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Processor serializer available

N

Neon John

Jan 1, 1970
0
For my upcoming computerized induction heater product, I needed a way
to add a serial number to each processor as it was programmed.
Unfortunately only the more expensive production programmers support
serialization for the AT90PWM316 that I'm using. Given that my
production run will probably be about 50 units at a time, no way was I
going to drop that kind of dough on a gang programmer.

So I did what any self-respecting programmer would do, I wrote a
little program to generate serial numbers and feed 'em to AVRDUDE, the
freeware AVR programmer software. Said little program also keeps
track of the serial numbers in a database with time and date stamping.

It's a Linux program (MAYBE would compile in Cygwin under winders) and
should work with any command line programmer so you poor PIC dudes
should also be able to use it.

It's available here:

http://www.neon-john.com/Programming/Index.htm

Totally freeware, of course.

John
 
T

TTman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Neon John said:
For my upcoming computerized induction heater product, I needed a way
to add a serial number to each processor as it was programmed.
Unfortunately only the more expensive production programmers support
serialization for the AT90PWM316 that I'm using. Given that my
production run will probably be about 50 units at a time, no way was I
going to drop that kind of dough on a gang programmer.

So I did what any self-respecting programmer would do, I wrote a
little program to generate serial numbers and feed 'em to AVRDUDE, the
freeware AVR programmer software. Said little program also keeps
track of the serial numbers in a database with time and date stamping.

It's a Linux program (MAYBE would compile in Cygwin under winders) and
should work with any command line programmer so you poor PIC dudes
should also be able to use it.

It's available here:

http://www.neon-john.com/Programming/Index.htm

Totally freeware, of course.

John

It's automatically there as an option in PonyProg2000 .....
 
For my upcoming computerized induction heater product, I needed a way
to add a serial number to each processor as it was programmed.
Unfortunately only the more expensive production programmers support
serialization for the AT90PWM316 that I'm using. Given that my
production run will probably be about 50 units at a time, no way was I
going to drop that kind of dough on a gang programmer.

So I did what any self-respecting programmer would do, I wrote a
little program to generate serial numbers and feed 'em to AVRDUDE, the
freeware AVR programmer software. Said little program also keeps
track of the serial numbers in a database with time and date stamping.

It's a Linux program (MAYBE would compile in Cygwin under winders) and
should work with any command line programmer so you poor PIC dudes
should also be able to use it.

It's available here:

http://www.neon-john.com/Programming/Index.htm

Totally freeware, of course.

We just use serial number chips hooked to the I2C bus. That's then squished
into our MAC address space, also.
 
N

Neon John

Jan 1, 1970
0
[please learn to snip]
It's automatically there as an option in PonyProg2000 .....

Nice program. But it doesn't support the AT90PWMxxx series of chips.
It doesn't run out of the box under Ubuntu (missing shared library).
It has a GUI interface, something that I'd never turn my production
meat robots loose with. The only decision my worker has to make is
"hit Enter to program". Fine for the hobbyist or developer in the lab
but not for a production environment.

Believe it or not, I actually did my homework before dedicating the
time to ser_no.

John
 
G

Grant

Jan 1, 1970
0
[please learn to snip]
It's automatically there as an option in PonyProg2000 .....

Nice program. But it doesn't support the AT90PWMxxx series of chips.
It doesn't run out of the box under Ubuntu (missing shared library).
It has a GUI interface, something that I'd never turn my production
meat robots loose with. The only decision my worker has to make is
"hit Enter to program". Fine for the hobbyist or developer in the lab
but not for a production environment.

Believe it or not, I actually did my homework before dedicating the
time to ser_no.

John

One may order serialised chips from Microchip, dunno if other
manufacturers offer the service, nor how much it adds to the
price, just noticed the offer. Can burn your code too, but
I dunno what lead times that would have.

Back when I was doing this sort of thing with 'HC6805 family chips
we programmed serial and other info into a separate memory segment.

I used to track it with a dos batch, make and text files, that was
only for some hundreds of midrange product per year, the little
stuff in higher quantity was mask programmed.

Grant.
 
N

Neon John

Jan 1, 1970
0
One may order serialised chips from Microchip, dunno if other
manufacturers offer the service, nor how much it adds to the
price, just noticed the offer. Can burn your code too, but
I dunno what lead times that would have.

Arrow and Digikey (among others) offer the service for Atmel chips.
They have minimums, though. Problem is, I'm a ways from being able
lock my code revision so that such a program makes sense.

I'm probably not the only guy who likes to handle everything in house
that is possible to do. That way if something screws up all I gotta
do is look in the mirror to find the person to blame :)

John
 
T

TTman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Neon John said:
[please learn to snip]
It's automatically there as an option in PonyProg2000 .....

Nice program. But it doesn't support the AT90PWMxxx series of chips.
It doesn't run out of the box under Ubuntu (missing shared library).
It has a GUI interface, something that I'd never turn my production
meat robots loose with. The only decision my worker has to make is
"hit Enter to program". Fine for the hobbyist or developer in the lab
but not for a production environment.

Believe it or not, I actually did my homework before dedicating the
time to ser_no.

John

Fair comment....
 
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