PICkit 3 - has it improved since Dave's 2009 review?

[glossywhite]

Hi guys. Okay, I'm about to get a picKIT 3, but I wanted to know if anything has improved since Dave's review in October 2009, and if so, what? Googling brings up nothing specific in relation to this question, so I thought I'd ask the right people

Thank you all

[edit] Noone?

[alm]

Try searching some more , although the search on this forum is fairly useless (searching with site:eevblog.com on Google works much better).

I think this thread should answer your question: So what's the final deal with the PICKit 3 anyway?

[TopherTheME]

Yes, its gotten better, but its still not all that great. I think the biggest updates have been to programming speed. The debugger is still retardedly slow and it still needs to change firmware every time you change the family of chips you are programming.

[migsantiago]

I've seen some improvements from the critics Dave made on his video until now, though there might be more that I don't know of. These improvements are:

+ Programmer to go
+ Brighter LEDs

In my opinion, what PK3 is still missing from PK2 is:

- No PIC auto-detection
- No Target voltage auto-detection
- A reliable external software suite (the PK3 beta is still not handy)

I have a PK3 and a PK2, so I'm not missing the PK2 features. I bought the PK3 because I have some just-released PICs that the PK2 did not support and because I wanted to debug code on PIC24 and PIC32.

[glossywhite]

I spoke to some Microchip marketing guy today, very corporate kinda dull sounding over-paid suit... and they really don't sound like they know what planet they're on (it sure is not the same one as we're on!). Anyhow, he said he'd give me 20% off a pickKIT 3... but maybe I am better off not getting one? Argh I dunno - talk about confusing!!

[TopherTheME]

If you can get one for 20% off then you mine as well get it. Unless you're a student, then you shouldn't since you can get a 25% discount. The pk3 is still a really good deal when you compare it to programmers from other uC makes like Atmel.

[Teknotronix]

I got one 20% off for the xmas sale they were having on Microchip Direct. I think its a good programmer. It seems to work wel so far, the demo board it good for trying some things and also the disk has some nice examples if you are getting started.

TIP: If you are just starting PIC stuff like me, stay away from MPLAB X, it sucks at the moment.