Mouser Order... which PIC chips to buy?

[maark6000]

hello all, I'm about to place an order for the chip I've been learning, the PIC16F84A. I know this is an outdated chip, so it has been recommended to me that I get the PIC16F628A and/or the PIC16F88. What I'd like to know is what other chips are the 'jelly bean' chips... meaning chips that are so useful that it would behoove one to always have a few lying around in the component drawers? 8 bit, 16 bit, whatever... hit me.

Thanks!

 

[ftsolutions]

Personally, for small 8-bit machines, I wouldn't bother going with anything smaller/older than either a microchip 16F877 or 16F887 or an ATMega328. These have enough flash and peripherals to be used in a variety of small projects, and there are many, many DIY projects available for them.

 

[ard]

I would go with the 16F628A, 16F88 for starters. Their advantage(s) over the 16F84 are many. Besides the larger memory and so on, both (like most others) have an internal oscillator option. One less thing to worry about when you start off!

For smaller / compact-er projects, I would also stock up 12F675 and 16F676. These would also let you play around with ADCs.

And, in the larger (28/40 pin, much more memory, peripherals et) I would have a 16F886/887 lying around. The extra feature in these chips being the ability to have a bootloader, if and when you need one.

 

[betwixt]

I disagree! Even the 16F628A is now geting old.

As a replacement for the 16F84 the nearest pin-compatible and low price PIC is now the 16F1847. It has all the original features and a whole lot more, including the enhanced instruction set, extra timers, more memory, ADC and internal clock generator.

For smaller PICs, consider the 12F1822 which has all the functions of the older 12F/16F 8-pin devices but much higher performance.

Brian.

 

[wp100]

Hi,

Think most of the 'forum/web' popular 12F / 16Fs have been covered above, but you could also look at chips like the 18F2520 / 4520 which are very similar but because of their better memory allocations and extra instructions they are much easier to code. ( 16F code will run on them with only slight modification)
Also the 18F4550 is very popular due to its USB connectivity; however for USB function it needs C code which you will doubtless progress on to.

 

[paulfjujo]

hello,

16F84 ,16F88 are good to start up the studies on PIC MCU, but you will loose Time if you keep 16F serie
One raison is that compiler are optimised for 18F serie
and with MikroC , when you have problem with 16F serie, they just recommend to use 18F.
New 16F generation is only to keep back compatibilty with old serie.
If you won't be enoy with RAM size or ROM size problem , pass diret to 18F26K22 28 pins or 18F46K22 40 pins model
and also the little 12F1840 in DIP8 , very powerfull..

as "wp100" said, other with USB are also confortable to use.

Even with the use of a C compiler, it needs always some times to studies particularities of each PIC.
So it is better to start with a "big" one , even you don't need all possibilities, at this moment.
The cost difference is not so important.

Your opinion ?
i really don't understand why Microchip continue to develop new 16F, with existing PIC18F family..
and a too large choice of component is not so credible.
Is it because no 18F in DIP14 , DIP16 ,DIP18 ?

 

[horace1]

we start our students with PIC24 or dsPIC pic microcontrollers, e.g. the PIC24FJ64GB002 which has lots of IO interfaces including USB device, host and OTG capability to allow connections to USB flash drives and PC hosts etc
https://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?product=PIC24FJ64GB002

the PIC24FJ64GB002 is one of the devices which comes with Microchip's microstick II dev kit which is useful for small projects
https://www.microchip.com/Developmenttools/ProductDetails.aspx?PartNO=DM330013-2

 

[maark6000]

thank you all for your help. clearly this is a field that is dynamic and changing rapidly. I'm placing an order now... maybe by next week I'll have some blinking LEDs.