Many thanks for your responses.
Microchip is rumored to have a good replacement policy for their programmers (unlike Atmel.)
Yeah they really do! the first one was relaced without question after I gave them a detailed explanation of the issues and troubleshooting.
You've gone through two already? Try the MPLAB Snap this time.
That's not a bad idea. There are a lot of of different options for programmers/debuggers and they all look the same on the surface.
Official PICKit's, or clones?
Official
I've recently had to replace the usb connector on one of my PK4 because it would get intermittent connections.. When i removed the old one i saw that the paste on the pin didn't reflow so if you are getting intermittent connections, usb dropping when touching the PK4 i would try and reflow the usb connector.
If you are using the first hardware revisions, and programming an ancient pic (for example those with MCLR above 12V) you should be aware that you need to perform an hardware mod because of ringing on the MCLR line. it should be on the PK4 product page
see: https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/ETN37_MPLAB-PICkit4_overshoot_modification.pdf
I managed somehow to brick the PK4, i had to go under the hardware recovery thing, it took a while but everything was ok
Interesting. I Had a close look and it appears OK. Will maybe try a reflow. Nothing to loose now! :-)
I am usually using new chips (that support MCC).
I got this one from RS, so will go through their returns process.
But I have no idea if I am doing anything wrong. I am very careful with voltages going into it and making sure the connections to the PIC are correct. It seems like if you leave it connected to either the PC or the PIC for more than say 20 minutes at a time it starts to fail.
For the other one that is still working I connect both sides, program the chip and then disconnect both sides.
As anyone else experienced this fragility?