USBtinyISP no output?!

[JRC93]

Hello,

So I just recently bought a USBtinyISP kit. I soldered it together triple checking my work at the same time. Then I installed the required drivers. The issue that I am facing is that I can not program the chip because I get the error

C:\Users\Jarielle>avrdude -c usbtiny -p m1284p

avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
this check.


avrdude done. Thank you.

I know that this error, according to ladyada's tutorial on avr programming, is a response from avrdude meaning that it can talk to the programmer but the programmer can't talk to the chip.

I triple check all my connections to the chip from the 6-pin ISP, and they are all correct. But then I wanted to see if anything is coming out of the 6-pin ISP header so i simply plugged an LED from the VCC and GND of the 6-pin ISP. Sure enough the LED was not lighting up. So there is no power coming out of the header. I opened up the case to check my soldering joints if anything was shorting and nothing.

Also when I plug in the USBtiny the green led lights up and the computer recognizes the device so no problem there.

I also tried connecting the MISO, MOSI, SCK, and reset to the chip and supplying the chip with a serperate 5v supply and still nothing. So from here I am stuck on why there is nothing coming out of the ISP header?! Any ideas on how to solve this?

Thanks in advance!

[adafruit_support_rick]

Please post clear pictures of both sides of the USBtiny board, and we'll double-check the assembly

[JRC93]

Here are the pictures

[JRC93]

oh btw dont mind the red led I had to take if off because I thought I accidentally reverse the polarity but it turns out I didnt so for now i just put a wire there

[adafruit_support_rick]

I'm not seeing any obvious problems, except that the JP3 jumper is not installed in the pictures.

When you tried the LED between +5V and GND on the ISP header, did you have the JP3 jumper installed?

JP3 connects power to the ICSP header. If your target is unpowered, then you will need JP3 installed in order to program it.

[JRC93]

oh I took off the 6-pin ISP cable from the JP3 connector when I took the picture. Before I took the picture the cable was connected and the USBtiny was connected via USB. I then measured the voltage between the 5V and GND at the end where you plug directly to the chip you are programming. When i measured i got no voltage reading.

[JRC93]

I also tried seeing if there is any power with the 10 pin ISP cable and it is the same thing. So basically there is no power coming out of JP2 and JP3. And going back to my first post, even though I tried supplying a seperate 5v supply to the target chip and just connecting the MISO, MOSI, etc. it still did not work, so I am assuming there is nothing coming out of the ISP cable as a whole. I know that the ATtiny2313 works fine otherwise I would not have been able to connect it to the computer. Could it be something to do with the buffer chip?

[JRC93]

I just remeasured JP3 and JP2, both are outputing voltage that fluctuates between 100 and 300 mv? any ideas why?

[JRC93]

So I finally got it working. It turned out that the prong sticking out sideways next to the JP3 connector had to jumped in order for power to come out of the connector. I have no idea why the prong had to be jumped, it didn't even say in the tutorial, unless I must have missed something. But finally after hours of trying to figure out the solution by testing and measuring, I finally got it working!....


C:\Users\Jarielle>avrdude -c usbtiny -p m1284p

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9705

avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK

avrdude done. Thank you.


oh and thank you driverblock for your input!

[adafruit_support_rick]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the 'prong' next to JP3. The two header pins sticking out sideways are JP3. You fit the little black jumper header onto them in order to provide power to the 6-pin and 10-pin headers.
The jumper header should be removed if the target board has its own power.

The tutorial does talk about it:

Jumper JP3 (USB power to target)
There's a jumper sticking out near the cables, JP3. When the jumper is in place (connecting the two wires) then that means that the USBtinyISP is providing 5V power to the device being programmed. If you don't want to power the device then just take the jumper out or make sure its only on one of the wires.

BTW, some of your parts look a little unusual. Where did you purchase this kit?

[JRC93]

Oh I see, I did not catch that, sorry... I bought this kit from this website, from adafruit.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Yeah - there's a lot of information in that tutorial. Easy to miss something. But your build looks good - glad you're up and running!