Pickit 2 or 3

[Al_The_Man]

Apart from the feedback by Dave Jones in my Clubroom link.
Does anyone have any input as to the differences in the Pickit2 and Pickit 3?
I have a 3rd party device, but I am looking at a Pickit and like the look of the analyzer and UART function in the 2?
Al.

[daedalus]

both are pretty good. Pickit 3 supports a slightly wider range of parts, pickit 2 has some nice addons like uart etc, that didn't make it into the pk3 version. I used to have a pk2, but it broke, so now have 2x pk3s, and am pretty happy with them. They are cheap and cheerful, but you can do proper debugging with them, and they cover most of the parts microchip do.

If you are looking for analyser functions, then a salae would make a good investment.

[vegipete]

Approximately 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.
I have had a (genuine) PICkit2 for a while, never yet used the logic or UART tools. (The UART doesn't match 'standard' headers and I don't know that it works with generic terminal software and I've got scopes for watching logic signals...) I had to get a PICkit3 recently to get support for new devices (certain PIC24's.) Microchip doesn't recommend the PICkit2 any more but there are numerous clones available. I got my pk3 clone from Sure Electronics - $25, free quick delivery.

[Al_The_Man]

I do alot of UART debugging and the thing that caught my eye is the ability to operate the pickit as a terminal and connects into the UART pins on the PIC so requires no RS232 conditioning IC's for testing.
Al.

[keebler303]

I have the PICKIT2 and could not do without the UART and logic tool. I use the UART all the time to debug my programs. I know there are temrinal programs that do it but I like the pickit tool because you can send and receive in hex which is much more useful for debugging than ASCII.

Unless you are going to work with devices not supported by the PK2, I would go with it.

Matt

[vegipete]

Matt, does the PICkit2 UART work with software other than the special Microchip one? Would, for example, TeraTerm work?

I very much agree that a PIC-to-PC (USB) serial link without worrying about RS232 level conversion is a very useful thing. I use an FTDI cable because I have one, and because it does hardware handshaking also. It appears though, with the correct settings, that the pk2 UART could interface to both 5 and 3.3 volt systems.

The neat idea is to run a software transmit UART on the PIC, configured to use the same pin as the pk2 connects to for programming. Then you don't even need to move the pk2 between programming and running. Of course, software receive UART can be a bit of a pain...

PICkits are cheap enough - get one of each. Then you have the best of both, plus a spare if smoke retention issues crop up. ;-)

[keebler303]

Vegipete

I think the PK UART will only work with their terminal program. Beyond that, you probably have to use the FTDI converter. I use their UB232R module for my work. The PICKIT UART tool will work with any Vdd from 5V down to 2.5V IIRC.

As far as not changing pins from ICSP to UART, just use a PIC with remappable pins. I love that feature. You can set which pin is connected to which peripheral and even change which peripheral is attached while your PIC is running. This is really useful to ease some of the headaches in board layouts or when you only have 2 UART modules and you need to talk to 3 other devices. You can actually talk to one, switch the UART to another set of remappable pins, and talk to the other device.

With a 2 channel scope the logic tool is of limited use but it is nice because you can save the traces (which I can't do with my scope). When I don't have a scope nearby, the logic tool is a lifesaver when debugging digital comms like I2C.

Here is some general info for those too lazy to google:
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/e...20Overview.pdf

Matt

[Al_The_Man]

If you do alot of serial work, Picmicro also have a UART Analyzer for the different serial configurations.
PICkit Serial Analyzer
Al.

[vegipete]

Looks like the answer to Al's original question, PICkit 2 or PICkit 3 is:

If the PICkit 2 recognizes the particular PIC chips you are working with, it is the better of the two.

[daedalus]

i might put it this way "if you are only ever going to want to use the chips the pickit2 supports now, then go for it, else get pk3 (which still receives new firmware as parts come out)"

[keebler303]

If you are only doing hobby work, then you can make do with the devices supported by PK2, there aren't too many unsupported devices. The cost is peanuts if you're doing anything more than a hobby, so you could easily afford to buy the PK3 if you needed it later.

Matt

[Al_The_Man]

My old programmer does not support some of the later IC's, this all-in-one does and it has PK2 firmware, ebay 290627624172.
So I will give it a shot.
Al.