Popular Microchip PIC's

The 16F84 and 16F877 tend to be popular for hobbyist projects in the UK. I think partly by inertia/availability.

Both relatively cheap with flash versions, versatile and very easy to use. Been around for a while too.

A UK magazine did a rather nice ICE and breadboard based prototyping kit around the latter a few years back. And there must be hundreds of simple circuits out there for programming the former.

Regards, Martin Brown

The 16F88 seems to be the most popular of the mid-range devices, probably because it is cheap and has lots of functionality in a small

18-pin package.

Leon

I like the PIC16F684, because it comes in a 14 pin package and has a PWM output, and it can be programmed with a direct USB connection using the inexpensive PICkit board. It also supports the 12F675, which is a versatile

8 pin PIC with A/D, and there are the similar 8 pin PIC12F615 which has a built-in two channel PWM, and PIC12HV615 which adds a shunt regulator.

For higher end projects, consider the PIC18F2450 or 4550 which has on-board USB, and you can set up a bootloader so you can program it directly from a USB port, and then use the same USB port to provide power to your project and exchange data and commands with simple serial port instructions. You can get a PICDEM USB kit to get started for about $40, and it includes a student version of the C18 C-compiler.

Paul

Yes, the 16F88 is the now popular 18pin replacement for the 16F628, which in turn replaced the 16F84.

But really, many of the PIC are available from a whole range of suppliers, so you use whatever suits your needs.

Dave.

I've used the PIC16F630 (14 pins) and PIC12F629 (8 pins). Similar chips with A/D are PIC16F676 and PIC12F675.

That was several/many years ago when they were the chips that Microchip was pushing.

There is probably something better by now, but I'd be happy to use them today. I programmed them via the PICkit. I think it was under $40.

If I was considering using something today, I'd look at their latest low cost development board and see what chips it supported.

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer\'s.  I hate spam.

Considering Microchip's vast product line, you pose a very difficult question.

Most of the projects I've seen on the net use the 16F line of processors. I think a better choice would be the 18F line, since the geometry of those chips is more compatible with modern compilers, and when you have to dig deep and write pieces of your program in assembler, the 18F chips support the enhanced instructions set (at least compared the the instruction set used by 16F processors.)

You should also get comfortable programming the chips in C. The free student version of Microchip's C18 compiler works well with the 18F series. Stanford University's "Essential C" is about as good a tutorial you'll find on the C language:

Although I've used a number of different PICs for various projects, I've settled on the following to keep in stock for general purpose projects and experiments:

12F683 (8 pin) for smaller projects and glue logic

18F1320 - a good general purpose 18-pin processor

18F2431 - a good general purpose 28-pin processor that's also suitable for some more sophisticated projects. It provides (relatively) high speed simultaneous dual-channel ADC sampling and the capability to generate three simultaneous, independent PWM outputs.

As you can see from other responses in this thread, it seems that everyone has their own favorite PICs, and no two people seem to have the same favorites. And that's a good thing.

Since the PIC product line is so broad, you'll usually find that many PICs will do any given job well. So you should pick a couple or three processors that work for you, then spend your time learning them well.