ANyone have a good contact at MicrochipDirect? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 04:25:42 pm
content: A customer of mine just ordered 18K programmed parts from Microchipdirect for an upcoming job on a tght timescale.Just received a second order acknowledgement showing expected ship 2 weeks later than they stated when ordered. There are plenty of the parts in stock.They're not getting any sense from email support & been unable to get through by phone - anyone have any good contacts, especially in the programming dept..?

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 09:11:55 pm
content: I have a contact at Microchip in the Uk but I'm sure you have one too.When I was in a pickle a couple of years ago with some 32MX230/250 parts, I bought up the entire remaining global stock of half a dozen distributors and spent three very boring days programming the 3ku myself in a hacked QFN programming fixture, I don't recommend it, but at the time I couldn't find anyone else to program them.Since then, I have found someone through my board assembler in the UK when I have to buy unprogrammed devices: like you, I usually use Microchip's Thailand facility. Happy to put you in touch with my UK programming folks if it'll help. What device is it, in what package?

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 10:12:36 pm
content: One tweet later and I now have the contact details of the MD of Microchip direct sales, promising to get things happening as soon as EU and US wake up!It's a 12F1501 - we could program them on the panels with a bunch of PicKit3's in programmer-to-go mode, but as there are 18K of them, and time is tight, and the assemblers are in China, working via the Hong Kong office of a UK subcontractor, we'd really really like to avoid any further complication it if at all possible....

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 10:19:28 pm
content: Quote from: Howardlong on September 13, 2015, 09:11:55 pmWhenever I've enquired about 3rd party programming (Lewmax and Action Circuits) it's tended to be expensive, and for low-end devices, comparable to the cost of the devices itself - had to investigate this a while ago when the 10F322 was new as it took a long time for the manufacturer of the programmers Microchip use to add support for it.Fortunately in this case it isn't an issue of part leadtime as they show 77K in stock. I suspect the primary problem is their initial delivery time estimate doesn't take into account the order quantity and hence programming dept throughput.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 02:17:58 am
content: QuoteHave you ever actually tried this in volume? I have tried P2G with a couple of genuine PICKIT3 shipped directly from MC Thailand, as well as 2 clones, and only 1 of the clones appeared to be halfway reliable. They all randomly fail to flash chips with the lightest loading of the ICSP lines. If you have anything connected there, guaranteed problems. Also, the genuine PK3 sometimes gives a false "good" signal, flashing only the first X pages of program memory, and leaving the code protection bit off. I was using the same family of chips, F1xxx.Also, all the programmers randomly locked up (approximately every 10 flashes) and have to be power cycled, except one clone, which occasionally takes a long delay and works, again. Seems like there's a bad jump in the code.This was as of last November, with the latest version of IPE and firmware.I went back to PK2 for batch programming. PK3 all but replaced my ICD3 for dev, but I don't trust the P2G.Unless there's a known fix, I would consider a new backup plan.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 08:24:20 am
content: I've regularly use PK3 (genuine) over several years in programmer-to-go mode for production programming of PIC8, 24 and 32 devices and have never seen any reliability issues of any sort. Maybe thre are issues with the specific chips you're using it with.I try to avoid sharing ISP lines where possible, and If I need to use for any significant load, I use PGC first as it's not bidirectional in ISP mode.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 09:20:57 pm
content: Well that's good and bad to hear, for me. Good there might be some hope. Bad that I don't know how or why, for the moment.Will dig them out and try again, eventually. There are some features that are a huge upgrade over PK2.Good luck with your project.