Need Help With AVR mkii

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ahea
 
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Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by ahea »

I recently picked up a avr mkii to start programming avr micros in c. I have had an Adafruit BoArduino for awhile so I tried using the isp headers on the board to try programming an atmega328. When I attach the mkii to the headers the mkii light blinks orange, I have looked over the solder joints to check if any are bad and they look fine. I know that the orange blinking light means that the circuit is supposed to be bad. So I wired the atmega on a breadboard to see if it was the BoArduino giving me the issue, and I still got the blinking orange light, I believe that I did hook everything up correctly I checked many times to insure that I did. What could be causing me this problem? Could the mkii be broken? I am not sure what to do from here to see if it is the mkii. I can take pictures of how I wired everything up on a breadboard if that would help.

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brucef
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by brucef »

Are you powering the board? Your AVRISP mkII has a VCC connection but that's for sensing the voltage level of the target circuit, not for powering it.

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ahea
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by ahea »

Yes, I am powering the board with a nine volt power supply that I am passing through a 5v regulator. When I connect the mkii the red light comes on as it should but when I connect the power is when the orange light comes on and blinks.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

Post a photo of your connections and we'll see what we can find.

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ahea
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by ahea »

I am using an attiny85 in the picture, I have also tried connecting the reset pin to vcc with a 10k resistor but that didnt work.

http://i1319.photobucket.com/albums/t67 ... 769038.jpg

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

You don't need external power to use a programmer. The AVR mkII will supply everything the chip needs.

You do need a pull-up resistor though. As part of the startup procedure, the AVR mkII checks the RESET line to see if it has the correct voltage, then checks to see if it can pull the RESET line LOW. If either of those tests fails, the status LED will blink orange.

Try removing the external power connections and see if that works.

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ahea
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by ahea »

I tried using the pull-up resistor but it still isnt working. Do you want to see another picture to see how I have connected the resistor?

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

As long as the resistor goes between VCC on one side of the chip and RESET on the other side of the chip, it should be connected properly.

The rest of the connections do look correct, but I'm not an expert with the AVR mkII programmer. About all I know is what I can find in the documentation and the datasheets for the chips. What I've learned from that says a blinking orange status light means the connections are hooked up incorrectly, or that the RESET pin isn't behaving the way the programmer expects it to.

You might try talking to Atmel: http://www.atmel.com/design-support/res ... fault.aspx The mkII is their product, so they'll know it better than I do.

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brucef
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by brucef »

adafruit_support_mike wrote:You don't need external power to use a programmer. The AVR mkII will supply everything the chip needs.
The USBtinyISP can be jumpered to power the target circuit, but the AVRISP MKII cannot. It's VCC connection is only there to sense target voltage level so that it can interface to circuits from 1.8V to 5.5V. You must power the target yourself, and if no powered target is detected the programmer's LED should remain red.
You do need a pull-up resistor though. As part of the startup procedure, the AVR mkII checks the RESET line to see if it has the correct voltage, then checks to see if it can pull the RESET line LOW. If either of those tests fails, the status LED will blink orange.
I happen to have a handy ATmega328 on a breadboard in a pretty basic configuration at the moment, and out of curiosity I tried removing its reset pull-up. My MKII had no problem talking to it, and the blink program I have in the 328 ran fine. Go figure. Maybe there's some weak pull-up in the chip? Still, I would stick to Atmel's spec, which is a pull-up resistor connecting reset and VCC of between 4.7k and 10k ohms.
Try removing the external power connections and see if that works.
Won't hurt, but my read of pages 24 and 25 of this PDF and my experiments with my own board tell me it won't help either.

The reason I pulled out this stuff and played with it is that I wasn't sure if you could connect the programmer first and power the target second as Ahea suggested earlier, but that seems to work just fine on my breadboard setup.

Blinking orange is supposed to mean reversed ISP connection or a problem with the reset line, so I'd be focusing on those options.

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ahea
 
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Re: Need Help With AVR mkii

Post by ahea »

I have tried doing everything, I have no idea what I could be doing wrong which leads me to think that maybe it is the mkii. I have tried out many different things at this point, I think I am just going to return it and see if the next one I get works. Not sure what else to try at this point.

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