So, I assembled my Larson Scanner last night, and, to my amazement, it works! The amazement, of course, comes from my estimation of my soldering skills prior to yesterday, not the kit itself. The kit, the instructions, and the hints and help I found reading the forums were all spot on, and aided me greatly, especially the bit about the solder size to use, techniques, etc.

Tonight, I plan on soldering a programming riser onto the board, and putting together my AdaFruit USBTinyISP, which I purchased at the same time. And then, the fun will truly begin!

My question, though, is how big the base program is that runs the Larson Scanner. That is, if I take the source that I downloaded from the EMSL website, can I add another routine to it without running out of memory on the '2313, or will I need to remove most of the original code to be able to fit my own custom settings?

Personally, I like keeping the original stuff in so that I can see how something is SUPPOSED to work, vs what my programming does, but if there isn't room in memory for it, then I'll work around it.

Any thoughts?

Adding additional routines is sometimes a bit silly. To reprogram it at all, you'll overwrite the existing program, and you can restore the original program when you like as well.

The default code takes up 1266 bytes of flash, but you can take out the parts of it that you don't want, too. My advice: Take the existing code, and modify it until it does what you want.

Whenever I program in a new paradigm, I like to keep parts of the original code in so that I have a baseline to compare my changes to, and to verify I didn't frak anything up. I figured that adding a fourth speed, or a different pattern, to be invoked after the "fast" speed, would be a good starting point. I was just curious to know if I could add a new pattern to the existing pattern without running into memory constraints or not.

I might still end up getting one of the dev kits to be able to play around with something that's not quite as set in stone as the Larson Scanner, but I'm still up in the air on dev kit vs. solderless breadboard right now. I built the USBTinyISP last night, so I figure tonight I'll be able to make sure that it works and that I can re-flash my Larson, and then probably a solid week or two before I run out of fun things to do with the Larson form factor and need to worry about prototyping anything new.

Thanks!

I should also probably clarify, before I fry anything:

To re-program, can I just solder one of the 6-pin headers (from the pack of 5 that I ordered) to the appropriate area on the board, and then hook the USBTinyISP up to that header, or will I have to include additional components (capacitors, resonators, etc) on the board to accomplish this?

Yes, that's correct: just add the header. Pin 1 is marked on the PCB silkscreen, but isn't really visible after you add the header, so you may want to add an extra sharpie mark to the board to indicate which end is which.

Also, you *should not* power the Larson Scanner directly from 5 V, i.e., directly from the USBtinyISP-- be sure to remove the target power header jumper and power the board from batteries instead.

Quote by: Windell

Yes, that's correct: just add the header. Pin 1 is marked on the PCB silkscreen, but isn't really visible after you add the header, so you may want to add an extra sharpie mark to the board to indicate which end is which.

Also, you *should not* power the Larson Scanner directly from 5 V, i.e., directly from the USBtinyISP-- be sure to remove the target power header jumper and power the board from batteries instead.

Sounds good. I have a few different sharpies picked out and ready to go just for such an occasion.

I planned on relying on the battery pack, and I've left the power jumper on the ISP hanging, so no need to worry about that, but good to have the reminder, for sure.

I also noticed the alternate programs that you uploaded a while back in a different thread, so I'll probably pull those down and look through them as well to help me get a better handle on things.

Thanks again!