PicKit 2 WARNING
in [Design]
|
From: Robert Baer on 14 Sep 2009 00:07 You can permanently destroy a PicKit 2 programming pod in an easy un-documented manner. 1) Tie one or more pins of a PIC MCU to ground; it does not help to have MCU program use the pin(s) as inputs. 2) Program then power up the MCU with the PicKit 2; you may need to do power down and power up a few times. ZZZZzzzzzaaaaaa:P:! No Poof, No Frap, No Zap; it just gets killed. As far as i can tell the USP port is not damaged; my 1Gbyte stick still reads OK. And the damn pods are not cheap.
From: David L. Jones on 14 Sep 2009 00:59 Robert Baer wrote: > You can permanently destroy a PicKit 2 programming pod in an easy > un-documented manner. > 1) Tie one or more pins of a PIC MCU to ground; it does not help to > have MCU program use the pin(s) as inputs. > 2) Program then power up the MCU with the PicKit 2; you may need to do > power down and power up a few times. > ZZZZzzzzzaaaaaa:P:! No Poof, No Frap, No Zap; it just gets killed. > As far as i can tell the USP port is not damaged; my 1Gbyte stick > still reads OK. Do you know what exactly got fried? From your description it appears as though the only overload path could be if the programmed micro sets one of those grounded pins to a positive output after it's programmed. That doesn't seem like it would be enough to destroy the PICkit2 to me. You sure something else funny isn't going on? > And the damn pods are not cheap. Err, yes they are, at $35 it's one of the cheapest official programmers on the market for any micro. Dave. -- ================================================ Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast: http://www.eevblog.com
From: Frank Buss on 14 Sep 2009 02:06 David L. Jones wrote: > Robert Baer wrote: >> You can permanently destroy a PicKit 2 programming pod in an easy >> un-documented manner. >> 1) Tie one or more pins of a PIC MCU to ground; it does not help to >> have MCU program use the pin(s) as inputs. >> 2) Program then power up the MCU with the PicKit 2; you may need to do >> power down and power up a few times. >> ZZZZzzzzzaaaaaa:P:! No Poof, No Frap, No Zap; it just gets killed. >> As far as i can tell the USP port is not damaged; my 1Gbyte stick >> still reads OK. I have no such problems with this test setup: http://www.frank-buss.de/pic18f2550/index.html The PIC is always powered from external power in my test setup. But I noticed that the PicKit pulls VDD to low, if disabled, which was not much of a problem, because of my current limited power supply, but I think this could destroy the prorgammer. How does your schematic looks like? > Err, yes they are, at $35 it's one of the cheapest official programmers on > the market for any micro. There are some other programmers within the same price range: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?keywords=428-2021-ND http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?keywords=336-1182-ND But you are right, there are more expensive ones, but then usually with in-circuit debugging support etc. -- Frank Buss, fb(a)frank-buss.de http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de
From: David L. Jones on 14 Sep 2009 02:17 Frank Buss wrote: > David L. Jones wrote: > >> Robert Baer wrote: >>> You can permanently destroy a PicKit 2 programming pod in an easy >>> un-documented manner. >>> 1) Tie one or more pins of a PIC MCU to ground; it does not help to >>> have MCU program use the pin(s) as inputs. >>> 2) Program then power up the MCU with the PicKit 2; you may need to >>> do power down and power up a few times. >>> ZZZZzzzzzaaaaaa:P:! No Poof, No Frap, No Zap; it just gets killed. >>> As far as i can tell the USP port is not damaged; my 1Gbyte stick >>> still reads OK. > > I have no such problems with this test setup: > > http://www.frank-buss.de/pic18f2550/index.html > > The PIC is always powered from external power in my test setup. But I > noticed that the PicKit pulls VDD to low, if disabled, which was not > much of a problem, because of my current limited power supply, but I > think this could destroy the prorgammer. It can only pull VDD low with a 1K in series, so that isn't going to destroy the programmer. www.modtronix.com/products/prog/pickit2/pickit2%20datasheet.pdf >> Err, yes they are, at $35 it's one of the cheapest official >> programmers on the market for any micro. > > There are some other programmers within the same price range: > > http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?keywords=428-2021-ND > http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?keywords=336-1182-ND > > But you are right, there are more expensive ones, but then usually > with in-circuit debugging support etc. The PICkit2 has in-circuit debugging capability, stand-alone field programming support, and can power your circuit under test with any voltage from 2.8V to 5V. And as a bonus can be used as a 4 logic analyser and serial protocol analyser too. Pretty good value for money! Dave. -- ================================================ Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast: http://www.eevblog.com
From: Jan Panteltje on 14 Sep 2009 08:53
On a sunny day (Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:07:10 -0700) it happened Robert Baer <robertbaer(a)localnet.com> wrote in <V7ednUh1WdnzXDDXnZ2dnUVZ_qSdnZ2d(a)posted.localnet>: > You can permanently destroy a PicKit 2 programming pod in an easy >un-documented manner. >1) Tie one or more pins of a PIC MCU to ground; it does not help to have >MCU program use the pin(s) as inputs. >2) Program then power up the MCU with the PicKit 2; you may need to do >power down and power up a few times. > ZZZZzzzzzaaaaaa:P:! No Poof, No Frap, No Zap; it just gets killed. > As far as i can tell the USP port is not damaged; my 1Gbyte stick >still reads OK. > > And the damn pods are not cheap. I am still using this one, wrote software for it to support every PIC I needed so far: http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/noppp/ Blow up as many as you want, less then 1$ part count. |