In the second episode of the microcontroller tutorial I take a look at the various programmers and target boards I want to use for the tutorial. While the target boards are only really needed to get started, the programmers(/debuggers) are going to stay with us throughout the entire series.
Table of Contents
00:00:45 The MSP430 LaunchPad (MSP-EXP430G2)
00:01:55 — Why the LaunchPad is really different than the Arduino
00:03:05 — Clock speeds and power consumption
00:07:00 The Atmel STK 500 programmer and evaluation board
00:09:15 No-name STK 500 compatible low end programmers
00:10:20 The Bus Pirate, and using it as an AVR programmer
00:11:40 — What the Bus Pirate was originally designed for
00:12:50 The AVR Dragon programmer and debugger
00:16:30 Using an Arduino as an AVR programmer
00:17:20 Using an Arduino Uno as a target board
00:17:35 — The ISP connector on an Arduino Uno as a backdoor to the microcontroller
00:18:25 Outlook: The ATtiny 13/25/45/85 on a breadboard or homebuilt perfboard PCB
00:19:10 The PICkit 2 Debug Express programmer and target board combo
00:19:30 — The PicKit 2 programmer
00:20:15 — The DebuExpress target/evaluation board (and why it’s crap)
00:23:05 — PICkit 2 vs. PICkit 3
00:25:30 Next steps, and suggestions on what you might want to use (and possibly buy) for your experiments
References
MSP430 LaunchPad- Why Male Headers Lar(iss)a Swanland (at that time of Texas Instruments) on the male/female header issue
EEVblog #39 – Microchip PICkit 3 Programmer/Debugger Review Dave Jones reviewing the PICkit 3
EEVblog #841 – Microchip MPLAB X PICkit 3 Woes Dave Jones on struggling with the PICkit 3 (and the MPLAB X graphic IDE)