I'm tired of my parallel port Willem. Getting it to work was never really easy, and it simply doesn't work with the parallel ports of my current computers. In fact I'll probably replace my main PC sometime soon, and most new motherboards don't even have parallel ports anymore.
Anyway, I was hoping that some of you had good experiences with USB programmers, and are willing recommend one. If you can point me to online stores that sell them, even better. Oh, and there is no way I can't afford those reeeeally expensive ones (several hundred bucks).
Thanks!
What you should look for depends on what you're programming. Any cheap Chinese programmer on eBay will do for 8-bit ROMs and small flash.
I want something I can trust, something that will work every time, rather than support for thousands of chips. I'd rather avoid cheap chinese stuff.
I have an elnec USB programmer and it's very reliable and suport a lot of chips. It's very expensive too tough, but you get nothing for nothing.
It could be that all the cheapest ones are made in china. Distributors for cheap ones might re-brand it with their own logo. If that's the case, it's just cutting out the middle-man.
I don't have any particular one to recommend, but it definitely does get expensive if you want a real universal one for programming the more esoteric parts, then considering adapters and such..
Almost anything will do for EPROMs and 5V Flash chips.
A while back I was looking at the ones on ebay branded "Top". If they've got good software they'd be decent. But unless my Willem dies, I see no need.
You could take a look at MCUMALL:
http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/L ... ategory=27
They have some nice looking USB Programmers. I've bought a PIC programmer from them before which worked fine. If I ever buy another EPROM programmer (I bought a cheap chinese parallel port Willem clone like you probably did, it sucks) it'll probably be from them and one of the nice USB ones like this one:
http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/c ... oduct=4282
If you need to program 16bit chips with more than 40 pins you can get an adapter but all the NES sized chips should be no problem. I've never used one of these though so all I can say it they look nice and for just over $100 it's not bad.
Thanks for the suggestions, guys!
MottZilla wrote:
http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=4282
Ah, this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. It's not cheap, but not expensive either, and is much better than the one I have. I should have gone for one of these the first time, too bad I decided to get the cheap Willem.
All of those chinese junk programmers made by Willem, Top & the clones of them are not worth the cost of shipping let alone paying for such crap. If you want a burner that isn't a POS your gonna shell out a couple hundred bucks at least. In the case of chip burners you get what you pay for simple as that. I learned this the hard way buying these low quality junk programmers when I was a noob. Take my advise, it's better to save up your money and get something nice that is gonna last more than 6 months or for that matter work at all cause the failure rate of these low end burners is quite high, even right out of the box. I would put Willem on par with an Xbox 360 for reliability...lol..
nintendo2600 wrote:
I would put Willem on par with an Xbox 360 for reliability...lol..
Are you saying Willem will exchange the programmer for free within 3 years if it dies? That's how long Microsoft warrants that an Xbox 360 won't RROD.
nintendo2600 wrote:
All of those chinese junk programmers made by Willem, Top & the clones of them are not worth the cost of shipping let alone paying for such crap. If you want a burner that isn't a POS your gonna shell out a couple hundred bucks at least.
I wouldn't recommend it as "good", but my ~$60 TOP2004 has been running fine for at least 4 years now. Sure the software is a translated mess however it has programmed thousands (yes literally) of chips with no problems.
bunnyboy wrote:
nintendo2600 wrote:
All of those chinese junk programmers made by Willem, Top & the clones of them are not worth the cost of shipping let alone paying for such crap. If you want a burner that isn't a POS your gonna shell out a couple hundred bucks at least.
I wouldn't recommend it as "good", but my ~$60 TOP2004 has been running fine for at least 4 years now. Sure the software is a translated mess however it has programmed thousands (yes literally) of chips with no problems.
Really? I had a Top2004 and it burned out within 6 months. I probably got to program about 500 to 600 chips before it crapped out. Also just try to program anything needing 21 or 25vpp with that POS. It's so hit and miss it's a joke. 2716,2732 or 2532's program about once in every 5 burn attempts. The first one I got was so bad I sent it back for a replacement. The replacement one was able to do high voltage programming for about a couple months and then I was stuck with it able to program CMOS chips of 8k to 512k max. Anything under or over would just fail. It was not soon after that it died completely. Customer service from those jokers is a real treat too.
That probably explains it, I have never used anything more than 12Vpp. Old high voltage chips really aren't used for NES stuff and I try to use flash now anyways.
bunnyboy wrote:
That probably explains it, I have never used anything more than 12Vpp. Old high voltage chips really aren't used for NES stuff and I try to use flash now anyways.
NES & SNES are fairly new waters for me. My forte is with the Atari machines
I ended up buying a WELLON VP-280 yesterday. Does anyone know if by any chance that's a better brand than WILLEM (what's up with the similar names anyway?)?
I almost got the TOP2004 but after reading some bad reviews I went with the WELLON. It was more expensive (so I expect it to be better), and certainly more expensive than if I had bought it from an international store, but considering the import taxes and shipping I guess it paid off to buy from a local store. Plus, the thing will probably be here tomorrow, instead of taking a month+ to arrive (if it even arrived, I've been having bad luck with international shipping, I haven't received the last 2 things I was supposed to).
The software appears to be in engrish as well (I guess this will be the case with every chinese programmer). Although the store said they have it in portuguese, and even though I don't usually use software in portuguese I guess I will if it's better translated than the engrish version.
Anyway, I'm just checking if anyone has had any experience with WELLON programmers.
They seem to have a made a lot of stuff, that model sounds like a really nice one too.
I sure hope it's good, 'cause it cost me over US$350, much more than I was willing to spend originally. Anyway, I received it today as expected, it looks really nice. I'll post a quick review once I have time to test it.
Wellons are MUCH better than Willems! They have universal pin drivers (yours has almost universal) allowing them to program a lot more than 8-bit ROMs (almost all Willems are good for) and do chip tests etc. The really expensive Wellons have truly universal drivers so in theory just about any chip could be supported. Willem don't have any pin drivers, they use DIP switches to route power rails and perform a couple address/control line swaps, but otherwise the pins are hard wired.
I brought a Wellon VP-280 programmer when I got a new pc and realised to my horror that there was no parallel ports on it. (I did get a PCI parallel port later so I could use one of my other two programmers).
The software is updated regularly and it has support for testing TTL and ram chips which is damn handy for me.
They have a forum and support is good, albiet in engrish sometimes.
It also does 16 bit eproms like the 27c322,27c4096,etc. I've even programmed NVRAM chips with it.
I've not had a problem programming 12v,21v,25v chips although you have to make sure you are using the power adapter when programming the higher voltage chips.
It's programmed plenty of chips in it's life too, as I repair arcade pcbs as well. I'm very happy with it.
:edit: $350!!!! Wow.. You can buy them for $150 including shipping on ebay. Ouch..
Chris
Thanks for the reviews guys! I still didn't test the thing... =)
JunoMan wrote:
$350!!!! Wow.. You can buy them for $150 including shipping on ebay. Ouch..
Yeah, I know... I don't know what's happening, but for some reason I never received at least 2 things that were sent to me from abroad, so I decided not to risk anymore. Also, once you add the 60% of import taxes (that I'd have to pay anyway) plus decent international shipping, the price wouldn't be so much less than what I've paid, so I consider that the extra money was for my peace of mind... =)
JunoMan wrote:
:edit: $350!!!! Wow.. You can buy them for $150 including shipping on ebay. Ouch..
Did you try narrowing your search to sellers within Brazil?
Don't worry about the price guys, I got used to the fact that my government are a bunch of thieves and that there are a lot of things I can't own because of that, even though technically I do have the money to buy them. And once in a while I will have to spend more than a person who lives in a country with less strict import policies if I really want to own certain things.
BTW, I installed it, played with it a bit and so far everything works great. Got it working right on the first try, no problems whatsoever (which is more than I can say about my old Willem). I'm even feeling motivated to work on some devcart projects now (NES and otherwise). =)
Well if you think $350 is expensive you should look at mine which I bought for arround $500. It's Elnec brand, I think it can program/re-program/verify/dump all EPROMs, EEPROMs, FlashROMs, and serial ROMs. It can't dump NES roms which are linked to a bankswitched circuit, but I was able to dump a couple of NROM games using it. It can also verify opperation of SRAMs and program self-battery backed SRAMs (the chips that are really tall because the battery in included in them), that I used before I got my powerpak.
Of course I bought it just before the Power Pak and Super Power Pak came out, so I didn't know I was going to put it back inside a drawer so fast. Also I was disapointed that it can't reprogram micro controllers, a programmer who does only micro-controllers is also ~$700+ and one which does both EPROMs and micro-controllers is about $1000+. I would have hoped that for $500 it supported at least some of the more classic micros, but it doesn't.
I bought a leaper-3C, a Taiwanese (?) programmer which the price was (I think) affordable for ~160$. It's well built, the program is not so bad to use once you learn how to use it but there is just one issue: it slow as hell.. It's made for duplicating chips, which mean in stand-alone, it's quite fast, maybe 30 seconds (that what they said). But when you copy from the software.. It can take easily 4-5 minutes, which I find not acceptable.
I could have ordered online but I preferred to go to a store and buy it. I have to live with it now. At the least it's USB... I'm sure the cause it's so slow is because the software is poorly written but there is nothing I can do.