DollaTek K150 ICSP PIC USB Automatic Programming Develop Microcontroller Programmer+Cable

Purchased this as I was originally paying someone £4 for preprogrammed chips, now they cost 88p a chip, so withing a few days my investment was returned

This is old tech so before purchase please ensure it is compatible with your chipThe board does not come with any software and there are no links to download software soyou will have to find it on the internet so if you are not able to install and update your own drivers thenI would give this a miss.The way I got the K150 to work NB . I was running Win 10. (and it may not work for you) was:1. Download PIC K150 Programmer Software – Windows2. Setup3. The driver will not work as it says "Phased out" ie obsolete4. I found a video explaining how to fix the "Phased out" problemAnd since the K150 works great - but not easy

Arrived already damaged and unusable in the unopened sealed packet. Down to very poor assembly using smd components where they should have been standard through hole capacitors. The smd caps were just floating and not even pre glued so any slight squeezing of the package in shipping as with this one the cap dropped off. Luckily I'm ok with soldering and had the same value cap and fitted it, but watch out with this.

Despite few reviews and my lack of programming knowledge, took the plunge and bought this. Well pleased, arrived quickly, good quality USB lead, plugging in to my laptop USB3 port found the drivers OK on Win 7 Pro easily.Only downside was finding appropriate programming software hence 4 stars but a search for K150 came up trumps. Programmed two 16F628As now with no problem.

time wast laptop detects it but can not communicate to the board

I was sent a fake obsolete programmer that wont work on Windows 10. Spent ages trying to get it to work but no use. The chip driver also comes up as obsolete when u try to install it.

Programmer was ordered to program PIC 16/18 DIL leaded devices.I normally use STM32 ARM devices and needed to program PIC16F84 to update a 22yr old 16C58JW EEPROM part.Most of my development tools run on Linux and 'just work' without messing around with 'drivers'.With Microchip tools and Windows it always seems to be a lottery, but I used MPLAB V8.66 on Windows 7 64-bit.The programmer delivered did not match the one on Amazon website having a different PCB layout and colour.Its build and soldering quality was good.On inspection the USB I/F device used is a Prolific PL2303HX.This device does not support Windows 8 or 10 and requires a revision 3 Windows 7 PL2303 driver.See: http://www.prolific.com.twMy existing PL2303 USB-Serial converters use a revision 4 Windows 7 driver not supported by the programmer.However, the programmer works with Linux as do the USB-Serial converters.To test programmer I used a Picdem2+ 40 pin 16F877 and attempted to verify it with its matching p16demo.hexUsing Windows 7 with correct PL2303 driver and Microbrn program, programmer would (eventually after finding info, drivers, program, and setting COM port)communicate.It did correctly identify as K150 though its protocol version returned non-printable characters. On reading 18F877 it returned all zeros.The 18F877 device has code protection on so results are as expected!Programmer only works with its short supplied USB cable,At a basic level of communication with microbrn program, yes, it did work on Windows 7.Using a Rapsberry Pi3 and picpro.py I was able to obtain same information and detect for presence of a device in the DIL socket.With picpro.py using pdb (Python Debugger) on Raspbian Stretch:(Pdb) p self.read(0x3ff)''(Pdb) p self._command_end()True(Pdb) p self.echo()'X'Above confirms that K150 reads 18F877 device and accepts another command. It is effectively working!Conclusion:Does NOT work on Windows 8 using rev 4 PL2303 driver - initially appears ok then driver fails to start!Windows 7 using a PL2303 rev 3 driver and microbrn mirrors Linux behaviour as would Windows XP.Works on Linux at least to read 18F877 device contents and enough to confirm programmer is basically working!A fair amount of time searching for/installing correct Windows device driver and microbrn program could have been saved by a bit of supplied documentation or on vendors info.See: http://www.questions4steveb.co.uk/html/PIC_Projects/Programming-the-PIC?mobile