Saturday, November 8, 2014

Failed Installing XC8 v1.33 on Windows 8.x

I was trying to install XC8 C compiler from Microchip on my Windows 8.1 machines, and this come out:



 Warning   
 Problem running post-install step. Installation may not complete correctly   
 Error running C:\Windows\syswow64\regsvr32 /s "C:\ Program Files (x86)Microchip\xc8\v1.33\bin\MPLABXC8.dll" :   
 Program ended with an error exit code   


After minutes of 'Google-ing', I found this:
http://blog.microcasts.tv/2013/08/09/xc8-problem-running-post-install-step

Tried the suggested solution and sadly, for my case, it didn't work.

 regsvr32.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microchip\xc8\v1.33\bin\MPLABXC8.dll"  


Getting deeper, I found this:
http://www.microchip.com/forums/m682716.aspx

At post #12, user "SHidem" pointed out there are missing DLLs in the installer, namely "MSVCP71.DLL" and "MSVCR71.DLL".

I downloaded and pasted it xc8/bin directory, and now, all works perfectly now.
I've made a mirror link here, just in case the link went offline:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g70kq6hj8k85b3x/msvc71.zip?dl=0

Thank you "SHidem".




Friday, May 2, 2014

Reviving bricked ICD2 Clone

If you guys been following my twitter post, it is known that my ICD2 ICSP clone was bricked on 19th Nov 2013.

Luckily, I found this site: http://www.pwm.pe.kr/updsp.html

Then I use my new PICKit2 clone (again) to reflash PIC18F4550 firmware.

Shown above, PICkit2 reprogramming ICD2. Ironic? 


Connection close-up.

Soldering SMD component is quite challenging, I made the connection using thinnest wire available. 
Now, it is up and running well. :)




Thursday, March 13, 2014

In Real Life: NE555 Outputs

I was working on simple flyback driver for my HV DC supply and realized that I need some kind of a MOSFET driver. I used the excellent TC4429 in the past, but the x5 relative cost of it compared to NE555 makes me wonder if the famous chip is reliable enough to do the same task.

In this post, I test the effect of decoupling cap on supply and control voltage pins, and the effect of tied pin3 and pin7, the phase difference of both output, and the speed of internal comparator and reset pin.

So, this is my attempt of probing the pin3 output waveform, using 12V SLA and DS1102E. :)

To test the chip, I configured it as simple one-stage ring oscillator.

The first test, the supply voltage decoupling capacitor.

This is the barebone circuit. The simplicity of the circuit proved on breadboard.

Friday, January 3, 2014

WTF Engine?


After some long hours tinkering with our project, we lose our logic... :) lol