I'm following this tutorial to make my own recorder PIC18 (http://rengenharia.com.br/?p=401), but I have a problem, I do not have the component "X1" (DB9 female connector for PCB). Anyone have any suggestions to replace/manufacture this component. And I still have another problem, my laptop does not have serial port only USB. Can I use USB instead of serial? I appreciate the response.
Device for recording pic
devicepicserialusb
Related Solutions
You need one of these:
This is the female socket which goes with the connector, it has solder pins. If you would want one for PCB mounting it would look like this:
Note that due to the pin spacing it isn't fit for breadboard mounting.
The ominous Pin #5 is usually the ID Pin and does not travel through the cable. If I remember correctly, this pin is usually shorted to ground, indicating a device device or open, indicating a host device. In other words: This pin decides if the device which is connected plays the host or device role.
If you use the other 4 pins, make sure that no user will really use a "normal" USB cable (and they will) as your device will most likely get 5V on the power pin (which is probably not what you want).
PJCs solution is in my opinion a good one (but requires you to change the board)
Best Answer
For this programmer, I believe you have to use RS232 serial. If you don't have a serial port on your computer, then you would have to get a USB to serial cable and use that. Or you can emulate a USB to serial cable with a USB to serial chip and an RS232 transceiver chip.
Generally, these sorts of components can be purchased from electronics vendors like Digikey, Mouser, Sparkfun, etc.
If you're going to have to use USB, why don't you try to find a circuit that uses a USB port instead of a serial port?
Here are a few that I found offhand:
http://picpgm.picprojects.net/hardware.html#USB_PROGRAMMER
http://usbpicprog.org/
These days, I would recommend buying a cheap programmer as your first programmer so you have a 'known good' solution for getting code onto chips. It's incredible how cheap they can be, too:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310653023706