[sdiy] dsPIC fun board

[Needham, Alan]

I have no experience of DSPIC but with regular PICs I have had big problems with a noisy power switch causing 'brown-out' problems, completely trashing the EEPROM contents, probably mostly due to naïve programming - some changes to the code and brown-out detection (BOD) seem to have eased the problem but not 100% cured it!
The EEPROM was holding settings for volume, LCD contrast and tuning etc. I ended up testing the values prior to use and substituting the lot for hard-coded values if any were out of range.
	Alan

>>> Also, in my experience, EEPROMs are unreliable.
>>
>> This interests me. What specifically were the pitfalls you  
>> experienced in using EEPROM?
>
> It happened very rarely, but sometimes stored data were corrupted. I  
> don't know why. The EEPROM wasn't written very often. There was  
> additional circuitry that prevented unallowed states of the chip  
> enable line during power-up/down.
> Of course you can always add redundancy in software since EEPROM are  
> often much larger than needed (store the data twice, use checksums  
> etc). But this means additional programming effort.


_____________________________________________________________________
The information contained in or attached to this email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are not authorised to and must not disclose, copy, distribute, or retain this message or any part of it. It may contain information which is confidential and/or covered by legal professional or other privilege (or other rules or laws with similar effect in jurisdictions outside England and Wales).
The views expressed in this email are not necessarily the views of Centrica plc, and the company, its directors, officers or employees make no representation or accept any liability for its accuracy or completeness unless expressly stated to the contrary.

Centrica plc

Registered office: Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD

Registered in England and Wales No 3033654