Thinking of Buying PCWH(D)

[BrianF]

Hi, first post...

I'm thinking of buying PCWH(D) as the newer 18K 8-bit PICs are a good fit for an upcoming project. I'm interested in some user feedback on a few questions...

1) New Chips - how quickly do new chips get added to the compiler. I see that a new purchase has a 60-day upgrade window. After that it's s lump of cash to upgrade. The current compiler does not list the new Q40/41/83/84 chips yet. How quickly do CCS add new chips? Or is it easy to add your own?

2) ICD - I've been evaluating using the 45-day compiler and a Pickit4. Programming an 18F45K22 is not exactly fast at around 15secs. How much faster would a U64 be? And a U80?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[jeremiah]

You might check with sales. I thought if you bought PCWHD you get 1 year of updates (I could be wrong, but I feel like any new licenses we have bought came with that).

1) My experience has been that they attempt to support new chips pretty fast, but there are generally some bugs with new chips. However, they have always been good at fixing those if I report it to them and if the chip was supported by my version of the compiler, they often times let me upgrade to a "bug fix" version when they fix the bugs I report.

2) My experience has been that programming time is gated by the chip itself and the memory technology the PIC uses. I don't know if any programmer is drastically faster than another. I've honestly never noticed any difference between programmers, even on 1024k flash chips. I will say the ICD-U64 has been really handy because it provides a virtualized software connection which is really useful for testing out things in code without needing an actual serial port connection. I haven't tried the ICD-U80

[BrianF]

Thanks for the comments,

I was basing my upgrade time on this FAQ...

Your compiler's maintenance has expired. With the initial purchase of the compiler you receive 30 days of free download rights (command-line compilers) or 60 days of free download rights (Windows IDE compilers)

[Ttelmah]

Yes, it depends on what you buy.

The standard compilers only give a limited support 'time' some that come
with development kits have longer. The one year upgrade is an extra
purchase.

[jaka]

2) I have ICD-U80 but have been thinking of getting U64 to see if it would work better. The U80 programs pretty fast, but quite often it goes to mode where it takes up to one minute to program a small 18F or 16F PIC. The actual programming takes just a second or two, but it takes ages to start. Reflashing the U80 firmware or rebooting computer usually fixes the problem.

[kmp84]

I have both ICD-U64 and ICD-U80. Programming and loading with U80 are faster with 16 bit devices (PIC24, dsPIC), but debugging is worse. U80 never stop at correct point when use "step into" or "run to cursor ". Also be sure that both of them using firmware from installation PICC folder!
Sometimes I'm using Silabs 8 bit devices and compared with PIC&CCS they are least 5 faster! I don't know why .

Best Regards!

[BrianF]

Hmmm, sounds like the U64 might be the safer option.

[PS - I know the SiLabs chips: for me though the PIC peripherals look a lot more capable and will make up for a slower CPU clock.]

[temtronic]

re: Programming an 18F45K22 is not exactly fast at around 15secs.

That sure beats the ERASE time of 15 MINUTES for the PIC16C84 when they came out !

[Ttelmah]

Have to agree on the U64 versus U80. I have both and use the U64, because the U80 seems to always give problems. The 80 is slightly faster on some
chips but the difference is small.