Hi

I purchased some target boards and installed the 6 pin jumpers. I tried connecting to
the board with the USBTINY which I know works. I get the rc -1 message from avrdude.
I am using both the 2313 and xx8 versions of the target board.

Is there any other wiring required to get the boards to the point that I can communicate with them via the usbtiny and avrdude. I am providing power via fresh AA batteries. I have checked the polarity of the wiring. I also purchased the 2313 and m328 controllers from EMS.

Thanks,
Ed

Hi Ed,
There's really not much to go wrong on the boards themselves. The 2313 board should work with *only* the chip and header, plus power (unless you provide power from the USBtiny). For the XX8 boards, you should add jumper wires to GND/AREF/AVCC to the corresponding ground and Vcc locations near the edge of the board, however this isn't usually necessary for programming to work.

Between power and polarity, that's 90% of what goes wrong with physical connections. It's unlikely that there's a physical defect in one of these circuit boards, and more so that there are defects in both, so you might want to try plugging the cable in backwards, or using other basic sanity checks to make sure that you're not fooling yourself.

If you have another AVR target that you can test, that might help to debug any connection on the usbtiny side. If you have a multimeter, you should verify that power is showing up on the correct pins of your chips. And as always, solder joints can be treacherous.

One thing that I have seen, sometimes, is that it's necessary to unplug and plug in the usbtiny one or several times-- either from the computer or from the target board to get it to work after changing connections.

These boards are typically reliable and easy to use; please let me know how it goes.

You don't mention having a crystal/resonator installed. The chips from the factory have the internal oscillator turned on, but if they've been fused to use an external clock (like the chips pre-programmed with the Arduino bootloader) you'll need to add one for the chip to run. Something else to keep in mind...

That's true, I suppose. Without an external oscillator, you'll run into big trouble if you (1) try to program chips that have had their fuses set to expect an external oscillator or (2) you program chips and set their fuses to expect an external oscillator.

Windell, Karlgg - Thanks for the responses. I have been able to get my 2313 target board running. I am new to the Arduino / Atmel stuff. I suspect that while I was messing around with the m328 controllers I burned a bootloader for Arduino. Now I do not have an extenal oscillator. Is there some way I can recover from this? My guess that is that I should

1) Install an oscillator on the target board
2) Load a bootloader that does not configure the board for an external oscillator

Thanks,
Ed

Once you've burned the Arduino bootloader, it's not possible* to talk to the chip -- even to reprogram it-- without the oscillator. So I'd certainly recommend adding one at this point.

*There is an exception to that rule, which is that you can do "high voltage" programming on an STK500/SK600 development board, or use a special purpose programmer like the AVR rescue shield: http://mightyohm.com/blog/products/avr-hv-rescue-shield/

Pinging this puppy up...

Trying to load the Arduino bootloader using a USBtiny and the Evil Target Board.

Host: OSX. From the Arduino IDE, I select Tools->Burn Bootloader, selecting the USBTiny ISP. After a couple of minutes, the sketch window shows
avrdude: verification error, first mismatch at byte 0x44ae oxff != 0x00
avrdude: verification error; content mismatch

I have the USBTiny jumpered to supply 5vdc to the target board.

Oh - the board has the crystal.

Suggestions?

Thanks!


Kevin

What "board type" have you selected, and what chip-- exactly what chip --do you have?

Board type: Duo or Nano with 328.

Chip: (looking for magnifying glass, the printing is faint :-) 328P

ATmega board: v1.2 . Ziff socket, supplied jumpers running to Vcc (two) and GND (one). Crystal (A160F0X), with C1 and C2 installed. I've checked the soldering under a 'glass, and I'm happy with it. I'm very picky...

IDE: 22

Exact message:
Error while burning bootloader.
avrdude: verification error, first mismatch at byte 0x44ae
0xff != 0x00
avrdude: verification error; content mismatch

I'm sure I've done something dumb and embarrassing...

Well, the setup sounds okay.

There could be some kind of a flaky connection, or no power to the target board, for example. Try unplugging the whole thing at the USB end-- leaving the target board connected when you connect to USB. Also, have a look around at other forum posts elsewhere; the "content mismatch" error is fairly common when people are just getting started.

If you happen to have another AVR target that you can test programming on, it would be helpful to try that to see if the programmer is working correctly and that its connections are good.

Windell -

Well. Seems your hint to plug in the programmer *after* the board was connected did the trick. Tried it first with another board (with a plain socket) then with the original board. It worked! This was after I spent time checking voltages, putting a scope on to ensure the crystal was working, etc.

Thanks!

Kevin