picstart plus instalation

[Guest]

Hello
I have a picstart plus (Assy#10-00157-R20)
I connected it to com port and tryed to enable it but the message I get is:
"This device requires firmware version 2.1.0 or higher."
MPLAB6.43,
win 98
COM Settings: 19200, no parity, 1 stop bit, 8 data bits, no FIFO, hardware flow control


Chava Jukin

[Felix Althaus]

Hi

I think you selected a PIC in MPLAB that is to new for your PS+ with version 2.1. With "device" it means the PIC device (it should be shown in the MPLAB status bar).
To program your PIC, you have to upgrade the PS+ firmware. Look at the Microchip website how to do it.

Felix

[C Turner]

In the old days, the Picstart Plus was upgraded by programming the processor inside it, using the Picstart Plus. In my case, I bought an EPROM version of the processor and when I upgraded, I would put the original (version 1.02) OTP part in (which I had stored in a chip rail inside the Picstart's case,) erase the EPROM part, and program the new OS. This was a pain, but it worked - as long as I kept an old version of MPLAP kicking around. (The newer versions wouldn't talk to that old software...)

More recently (end of 2003) a new daughterboard has been available that uses a PIC18F6720 instead of the old PIC17C44. This allows upgrades of the firmware via the serial port - and this is the ONLY way that newer upgrades are being released.

Details are here:

http://www.microchip.com/1010/pline/tools/picmicro/program/picstart/

The documentation warns that only the "-R5 or newer" units may be upgraded, but in doing a bit of checking around, this is an intermittent problem. My Picstart Plus is an "-R1" (a "Rev. 1" - about as old as they get - I've been at this for a while...) and it worked fine. The problem is *apparently* related to the crystal oscillator's not working reliably (although this is just an educated guess) with the daughter board, etc. and the older versions may or may not work reliably.

This upgrade cost me about $30 U.S. + shipping (about twice what the '17C44 cost me several years ago.)

According to the Microchip message board, newer units (-R20 and newer) already have been upgraded, and if you get an upgrade for your old pre "-R5" unit and it doesn't work, Microchip will (supposedly) exchange it with a newer one.

[Steve H]

That's good info on the PicStart - Thanks!