Dual PIC Programmer:

Making a PIC Duplicator

Basic Idea

In a production environment it is often easier for production staff to duplicate micro's.

Lots of people don't like PC's and using their file systems
Its faster and easier to just pop the sample micro in and copy it
Its harder to stuff up

Unfortunately duplicators aren't so easy to come by.

The BEL Dual Programmer has 2 channels, and so you can use one channel for the micro to be read, and the other channel for the micro to be duplicated.

Select the channel to use with "PP06 -unit=1"

The Process

Wait for "Duplicate" button to be pressed
Read program hex from unit1
Check that master wasn't blank, and target is (to prevent accidental overwrites of master)
Patch hex if you need to have unique serial numbers etc
Write program to unit2
Write results to log file
Light OK/FAIL lights

Code Protect

Of course you can't code protect the masters. If you code protect your production units, then you need to jam the CP bits, with the -CPX options or by forcing the whole config value

PP06 -CP0 -CP1

PP06 -config=0x1234

Psuedo Duplication

If your production micros are code protected and...

You don't want to leave un-code protected micros lying about
You want it to be possible to take any production micro and duplicate it

Then the ID locations are perfect for this. Give each version unique IDLOC, and use this as the filename for the hex files. The user can take any code protected micro from existing product, put it in the duplicator, and get a correctly duplicated unit.

In fact the "master" micro can hold arbitary code anywhere you can read it, not just in the IDLOCS. You are simply looking for a signature that will identify a specific hex file. For many of the micros, the data that is read from the program of a code protected unit still forms a unique signature for that version.

Doing it In Circuit

You can still do this in-circuit.

Use our ICSP header on your boards
or Use pogos, and plug a master pcb and new production pcb into them

Multiple Duplicators on one PC

One PC running windows, dos, or linux, can easily be used with 3 or more cheap printer ports and BEL Dual programmers to make a 3 station programmer.

You can explicitly tell PP06 what printer port to use, either as an LPT#, or explicitly as the base address of the port

PP06 -LPT=0x378

PP06 -LPT3 remember that linux uses -lp0 to -lp2

If only one is working at once, then there are no issues with this. If you expect them to be used simultaeneously, then you will have to look carefully at how they multi-task. Bear in mind that timing does not matter for the self-timed flash micros like 16F628,877 etc. These are likely to work under windows or linux. (note that the DOS version can't multi-task as it goes direct to the timer hardware)

Adding LCD and LED displays, buttons, ATE

Have a look at the I2CChip PC to I2C adaptor, and I2C chips and modules.

These are specifically intended for easily making custom pc controlled ATE equipment like this

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