The PICaxe USB cable is just a USB-Serial Converter.  Like a lot of USB-Serial converters, it's based on the FTDI 232 chip.  This means you can use most FTDI based converters to program the PICaxe with just few simple modifications;

On the Pixter X, there are headers to make this super easy.  If you're using another board, you'll want to connect the USB-Serial cable at the same point in your circuit where you'd connect the TRS jack.

You'll also need to make one small change to the FTDI chip.  Here's how;

1  Connect the cable to your PICaxe and to your computer, then download and run FTProg (here).  FTProg is FTDI's utility to re-configure their chips.

2 Unzip FTProg, and run FT_PROG.exe.  Select Devices >> Scan and Parse, or just hit F5.

3 Your device will show up in the device tree.  click the + next to Hardware_Specific, then click on Invert_RS232_Signals.  Check the first 4 properties;
Invert TXD
Invert RXD
Invert RTS#
Invert CTS#

4 Click Devices >> Program or just hit CTRL + P

5 The Program Devices Dialog will appear.  Check the device to program, then click Program.  It will only take a second or two

6 Unplug your usb cable, then plug it back in.  Open up the PICaxe programming editor, select the COM port and select the right PICaxe and you're done!

Comments (3)

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Ivan

May 18, 2010

200.88.109.122

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Great tutorial, I was looking for something like this.

Nick

May 18, 2010

216.109.99.12

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Glad you like it! Once I figured out how easy it was, I thought I should share it. No need to buy all the different programmers - a single FTDI cable is enough.

Don

June 10, 2010

211.28.199.210

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Hi Nick,
I assume for Picaxe, you can run either the Picaxe drivers, or the FTDI drivers, correct?

Cheers Don...
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/

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