Why erasing the PIC with PICKit2v2 doesn’t work

icsppicpickit

Below you can see the output of PICKit2V2 after clicking the Erase button:

enter image description here

As you can see above, all the memory addresses (I scrolled also) are equal to 3FFF.

Now when I click on the Read button, this is the output:

enter image description here

Scrolling:

enter image description here

As you can see above, the erasing didn't work fine. Does this mean my PIC is dead or something?

Best Answer

A bulk erase is sensitive to the chip power supply voltage. According to the datasheet:

When using ICSP, the part must be supplied at 4.5V to 5.5V if a bulk erase will be executed.

It could be that your USB supply, once fed through the programmer, is dropping below 4.5V. While it's enough to program the chip, it's not enough to erase it.

You can try powering the chip separately from an external 5V power supply to see if that then allows you to erase the chip.

Related Topic