PICkit3

PICkit3 is an official program from Microchip, which is necessary to work with a programmer from the same company. This application is able to recognize which devices are connected to it and select all important drivers for them to work properly. The program also provides a complete summary of the devices being connected and performs a lot of different useful and necessary work.

What can it do?

One of the basic functions of the program, which is provided to the user, is the ability to test the device for reading and writing data. This process is recommended each time this program is connected. Once the device to be connected is detected, a NEX table is created and reads the EEPROM type data. The data and all operations can be viewed directly on the main application window. There are a few more advanced features. First: you can debug the chip in ICD operation mode. Second: it is possible to program PIC and dsPIC microcontrollers. But it is better to use another software from this company for these tasks, it is called MPLAB, and it is much better suited for such work. But frankly speaking, the work of this program is difficult to call stable and high quality. A lot of users note in this application, a whole bunch of different bugs and flaws, and this version of the application is not a test version, but the latest and working. And people are happy not to work with this version, but there is no choice: to flash a PIC microcontroller there are no other tools, so you have to work with what you have.

A bit about the device

We have understood what the program is capable of, now we should talk about the device itself. PICkit3 is a special programmer, which is connected to a computer via USB and serves for flashing various microchips, their further debugging work with keys like KeeLOQ. Among the pluses we can note the small size of the device, relatively small price, and decent data transfer speed, which is 12 Mbps. The device is also able to monitor over-voltage/short circuit and work with low voltage.

Main features

• Process of flashing and debugging PIC microchips and working with KeeLOQ keys;
• Tightly interconnected with MPLAB environment;
• Supports import of NEX tables;
• Qualitatively recognizes connected devices and selects drivers for them.

Enjoy using it!