Microchip PICkit 2 Starter Kit

The ECE department has purchased 10 PICkit 2 Starter Kits for use by Senior Design teams that are using microcontrollers from Microchip. The kits are available for checkout for the duration of the senior design project (see Dr. Reese).

The kit allows in-circuit programming for most Microchip microcontrollers and also includes the MPLAB IDE (Integrated Development Environment). The box contains the following:

PICkit 2 programmer and USB cable
PICkit Starter Kit CD (insert this one first)
MPLAB IDE CD
Low Pin Count Demo board with 16F690 microcontroller

A few quick steps should get everything you need installed and verified:

Install the PICkit 2 programming application ( on the CD at /Software/PICkit 2/PICkit 2 V1.20 Setup.EXE )
Install MPLAB by clicking on the "MPLAB IDE v7.40" link in the web page that pops up when you insert th CD
Connect the demo board to the programmer and the USB cable to both the programmer and the computer.
Read and follow the instructions in the overview tutorial

For connecting to your board, all you need is a 6-pin male header with connections back to your microcontroller in a similar manner to the demo board: LpcDemoBoardSchematic.pdf

Explanation of Programming signals, and the ICD2 Programmer

The ICD2 programmer is an older programmer than the PICKit2, but use the same programming signals to accomplish in-circuit programming. This article has a good explanation of the in-circuit programming signals, and also discusses usage of the ICD2 programmer.