ICD2 compatible/clone for 18F4550

[folks]

18f4550 board

Terrific, I've just sent the artwork to the PCB house, should be ready next Wednesday

Do not worry, I will be waiting anxiously for my JuneBug board

in some ways even superior to the ICD2

In what way do you think is superior?

BC-02 is also shown

What is the finality of the "BC-02" case?

Thanks

 

[blueroomelectronics]

18f2550 icd2

The LAB-EASY prototyping system has been around for a couple of years but the designer has not been marketing it.

As for superior you'll know why in about two weeks Hopefully MPLAB 8.0 will be out by then.

 

[folks]

building 18f4550 on protoboard

The LAB-EASY prototyping system has been around for a couple of years but the designer has not been marketing it.

As for superior you'll know why in about two weeks Hopefully MPLAB 8.0 will be out by then.

LAB-EASY is like a proto board?
MPLAB 8.0 thats is fantastic, i think the pk2 will have full suport for the currently betas debug.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

pic18lf4550 boot

Yes, it's the best breadboarding system I've seen. I'll post the best part asap...
**broken link removed**

 

[jsosa]

pic18f4550 firmware icd2

Finally (or starting ):

I have buy a Microchip's PicKit 2 Flash Starter Kit (DV164120) to a spanish distributor. Its cost was only 39 Euros. And i have ordered the Potyo2 components to this distributor....

Soo, i will start with a PicKit 2 in order to have an ICD2 clone. In this sense, I can review your design blueroomelectronics as soon as my order arribes to Canary Islands.


Thanks a lot to all and specially to folks for you help,
Javier

 

[blueroomelectronics]

icd2 usb 18f

Finally (or starting ):

I have buy a Microchip's PicKit 2 Flash Starter Kit (DV164120) to a spanish distributor. Its cost was only 39 Euros. And i have ordered the Potyo2 components to this distributor....

Soo, i will start with a PicKit 2 in order to have an ICD2 clone. In this sense, I can review your design blueroomelectronics as soon as my order arribes to Canary Islands.


Thanks a lot to all and specially to folks for you help,
Javier

The PICkit 2 pretty much will do anything the ICD2 can do for the 16F & 18F PICs. The 18F4550 is supported for both debugging & programming with the PK2 when using MPLAB 7.62

Don't bother building an ICD2 till you need to DEBUG 24F or dsPICs (the PK2 programs them fine), and who knows; maybe MPLAB 8 will support those on the PK2

I've used my Junebug prototype and a genuine PK2 for just a short while and for the PICs I use most often the PK2 is fantastic. And I SELL a ICD2 clone

Why use an ICD2... (almost ALL (except the power supply) are software related and will likely be updated with new MPLAB releases)

The ICD2 has
More settingings in MPLAB (you can choose the programming range)
Can power the target with its external AC adapter (700ma vs PK2 100ma)
More PICs are supported (the PK2 is catching up fast)

The PICKit2 has
(as of MPLAB 7.62 or PICkit 2 standalone software)
No special driver, XP will install it as an HID device (yay!)
Further testing indicates it's equal to or fast than an ICD2 with USB
It doesn't download a new OS every time you change families (like the ICD2 does)
It's driver is extremely robust unlike an ICD2 (You CAN corrupt the firmware on the ICD2 USB chip 18F4550 by unplugging it when MPLAB is busy)
At the hardware level it's a 18F2550 running at 48MHz, the ICD2 is a pair of PICs the USB 18F4550 @48MHz communicates to a very old 16F877 running at 20MHz, this IS a bottleneck as a 16F series PIC will always be slower than an 18F PIC even at the same clock speed (no bank switching for one...)
Auto identify (PK2 software) most PICs
EEPROM programming support
Programmable VDD from 2.5V to 5V (Junebug does not have this feature)
3.3V clamps (Junebug does not use the clamps as it is a 5V only design)
A TTL terminal for UART testing really handy

Skeptics like me thought the PK2 was a toy, but another thread here forced me to take another look. Glad I did.

Here's something that will probably lockup your ICD2 but works on the PK2
with a 18F4550 attached, open the debugger and view "Special Function Registers" This operation can slow any ICD to a crawl but the ICD2 can take a long long time...

PS if you are interested in 24F and dsPIC then a REAL ICE is the way to go according to Microchip (yes I attend the Microchip seminars) So now that the PK2 has decent debugger support for midrange PICs (and it programs all the same PICs the ICD2 does using it standalone software) and a REAL ICE is the way to go for high end PICs the ICD2 is getting less attractive.

I'm mailing folks (a member here) a Junebug PCB and lets get his opinion...

 

[jsosa]

icd2 usb 18f4550*

The PICkit 2 pretty much will do anything the ICD2 can do for the 16F & 18F PICs. The 18F4550 is supported for both debugging & programming with the PK2 when using MPLAB 7.62

Great, my targets are 16F and mainly 18F Pics...

 

[blueroomelectronics]

icd2 debugginh takes long time to step

Here you go, a PICkit 2 lite schematic. It's the most basic PK2 I could design so it's cheap and simple to build. You'll need to get the bootloader firmware PK2V021000.HEX (comes with MPLAB 7.62 or the PICkit 2 software from Microchip) loaded on the PIC18F2550 first though.

 

[Nandulal]

blueroomelectronics pk2 lite

So now we can come up with Real ICE clone now......Just a thought...

Thanks
Nandu

 

[blueroomelectronics]

icd2+18f4550

While you are still waiting, here is the Board tested and on production since Sept-2007.
Funny.

My Junebug PIC Labs are selling fine. Perhaps you should take out an ad in a local paper. Tough to compete with a Genuine $34.95 PICkit 2 (Digikey) if you're only offering a clone for $29.95 I would think most would pay the extra $5 for the real article.
**broken link removed**

 

[esbrasil]

18f2550 icd2 diy clone

Here you go, a PICkit 2 lite schematic. It's the most basic PK2 I could design so it's cheap and simple to build. You'll need to get the bootloader firmware PK2V021000.HEX (comes with MPLAB 7.62 or the PICkit 2 software from Microchip) loaded on the PIC18F2550 first though.

I'm building it now, keeps me from buying the brazilian ICD2 clone from Farnell

 

[Pigi_102]

pick kit 2 tutorial 18f4550

@blueroomelectronics

I have read elsewhere that the 18f2550 could be changed with an 18f4550 redrawing the schema and this is/should be relativelly easy, but the real question is :
could the firmware from the microchip site be loaded on a 4550 without any change ?

In case of a positive answer I will try to build it to debug my problems with the icd clone.

Other question, what' a "ferrite BEAD " ? Could be changed with something other ?

Thanks for your time.

Pigi

 

[blueroomelectronics]

pics rev c icd2 clone

Yes the 18F4550 works, I built the prototype with one. Just match the pin descriptions. The bead can be a simple wire link.

 

[gamereno]

pk2 clonbe

I make icd2 18f4550&16f877A but it not work!

 

[tenson]

34063a switching psu project

Hi,

I've just finised testing my PICKIT2 clone. The schematics is the same as "Pickit2 lite" made by Blueroomelectronics, the only difference is that it uses 18F2455 and 4MHz XTAL.

Also minor modifications in Microchip's firmware were necesarry:
- configuration bits (PLL prescaler set to 2),
- MCU replaced in entire MPLAB project,
- bootloader stores FW status var in 0x5FFE instead of location 0x7FFE
(18F2550 has 32K of prog. memory, 18F2455 has 24K of prog. memory).
- minor modifications in .lkr file (removed memory regions for 18F2550).

The clone works great, the only problem is when I try to load new FW.
The bootloader won't run it after clone reset (PICKIT2 application reported
"No OS error").
And the funny thing is that PC PICKIT2 application said that FW was sucessfully loaded before device was restarted.

I've tried to uncomment the lines in firmware code which write word 0x5555 to
location 0x5FFE (note that this was 0x7FFE in the original code), but then i got "firmware check failed" message from PICkit2 v2.40 software.

I bypassed this by disabling the bootloader checking at location 0x5FFE for 0x55.
The only way to start the bootloader is now to hold the BOOTLOAD switch.


I'm wondering if there is a way to make bootloader work as it does in original PICKIT2 software (flag checking at location 0x5FFE) ???

Thanks

 

[blueroomelectronics]

icd2 clone 16f877a 18f4550

Why don't you get a 20MHz crystal and 18F2550? The "lite" version is already stripped down to the core essentials, the 4MHz crystal might be ok but the 18F2455 may simply not be large enough.

 

[Gerardo_waldo]

18f icd2

I ´ve made a ICD2 Clone and it works good. Someone who wants help please tell me with any problem

Added after 6 minutes:

Someone who wants to make a icd2 clone who works perfectly please send me a mail.I´ve made it and it works

 

[tenson]

icd2 4550 firmware

Why don't you get a 20MHz crystal and 18F2550? The "lite" version is already stripped down to the core essentials, the 4MHz crystal might be ok but the 18F2455 may simply not be large enough.

Because:

1. 18F2455 has enough memory

2. I had 18F2455 and 4MHz XTAL at hand.

3. I prefer to use things which are at hand and could be operational with a bit of software tweaking, instead of buying new mcu/xtal.

Therefore my question still stands

 

[tenson]

real ice clone

OK

My investigation (so far) has shown, that PICKIT2 PC software somehow checks
0x5FFE and reports error if not empty.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

pickit 18f4550

OK

My investigation (so far) has shown, that PICKIT2 PC software somehow checks
0x5FFE and reports error if not empty.

Once again, if you built it using the correct parts it will work fine. Neither the 18F2550 or 20MHz crystal should be difficult to find.