that you invert all of the pins in your configuration of your programming software.

One last thing. Make sure that you use the programming software debugging mode to test your pin configuration. An inverted pin description, a broken or missing wire, or a wiring misconfiguration will mess up your whole day. This is an instance that taking 10 minutes to ensure that you can wiggle all the programming pins with the correct voltage and polarity is well worth the effort.

BAJ

BINGO! That's the winner. There's your level converter.

What three state? You don't need a 3 state buffer to build a PIC programmer. Note on my page that while the HCT573 is a 3 state octal driver that the OE pin is wired so that the part is always driving. The 3 state portion of the part isn't used.

You don't need to preface the hex inverters with anything. Wire the parallel port to the inputs of the HCT14, and wire the outputs of the HCT14 to the PIC pins. Of course there is the caveat of the resistor between the output of parallel port pin 2 and the PIC's RB7. This allows the PIC to drive the line going back to parallel port pin 10.

Yes. TTL only specifies an output voltage of 2.4V to get a high signal. Only the HCT and HC parts, which have CMOS outputs, will guarantee output voltages of above 4V. The HCT part accepts TTL inputs. So it properly translates TTL inputs (which the parallel port is) into CMOS outputs (which the PIC needs).

Go forth and wire your programmer.

Good Luck.

BAJ

Any HCT family part that's a simple buffer or inverter will do the job. So both the HCT14 (inverter) and the HCT125 (buffer) that you found will work.

I'd suggest using the HCT14 because it's simpler to wire and it has enough gates (5) to completely wire. With the HCT125 you only get 4 gates and you have to wire each of the individual tristate controls.

BAJ

Which it? Which part did you end up using?

Congrats.

OUCH! That resistor is important because it prevents bus conflict between the output the programmer and the PIC when it turns its data line around to an output. The PIC overpowered the HCT part. That's why it worked. But it's bad news to do on a continual basis. So put the resistor in. Anything in that 1k ballpark will be fine.

Fix the resistor issue before you continue.

Congrats again. It's supposed to be easy.

BAJ

ok, I'll add that. Thanks for all the replies. Seems I got a lot more to learn to fully understand whats going on ;/ Do you know if there is any online references that explain the different component types so I have some idea between the different "families"(not sure if thats the word but things like HCT, F, LS, etc...)?

I was able to throw a quick LED blinker together and it worked... Although figuring out the code was a little crazy but it seemed to work... heck, here it is.. I'm not sure if it is right or not but it does work ;)

main

; remaining code goes here

BSF STATUS, RP0 ; Select Bank 1 CLRF ANSEL ; Clear A/D Mode BCF TRISC, 2 ; Set RC2 for output

BCF STATUS, RP0 ; Select Bank 0

Loop BCF PORTC, 2

CALL Delay ; Add a bunch more to make it slower, removed for posting

BSF PORTC, 2

CALL Delay

GOTO Loop

Delay ; Setup Counter MOVLW 0x20 MOVWF FSR CLRF INDF DelayLoop

NOP ; *100... I removed a bunch to save space here...

INCF INDF BTFSS INDF, 7 GOTO DelayLoop RETURN

ORG 0x2100 ; data EEPROM location DE 1,2,3,4 ; define first four EEPROM locations as 1, 2, 3, and 4

END

I have another problem though for the 18F4431 where the programmer won't work for it... I'm going to post that that in a new thread though.

Thanks for all your help... Jon