Questions regarding the TAPLFO and TAPTATION ICs

[flanagan0718]

Ok, so I would like to start off with "please excuse my ignorance when it comes to these".  Now that I have ordered a couple boards that require the TAPLFO IC, I am wondering how they are programmed / flashed. I have seen a few posts around here saying that the person has programmed their own. These IC s certainly aren't super expensive or unattainable. I just have a couple questions and here they are.

-Is this hard to do at home with a PC or Macbook?
-Is there a project I should look at and purchase?
-Is it worth doing or should I just buy the pre-flashed IC s?
-Would I be stepping on anyone's toes in doing so?

I have read a bit on electricdruid's page and he does offer the coding for the TAPLFO. Just wondering really.  Thanks in advance guys.

[jkokura]

You didn't ask any Taptation specific questions, but I'm pretty much certain that the code isn't available on that design, so you must buy the chips from DIY Stompboxes.

It's my thought that buying pre flashed chips is the most economical in small batches. You'd have to do a very large batch to make it economical unless you already had the equipment at hand and experience needed.

Jacob

[selfdestroyer]

Its actually very easy to do. I was doing a write up on my blog about it but never got around to finishing it. This may be the push I need to do that. Here is a highlight.

I think the most costly thing is the programmer. Its not worth getting into if you just want to make a TAPLFO since its only a $7 chip but if you want to start playing with other PIC based projects then its a good investment.

I use a PicKit2 clone I picked up from Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-UK1300-USB-PIC-Programmer/dp/B004GRO52C/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1416261960&sr=8-11&keywords=PicKit2
There are cheaper ones but this one had everyhting I needed for a few other projects also so I poneyed up for the $70.

Here is how I got it working in OSX (This is my random blog I use for personal crap)
http://sleepingsucks.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/getting-pickit2-working-in-osx/

Need to get some PIC16F684 chips. I get one offs from Mouser but you can find them in bulk on eBay from China pretty cheap.
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microchip-Technology/PIC16F684-I-P/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMu9ReDVvI6axxMcljL0lm52DBUz04y%2fCCA%3d

And its as easy as downloading the HEX file from:
http://www.electricdruid.net/index.php?page=projects.taplfo
and using the PicKit2-Programmer-GUI in OSX to write it to the chip

I have made about 5 of them with no issues what so ever on my Mac Book Pro Mid 2014 and the PicKit2-Programmer-GUI software.

This is just how I do it and I am sure there are cheaper programers that work with out issues with the GUI software. Im sure with a little digging you can find a newer programmer that supports the OSX native version of MPLAB but I did not care since the GUI worked fine for me at this point. You can still create programs in MPLAB in OSX and compile them to a HEX and send them.. just adds a few steps.

[flanagan0718]

Cody you are a wealth of knowledge! Is the taptation code available?


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[selfdestroyer]

Cody you are a wealth of knowledge! Is the taptation code available?


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Unfortunately not. Its not open sourced. The Taptation is not a PIC chip but an ATMEL chip. You can read and write ATMEL based chips with an Arduino but I have a feeling the Taptation has the bitlock set so you can not dump the chip.. I'm sure there is some hackery that can he done but its probably not worth all the trouble.

Cody

[flanagan0718]

Cool. I'm sure I'll read all about that when I start getting into it. I thought I saw something about arduino or attiny on rullywow's site. Is that a related at all?


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[selfdestroyer]

Cool. I'm sure I'll read all about that when I start getting into it. I thought I saw something about arduino or attiny on rullywow's site. Is that a related at all?


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ATtiny is a great way to shrink the footprint of your Arduino project. They are essentially the same but with less features. There are many different "flavors" of Arduino's some with less/more digital inputs, less/more analog inputs, faster processing power ect..

Sparkfun electronics did a whole class on intro to Arduino and uploaded it to YouTube.

I'm pretty new myself with this stuff (started in Feb this year) but its not hard to get started. Pick a small project and attack it.

Cody

[flanagan0718]

Awesome! Thanks


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[madbean]

Thanks for the youTube link x2.