Five dollar eprom programmer

Posted Nov 8th 2006 10:22AM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks

A couple years ago I spent a good week wiring up a fairly complex EPROM programmer so I could burn a prom for my jeeps EFI system. Today I ran across this $5 version. ~~build~~ built by Jay Kominek He uses shift registers to handle the addressing and IO lines, all driven directly by the parallel port. There's no way to escape the number of pins that have to be wired up, but the schematic itself is pretty simple.
[By the way, arcade supply shops are a great source for cheap UV erase EPROMS.]

[Update: I'd forgotten about the voltage change (3 vs 5 if I remember) needed to write UV EPROMS vs EEPROMS. With a little mod, you can certainly use this for EPROMS as well.]

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. The article is for an (E)EPROM programmer, and not an EPROM programmer.

The difference form a dseign point of view is the need for 'interesting' power supplies.

Posted at 2:26AM on Nov 9th 2006 by Harry

2. you burned a prom for your jeeps EFI system? what kinda of jeep?(I myself have a 92YJ) do you have anymore info on this, because I would love to read up on that.

Posted at 2:56AM on Nov 9th 2006 by PsychoRNGD

3. Build = built.

Learn to spell before you write for a space seen by thousands of people.

Posted at 3:46AM on Nov 9th 2006 by Crash

4. this isn't an eprom burner, it only does eeproms. I prefer them anyway though. pity I already bought a commercial eprom burner :)

Posted at 4:16AM on Nov 9th 2006 by ex-parrot

5. Great hack! I had wanted to build something similar, basically a parallel to serial EEPROM adapter. Using some 7400 or 4000 series shift registers I could reasonably approximate a simplified I2C bus, and get to reuse all the old EPROM and EEPROM chips I have. The goal was originally intended for a Basic Stamp, but could work with a PIC or a standard serial port with a little more work. If anybody knows how to do the whole I2C bus approximation in discrete logic easily, please post. Implementing the automatic address shift, rollover, and controll registers seems pretty hard without a micro of some sort.

Posted at 8:15AM on Nov 9th 2006 by Tillin9

6. Soldering the pins on a DB connector is nothing compared to doing surface mount stuff. -I'm spooked!

Anyhoo, that's a great project right there! Well done!

Posted at 8:21AM on Nov 9th 2006 by strider_mt2k

7. Is there a source of information on programming the eeprom in a fuel injection system? All i can seem to find is the "Send use the box and 3000 and well send it back chipped" sites.

Posted at 9:49AM on Nov 9th 2006 by verycool

8. NEEEAARRDDS!!!!!!

Posted at 9:56AM on Nov 9th 2006 by chris26

9. Yeah, but how did he get the zero insertion force socket for less than $5?

Posted at 10:03AM on Nov 9th 2006 by nickjohnson

10. maybe it's me, but wouldn't most people who would use eeproms already be into microcontrollers? seems to me that you could build an equally simple pic or avr programmer that would perform better.

neat project, but i don't see the application.

Posted at 10:09AM on Nov 9th 2006 by agent420

11. Crash, I dont belive either of those two words are misspelled.

Posted at 10:21AM on Nov 9th 2006 by tomas316

12. I saw once on eeprom burner made with old main boards. I couldn´t remember where I saw. Anyway this is a great project, I really wanna do it.

Posted at 11:09AM on Nov 9th 2006 by Rodrigo

13. i made the programmer because i was a poor college student (this design dates to 2000), and i couldn't afford any sort of microcontroller programmer. this could be made without any programmed parts (besides a computer, anyways), and i could find, scrounge or beg the shift registers.

(also, i've been reading hackaday for awhile now, and got a real kick out of seeing some of my work featured. thanks. :)

Posted at 1:16PM on Nov 9th 2006 by jay kominek

14. Nice but who has still a parallel port. I find this hack rather cheap. I like this tool better but its expensive: http://www.pic-tools.com/

Posted at 6:50PM on Nov 9th 2006 by Michael

15. sorry people have nothing better to do but be critical about spelling, very good find/hack if you have more information about hacking vehicle cpu's post them please.

Posted at 8:36PM on Nov 9th 2006 by zapht

16. YAH OK THIS HAD TO BE POSTED THE FUCKING DAY AFTER I BOUGHT A PIC PROGRAMMER DAMN AND FOR $15 WASTED DOLLERS

Posted at 9:31PM on Nov 10th 2006 by alex

17. I'm with "Psychorngd" and "verycool" I'd like to know what you did with your EFI. I have a 92 XJ and I am currently embarking on adding a homemade electric turbo and some problems deal with the EFI and air density.

Posted at 9:04PM on Nov 13th 2006 by joshme

18. I built an parallel port eprom programmer some time years also (found the schematics anywhere on the web). But now I really love my simple ordered usb based eprom programmer: http://www.progshop.com/shop/programmer/BX32P/index.html

Posted at 10:43AM on Aug 23rd 2007 by peter

19. Why in the world do you convert people's posts to all lowercase, making them look like dummies?

Posted at 5:15PM on Sep 7th 2007 by cocotower

20. I need programmer schematic for AT24FR08

Posted at 6:36AM on Mar 24th 2008 by Abdul Majeed Tahir

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry: inappropriate or purely promotional comments may be removed. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br> tags.