PICpgm + ART2003... A possible combination???

Hello! Nice to find you guys! I will get straight to the point. I am trying to program two 18F2450 to use them in a drum midi trigger. I have constructed ART2003 parallel programmer to program them only to find out that WinPic800 won't program them without the usb dongle!!! Then I found PICpgm and I am really thrilled with its ability to add new hardware. The thing is that I don't know which pins are to be inverted for the ART2003 to work. Following the schematics of ART2003, i selected the right pins for it in PICpgm and now PICpgm finds the programmer. But every attempt I make results in verification errors... Any help people???

Hi,
what is the voltage on the VDD pin of the programmer?
Newer LPT ports only provide 3,3V output which is too less for programming PIC18F2450!

picpgm said:

Hi,
what is the voltage on the VDD pin of the programmer?
Newer LPT ports only provide 3,3V output which is too less for programming PIC18F2450!

Click to expand...

Hello. I am quoting from the official ART2003 site:

Programmer takes its power from Parallel Port pins 2-9. VPP for this programmer is 5V and hence "LVP" must be selected in programming software.

Click to expand...

Here is the schematic:
**broken link removed**

As you can see he feeds VDD by combining pins 2 to 9 of the LPT, so it should be enough, considering that ART2003 was build to program 18F2550.

And a final question: What is the general rule about inverting pins?

Keep up the great work!!!!

I checked the programming specification. For normal programming 2.0V VDD is enough. But for Bulk Erase 3.0V are required. Assuming the LPT outputs 3.3V logiv level and subtract the voltage drop of the diodes - around 0.7V - we are at 2.6V which is too less for erasing the device and hence programming will fail.

Regarding pin inverting:
Since the LPT pins directly control the programming lines of the PIC, none of the pins need to be inverted.

I would not use this programmer or at least use an external 5V power supply to get stable operation.

picpgm said:

I checked the programming specification. For normal programming 2.0V VDD is enough. But for Bulk Erase 3.0V are required. Assuming the LPT outputs 3.3V logiv level and subtract the voltage drop of the diodes - around 0.7V - we are at 2.6V which is too less for erasing the device and hence programming will fail.

Regarding pin inverting:
Since the LPT pins directly control the programming lines of the PIC, none of the pins need to be inverted.

I would not use this programmer or at least use an external 5V power supply to get stable operation.

Click to expand...

Many many thanks man! Maybe I will just remove the diodes and see what happens... About inverting the pins, I must say that the default settings in Winpic800 inverses 2 pins:
**broken link removed**

I would not remove the diodes. Reason: If one of the outputs which is used as VDD is not set to logical 1 it would cause a short circuit.

Regarding Pin inverting:
Maybe PICPgm handles the pin invert configuration differently than WINPIC800. I.e. if there is no inverter between the LPT pins and the PIC no pin invert is required in PICPgm.

Thanks a lot man!!!