I bought the PICKit 2 on the advice of some of the people here. prior to that I had pruchased a Velleman development board.

The velleman board actually had places I could insert the PIC, the PICKit 2 came with a 44pin board but you cant put your own uControllers into the board, you can only use the sample one they give you.

As the PICKit 2 connects to the microcontroller via a 6 pin specially manufactured connection, I wondered how am I supposed to connect it to a PIC? can I buy JUST the 6 pin connect with correct spacing to fit into the PICKit and how would I know which pins to connect to and from?

Im a bit confused about how I would basically connect my PICKit to a uController

 

See http://www.microchip.com/forums/download.axd?file=0;232561

Note that your chip will have other functions on each pin but look for
MCLR
PGD
PGC
Ground
Vdd

Pin 6 does nothing.

Simply make a small board with an IC socket and 6 pin header.

You should also connect a 10k pull up resistor between MCLR and V+

You can build a board for each size chip (normally microchip uses the same pin-out for each 20 pin chip, or 18 pin chip and so on. Check to be sure.

 

My the way, the forums at microchip.com are excellent for PIC specific questions.

 

It is in the manual section 3. Here is link to the manual. It is important that you read this. Also do not use to long wires from the programmer to the target. Up to 20 cm should work fine then
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/devicedoc/51553e.pdf
Here is also a link to the PICkit 2 Device Support List. Note that not all PICs supported can be programmed from MPLAB. In some cases you have to use the PICkit 2 Programmer Application v2.61
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en027813

 

Basically one of these:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/2.54mm-0.1in.-pin-strip-1500
They are easy to trim to the right size.
Any other shop, search for 2.54mm header.

 

Hello,

Have a look at this page:
http://www.sprut.de/electronic/pic/icsp/icsp.htm

As the page is in german, I have used google to translate it for you:
http://translate.google.com/transla...sprut.de/electronic/pic/icsp/icsp.htm&act=url

Bertus

 

IIRC, the Vellman board had a 6 pin ICSP header in the upper right hand corner, you could use that with the PICKit 2.

That was a while ago, I can't remember everything, but double check.

 

As the PICKit 2 connects to the microcontroller via a 6 pin specially manufactured connection, I wondered how am I supposed to connect it to a PIC? can I buy JUST the 6 pin connect with correct spacing to fit into the PICKit and how would I know which pins to connect to and from?

There's nothing special about that header, just about any 0.1" spaced header pin will work. I just get myself some of these:

Then I cut off 6 pins and leave them on my board. The other guys gave you links to what connects where. For small projects the PICkit may be enough to power your project, and for big jobs having an in-circuit debugger is most essential.

I'll also sometimes use right angle pins like these so the PICkit lays flat on my table with my proto board:

 

excellent thanks everyone that should be all the info I need to get stuck in. Perfect, thanks