Is Pickit 3 designed to self-harm?

[rtek1000]

Whenever you need to change the microcontroller family, will the pickit firmware be reinstalled?

"Now Downloading new Firmware for target device"

PICkit3 has the PIC24FJ256GB110 on its board, and its datasheet says its durability (minimum) is only 10,000 write / erase cycles.

"Flash Program Memory: 10,000 erase/write cycle endurance (minimum)"

So if I want PICkit3 to have the durability of a PICkit2, do I have to buy a PICkit3 for every family I use?

Of course, because if every time I change the family, PICkit3 burns the flash memory again, the countdown of its lifespan will be triggered.

Or should I avoid buying PICs from different families?

[SiliconWizard]

ICD3 does the same thing.

I find it extremely annoying and yes it will shorten its life (10 000 is a lot in this case, but still). That they haven't managed to embed programming algorithms for several different PIC families at once baffles me.
It can make you lose a significant development time if you use several families in your design. In this case, yes, I'd suggest buying several programmers.

[NorthGuy]

... do I have to buy a PICkit3 for every family I use?

I did just that. Mostly to make sure it doesn't fail/brick during firmware updates. The durability is not a problem. 10,000 is a lot. Even if you update it every day, the flash will last at least 10 years.

[JPortici]

huh, i never thought of it.. maybe because every time we have an issue with a pickit 3 (completely dead, or hardware like the header not making contact anymore or whatever) or IDC 3 we just open a ticket, microchip will send a new one for free

[NiHaoMike]

... do I have to buy a PICkit3 for every family I use?

I did just that. Mostly to make sure it doesn't fail/brick during firmware updates. The durability is not a problem. 10,000 is a lot. Even if you update it every day, the flash will last at least 10 years.

It's really most an annoyance when working with designs that have multiple PICs of different families. I wonder if the new Pickit 4 has improved in that respect, if we ignore all the other problems with it at this point.

[josip]

So if I want PICkit3 to have the durability of a PICkit2, do I have to buy a PICkit3 for every family I use?

Of course, because if every time I change the family, PICkit3 burns the flash memory again, the countdown of its lifespan will be triggered.

Or should I avoid buying PICs from different families?

Company make device / chip design, with programming interface. The same company make programming master device with related software / hardware. They are selling this, people buying this, and obviously they doesn't need to change anything there. Because exchanging master device firmware for each target family is feature, not a bad design result.

No, you should not avoid buying different families. You should switch to other microcontroller company, where are the tools (or at least programming interface) done on the right way.

[technix]

That kind of self-hard is the expected behavior of PICkit 3. There was a rumor that the PIC32 support of PICkit 3 got so large that it won't fit in the Flash of the PIC24 they chose along with other families. Then they just decided to splice the firmware into parts and load them when needed. D'oh.

I would prefer then using a part with a lot less Flash and a lot more SRAM instead if they want to do that. The SRAM in question occupies Flash address range, and the remaining Flash holds only the bootloader. This way unless the bootloader itself is being upgraded, all the reprogrammings happens in SRAM, thus not running anything's erase cycles. Or replace Flash with something like FRAM or ReRAM, which is nonvolatile and have a lot higher endurance.

[NorthGuy]

That kind of self-hard is the expected behavior of PICkit 3. There was a rumor that the PIC32 support of PICkit 3 got so large that it won't fit in the Flash of the PIC24 they chose along with other families. Then they just decided to splice the firmware into parts and load them when needed. D'oh.

I would prefer then using a part with a lot less Flash and a lot more SRAM instead if they want to do that. The SRAM in question occupies Flash address range, and the remaining Flash holds only the bootloader. This way unless the bootloader itself is being upgraded, all the reprogrammings happens in SRAM, thus not running anything's erase cycles. Or replace Flash with something like FRAM or ReRAM, which is nonvolatile and have a lot higher endurance.

This is all over-engineering. There's really no need for firmware updates, perhaps may be for on-the-go function which is very rarely used. Otherwise, you can fit everything needed for all the PICs into much lesser chip than PIC24.