Pic learning

[Radio Tech]

Few months ago I bought a pickit2 clone.  Just a plain programmer with no cover. So finally this past saturday I was able to read and write back the program that was in a 16F884 chip I had. Thought that was pretty cool since I had nothing but a breadboard to try the chip on. Was sort of proud of myself. So last week I went ahead and ordered an original pickit and 44 pin demo board from Microchip.

Decided it is time to learn more about it.  Using the pickit2 software to just read and write with. Installed MPLAB on the shop pc so I could use the pickit starter cd. That works good.  Just can not get MPLAB to load on the pc in the house. Blah. Oh well.

Will be slow learning but I think I can get the hang of it. Just need to find more DIY videos to help with.

[lapm]

Just in case you have not done so yet: Download that chip´s datasheet and read it, save it, hold it under you pillow...

Microcontroller programming is not too hard, once you figure out how the chip works on programmers eyes. What different registers there do, etc...

And once you figure out that pic chip, other pic models are much easyer to learn as well as other manufacturers microcontrollers.

[johnboxall]

Few months ago I bought a pickit2 clone.  Just a plain programmer with no cover. So finally this past saturday I was able to read and write back the program that was in a 16F884 chip I had. Thought that was pretty cool since I had nothing but a breadboard to try the chip on. Was sort of proud of myself. So last week I went ahead and ordered an original pickit and 44 pin demo board from Microchip.

Decided it is time to learn more about it.  Using the pickit2 software to just read and write with. Installed MPLAB on the shop pc so I could use the pickit starter cd. That works good.  Just can not get MPLAB to load on the pc in the house. Blah. Oh well.

Will be slow learning but I think I can get the hang of it. Just need to find more DIY videos to help with.

Visit here - http://www.gooligum.com.au/tutorials.html and scroll down to the tutorials. Great reading.
Or here - http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/PIC_LAB-1/PicLab1_intro-P1-top.html

[darko31]

I've just wanted to suggest that, it's quite nice tutorial with explanations of every step. I'm also beginner with PICs, and I've found gooligum tutorials to be most helpful.

[Vasi]

Try http://justanotherlanguage.org for free books, compiler and examples about JAL language and PIC programming. From there you have links to anything you need.

[Radio Tech]

Thanks for the replies, idea's amd links all.
Been extremely busy the past week at work. Not much time for study. But every bit helps in the learning process. Still cant get MPLAB to load on home PC. But I have it here in the shop.  Contacted Microchip on their forum and they suggested going to Microsoft and search for solution.  When I get it going in the house will have more time to learn stuff. I thought Windows Vista was the problem but it want load on my Windows 7 laptop either.  But works fine on windows 7 in shop.

Oh well, just takes time to learn more now.

[Jon Chandler]

Commandments for Using PICs is a good reference of common problems in getting PIC micros up and running.

Digital-DIY has a lot of information about PICs and many great projects.

[Abstr7ct]

If you were looking for a book that explains the architecture and programming of the PIC microcontroller, with an emphasis on PIC18 family, get PIC Microcontroller and Embedded Systems by Mazidi, Mckinaly and Causey. The book shows plenty of programming examples written in Assembly and C using MPLAB IDE and with detailed explanations of almost each line of code and what it does and what happens inside the PIC chip (how the program counter works, what register changed and why... so on). It takes you from the zero point of teaching the architecture of the PIC microcontroller, how to write an assembly program and goes on and on up to the last few chapters that focus on teaching some basic applications like motor control, interfacing a DS1306 RTC chip using SPI protocol, LCD and keypads.

I know that you asked for videos, but I doubt that you would find everything on a video on the internet. You must have a complete book that teaches you from the zero point.