Hello Ghulam Abbas,
While choosing a particular starter/trainer kit these questions would help you to decide which particular kit/board suits your exact needs.
1) You are starting from scratch to learn microcontrollers?
=> If your answer to this is "NO" then go to step 2 else -
There is one Starter Kit DM180021 that hosts PIC18F46J50 device and has microSD Card, USP, graphical display and a bunch of USB library to support from the Microchip USB Framework.
This particular board comes with a boot loader so no external programmer is needed and you can explore the features of that particular microcontroller chip.
BUT if this is not you intend to do which I am sure will want to explore more on hardware interfacing to your own hardware or unless you do not want to build your own hardware then certainly, this board is not meant for you.
2) Do you have previous experience with any of the Microchip microcontrollers?
If the answer to this is "NO" refer step 1 again.
If however the answer is "YES" then pay attention to your present and future needs.
3) Can this starter kit or board fulfill your all requirements?
4) Are you present development tools such are programmers capable of programming the PIC18 family of devices?
If you have some programmers like PICKit2- or the latest PICKit-3 or any of the ICDs, you better start with the daughter boards for a PIC18 device more suitable to your needs.
Sometimes starting with more popular DIP versions si easier during the development phase and once you have freezed your design go for the SMD versions. Or you can use the plug-in-modules to interface with your hardware setup.
My personal suggestion would be if you have previous experience with (PIC) Micros, you need not go for any starter kit. If you are worried about SMD soldering then you can take help of plug-in boards but that is not recommended.
Just provide the ICSP connections to any board you make with a particular PIC18 device that should work perfectly for your needs. Microchip maintains 100% pin compatibility to most of its 8-bit devices and you should have no problem with playing around PIC16 and PIC18 family devices on the same board.
I have made a generic board for myself and keep on working with PIC16F as well as PIC18F with USB connectivity on the same design. All port connections are brought out on external pin-headers. Photos attached! Therefore I would like to encourage you to make one for yourself or if you are willing to share your requirements I can help you make a board to suit your needs.
Thanks and Best Wishes!
-PRASANNA WAICHAL
For a lower cost programming option there are a number of web pages about using an Arduino board as a programmer for PIC18F series devices.
The PIC chips themselves are usually very easy to put together to get going in basic form as they normally only need a few external components (the same as the Atmel AVR processors).
What sort of end applications do you have in mind for this project?
https://sites.google.com/site/thehighspark/arduino-pic18f
https://www.exploreembedded.com/product/PIC%20Starter%2016F877A%20USB%20Development%20Board?gclid=CJvkvJW6nsoCFcuOaAoda-IHbA
It used to be that the number of different microcontroller chips available to the hobbyist was pretty limited. You got to use whatever you could manage to buy from the mail-order chip dealer, and that narrowed down the choice to a small number of chips.
But times have changed. Digikey lists over 16000 different line items under a 'microcontroller' search. Which one should a hobbyist with no particular prior experience choose?
Here are some hints. These are particularly aimed at someone trying to pick a microcontroller to use for the first time at least partially as a learning experience, rather than someone who wants to accomplish a particular task.
If you've never done microcontroller programming, I'd suggest the PIC16F84A if you can still buy it (EOL). Mainly because that's the most popular PIC mentioned in basic tutorials.
The PicKIT 3 comes with a small PIC18 demonstration board which is good enough for basic learning, too, but it's quite a bit more complicated MCU to start out with.
I'd also suggest starting with one of the lower-end, popular uC's such as the PIC16F84A, PIC16F876A, and PIC16F877A.
There are so many documented projects using these parts online and in magazines (Elektor, Nuts & Volts, Everyday Practical Electronics, etc). Like with anything else, there's a certain learning curve and little things to be aware of when using these parts, and seeing other people's working projects/code can be very helpful.
For the programmer, I'd also suggest the PICkit 2. Buy the original, as it's often the same price or even cheaper ($40) than the clones. The PICkit 3 has been out for a while, but while adding new parts, it has dropped a lot of functionality (no more 3 channel logic analyzer, UART tool for monitoring serial comms, etc).
Also it is often possible to get a couple of chips as samples:
http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?product=PIC18F4553
... which has a 12bit ADC as opposed to 10 bit on the 4550 part.
http://www.microchip.com/samples/Default.aspx?DeviceFamily=PIC18F4553
Which is the simplest PIC18F part with USB to get going with as it's in a 40 pin DIP package. Some form of programming needed of course.
If you interested with PIC18F4550, you can get the design from World Skills Competition web site for the gerber file... You can get the similar board from PICC... I use PIC18F46k80 which has 5 PWM channles, 2 usart supports I2C, SPI and CAN
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