JDM2 PIC programmer

Lynxmotion
1

I’ve found a number of sites which show instructions for making a cheap (<$5) serial port only PIC programmer. I gathered a few here:

instructables.com/id/EWF5MO717GEWT14B3B/
web3.instructables.com:8080/id/EN28KZDDYVEP286GRI/
pikdev.free.fr/IMAGES/serial-prog-recto.png (No documentation, just image)

Anybody here use this programmer? It appears to support the 16F628, 16F877, 18F4620, 18F4550, and most other ICSP devices including dsPICs. Someone even mentioned it programs not just PICs, but AVRs, and SEEPROMs too.

I’m a but confused here since if such a simple program is all one needs, why is there such a massive number of programmers out there? While I do have my PicKit2 working (mostly), I’d much rather standardize on something simple since I don’t need the advanced features of the PicKit2 for nearly all work.

2

I don’t have any experience with any 3rd-party programmers except the EPIC from MicroEngineering Labs.

However, I would assume that there’s a ‘catch’ in there somewhere.
In the SparkFun forum, there are people constantly asking questions about why a 3rd-party programmer doesn’t work under certain conditions.

But to be fair, you should browse the Microchip forums to see what sort of issues are seen the PICkit2.

With a Microchip tool, you can expect it to be pretty well tested and supported, since they are betting a large company’s future on things like that.

Pete