I need help in choosing a microcontroller programmer. I'm very new to this type of work. My project is to display an ECG signal on an LCD screen. So I basically need to have the LCD function as an oscilloscope. I plan to base my design off of this project:

http://www.serasidis.gr/circuits/AVR_oscilloscope/avr_oscilloscope.htm

The microcontroller he uses is the PIC18F2550. I'm wondering, what is the best method of programming the chip? I only need the programmer for this project and I don't think I will use it after this. I will appreciate any help I can get. Thanks!

 

Pickit2 should do it, you can always Ebay it later and probably get back most of the cost.

 

I need help in choosing a microcontroller programmer. I'm very new to this type of work. My project is to display an ECG signal on an LCD screen. So I basically need to have the LCD function as an oscilloscope. I plan to base my design off of this project:

http://www.serasidis.gr/circuits/AVR_oscilloscope/avr_oscilloscope.htm

The microcontroller he uses is the PIC18F2550. I'm wondering, what is the best method of programming the chip? I only need the programmer for this project and I don't think I will use it after this. I will appreciate any help I can get. Thanks!

If you look closer at the board you will see that the oscope project is based on the ATMEL ATMEGA32 rather than a PIC. The project designer neglected to include an in-system programming header. That means that the device will need to be removed from the socket and plugged into something like a solderless breadboard to program it.

The AVRISP MKII is a very flexible AVR programmer. It allows you to program the ATMEGA32 over a USB port. You will need to download AVRSTUDIO4 (which is free) from the Atmel Website to program the device using the AVRISP MKII. You can purchase the programmer from Digikey for around $35. It can program pretty much every device in Atmel's 8-bit AVR family.


hgmjr

 

If you tinker with electronics at all, or programming, you may find you will want to keep working with microcontrollers after working with them.

This is a bit ambitious for a first program, I will say up front.

Don't get discouraged.

Either a PIC Kit 2 or 3 for PIC based systems, or the AVR MK II programmer for the Atmel series of uCs. The programmers and code aren't "cross platform", unfortunately.

If you can get a working GLCD scope, you are most of the way there, the rest is detection and amplification of the small electrical signals.

 

Thanks for reading the link I posted more carefully then I did hgmjr. One more question, how do I connect the chip to the AVRISP MKII programmer? I see that the 6 pin ISP connector must be connected to a breadboard, but I don't know how to go about doing this. I thought you might know of a simple way.

@thatoneguy I'm attempting to do this for a senior project, we are building a portable ECG monitor. We have already built the circuit and can view the signal on an oscilloscope, now just want to display that signal on an LCD screen.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

Have a look at this ISP application guide from ATMEL.http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CB4QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdemo.cosolvent.com%2Fccs%2Fmain.php%3Fg2_view%3Dcore.DownloadItem%26g2_itemId%3D4143%26g2_dl%3D1%26g2_serialNumber%3D2&rct=j&q=isp6pin%20%20avrisp&ei=AUwSTf2SI5G6sQPX273KAg&usg=AFQjCNGy0cK2YWIa1wgou4iyKBrJUKBmow

There will also be a CD that comes with the AVRISP MKII that contains a User Guide.

hgmjr