Why are programmers "naked"?

[greywanderer012345]

I'm very new to microcontrollers and I've been looking over the tutorials on this site. I want to get started and was finally going to buy everything for the $50 robot, but I was going to buy an atmega168 rather than the atmega8. Also, since the programmer is expensive, I only want to ever have to buy one. I am thinking of getting the pololu programmer, but I have to ask, why don't all of the programmers have some kind of protective case? I'm under the impression that there is no need to mount your programmer to your robot, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. I see that the avr isp 2 programmer has a case. Do people build their own cases? Or maybe mount the programmer somewhere specific? Thanks to anyone who has an answer for me.

[Soeren]

Hi,

It is just to save money, that some of the cheap programmers come as just a PCB - better quality programmers will have a box around it.

No problem in rigging a box yourself though, but you can get some that are still fairly cheap and complete.

[blackbeard]

Hi,

It is just to save money, that some of the cheap programmers come as just a PCB - better quality programmers will have a box around it.

No problem in rigging a box yourself though, but you can get some that are still fairly cheap and complete.

if you get one of the cheep usb ones you can even get away with using an obsolite usb stick's housing

[santhosh243]

most of the times the programmers are naked because we need to program no. of microcontrollers on it.so everytime we can't open it.to make it ease you can cover with a plastic casing but make sure you wont cover the ic base.try my words dude it may be help full to you

[Soeren]

Hi,

most of the times the programmers are naked because we need to program no. of microcontrollers on it.so everytime we can't open it.to make it ease you can cover with a plastic casing but make sure you wont cover the ic base.try my words dude it may be help full to you

You don't stuff controllers into an ICSP (In Circuit Serial Programmer) I hope and that's what's used almost exclusively these days amongst enthusiasts.

Even programmers with ZIF sockets should be box'd (with the socket free of course), as using an unboxed programmer is like asking for a short circuit against tools, components or similar on your table.

[greywanderer012345]

most of the times the programmers are naked because we need to program no. of microcontrollers on it.so everytime we can't open it.to make it ease you can cover with a plastic casing but make sure you wont cover the ic base.try my words dude it may be help full to you

Excuse my newbidity. What do you mean by programming the number of microcontrollers? Can you program more than one at a time? I guess that makes sense, since you might use different controllers for different functions? Can certain programmers handle different numbers of chips? How possible/practical would it be to program a chip on one board and then transfer it to the board it will be used on? Such as if I didn't want to build all of my robot/other boards with the ability/hardware to connect to a pc/programmer? Thanks so much for the help.

[Ro-Bot-X]

The programmers have a chip that was already programmed with the code to do the programming of the chip on your target board. I don't think you'll need to reprogram that chip, so you can put the board in a case and just use the cables. Also, you can program a chip on a breadboard and later move it on it's destination board, but it doesn't make sense to do this while tweaking your code. You may end up breaking some pins. Better add a programming connector to your board. I usually add connectors for ISP (programmer) and FTDI cable.
Here is a sample of my latest board design:

[Soeren]

Hi,

most of the times the programmers are naked because we need to program no. of microcontrollers on it.so everytime we can't open it.to make it ease you can cover with a plastic casing but make sure you wont cover the ic base.try my words dude it may be help full to you

Excuse my newbidity. What do you mean by programming the number of microcontrollers? Can you program more than one at a time? I guess that makes sense, since you might use different controllers for different functions? Can certain programmers handle different numbers of chips? How possible/practical would it be to program a chip on one board and then transfer it to the board it will be used on? Such as if I didn't want to build all of my robot/other boards with the ability/hardware to connect to a pc/programmer? Thanks so much for the help.

I think that santhosh243 was talking about programming them one at a time, but at several instances.

Technically, you could construct a programmer and control software that could program different chips with different code concurrently, but since it wouldn't be usefull, nobody had.
Another type is called gang-programmers where you have a number of sockets to program all chips with the same code - they're mostly used in production.

To program the chips out of the target board, you either use a non-ICSD programmer (it used to be the only way back in time), or make a board with a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket, a capacitor and a connector for the ICSD programmer (that's, more or less, how I program SOT-23 chips myself).