first board assembled and ???

[winwin]

I just finished my first LE. When I plug it in, I have the 3V and 5V led on and channel 5 led on and nothing else.
I do not have a pickit so the chip is not programmed (got if from coop #2) but I thought at that stage all leds should lit even if the pic is not programmed.
Is there something wrong or is it because of the pic?

[KeithTarpley]

Greetings,,,

It needs to be flashed.

Keith

[winwin]

Keith,

That would be great if this is all what it is, thanks for keeping my spirit up! Never done this before so I am crossing my fingers!

[rrowan]

Sounds about right

Without the pic programmed you only will get the voltage leds which don't required info from the pic.

Keep going you are doing well

Rick R.

[Dennis Cherry]

If you added your location to your profile, maybe someone close to you that has a Pic 2 or 3 could help you.

We do that here on this forum.

[tbone321]

While this is true, the other question is what is he going to be controlling it with.  Neither the USB dongle or the ETD come prgrammed so he will also need that done as well.  If you are going to get into this hobby, you really need to look into getting your own programmer.  The good thing is that the Pickit-3 only costs around $50 and if you decide that this hobby isn't for you, you can sell it for pretty much what you paid for it so there is little risk of money loss.

[jnealand]

I programmed and tested the usb dongle so I'm sure he knows where to find me for the LE.  He works near me in GA but his home is in Alabama.

[winwin]

Indeed, just traveled back from AL to Canton (north Atlanta)!
I was hoping there would be someone around Birmingham to help me out this weekend but it does not seem there is anyone there who belongs to this group. If Jim does not mind too much, I'll stop by his place to get the pic programmed. He already helped me with the dongle and showed me his projects. Very impressive!

I only have 1 dongle and 2 LEs so I am hoping to get by without the pickit for this year and plan on getting one next year if I make the jump into smart strings. After seeing what Jim has been doing, it is very tempting and I realize that you need to have a pickit.
For now, I need to spend those 50 bucks in extension cords!

I'll give you an update once the chip is programmed. Thanks everyone for your inputs.

[winwin]

So I went to see Jim this week with one of my LE built, the other one almost complete. We flashed both chips, one using the ICSP on the finished LE, the other using the pickit board (whatever it is called). Jim showed me how to flash with pickit 2 and pickit 3. The complete board test fine. I just finished the second board and installed the chip on it and it too tested good! so flashing the chips was the issue. Thanks to all for your suggestions and a big thank you to Jim for his help.

I am now trying to get data from Vixen to the LE using the dongle (which works, we verified this with Jim a few weeks ago) and I am not being successful. I will ask in another threat for support so this threat can be "closed" since this is a different issue.