GETTING STARTED WITHPICs
THE LATEST IN PROGRAMMING MICROCONTROLLERS
■ BY CHUCK HELLEBUYCK
GETTING STARTED ON YOUR
HOLIDAY GIFT LIST
With the holidays looming, I wanted to pass along a holiday shopping list that
you can pass on to your loved ones who don’t have a clue what to get for you.
I’m sure buying for the readers of
this column isn’t easy for their
family members, since even a hint for
a PICkit™ 2 development board won’t
make a lot of sense if the relative
isn’t into electronics. So, here is my
recommended list of products for
the “Getting Started with PIC MCUs”
crowd.
PICKIT™ 2 STARTER KIT
If you’ve been reading this
column on a regular basis, you know
that I think the PICkit 2 Starter Kit
(see Figure 1) is the best starter
package for the beginner. It gives
you all the pieces you need to get
started programming, including a
PIC16F690 MCU. The package
includes a CD that has a sample
version of the HI-TECH PICC-Lite™ C
compiler and a sample version of
microEngineering Labs’ PICBASIC
PRO compiler. You also get sample
code for the Microchip MPASM™
assembler if you want to learn
assembly code. For $49.95, this is a
■ FIGURE 1. PICkit™ 2 Starter Kit.
84
November 2008
great holiday gift. You can buy
these from various sources, including
Mouser ( www.mouser.com),
Jameco ( www.jameco.com),
and microchipDIRECT
( www.microchipdirect.com).
You may already have the
PICkit 2 Starter Kit but want another
one for your lab to use the UART or
Logic Analyzer tools built into the
PICkit 2 software. I have five PICkit
2 Starter Kits in my lab so I’m a little
out of the ordinary, but having a
second one is highly recommended.
You can purchase just the
programmer without the
development board. The interesting
thing is that the CD is identical to
the starter kit CD, so you get all the
free stuff without the extra cost. Add
your own choice of development
board and you can make a custom
PICkit 2 Starter Kit.
PICKIT™ 2
DEVELOPMENT BOARDS
You have numerous development
boards to choose from for the PICkit
2 Debugger/Programmer. You can
get them in a 20-pin version with a
PIC16F690 MCU that also supports
the eight and 14-pin parts. You
can get an 18-pin version with a
PIC16F648 MCU and a 28-pin
version with a PIC16F886 MCU
onboard. These all come in packs of
three with one board fully populated
with the PIC MCU in a DIP socket,
and then two blank boards.
There is also a 40-pin board that
is used in the PICkit 2 Debug Express
package — a PIC16F887 in a surface-mount package part that is soldered
to the board. You can get one fully
populated version and two blank
boards. If you don’t want to work
with surface-mount parts, this may
not be your best choice. However,
you can create a PICkit 2 Debug
Express by adding this to your PICkit
2 programmer.
Finally, there is a PIC18F87J10
development board that has an
80-pin part soldered to it. That is a
lot of I/O for such a small board. If
you need the
I/O and
increased
memory, then
this may be
worth a look.
■ FIGURE 2.
28-pin
Development
Boards.
■ FIGURE 3. PIC18F4XK20 Starter Kit.