Arduino 328 Board Repair

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brucenadams1
 
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Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by brucenadams1 »

I have two 328 boards that have failed in six months. Does anyone know of a repair facility that can fix them?

Are there trouble shooting guides or diagnostics for the board?

Thanks

Bruce

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westfw
 
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Re: Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by westfw »

Which kind of Arduino 328 board? Failed how ? Failed why (if you have any ideas) ? (there's a vast difference between "I was operating under what should have been normal circumstances and it suddenly stopped uploading new sketches" and "I guess I connected the wrong power supply. Sparks came out an a portion of the chip exploded" and "a piece of the resonator is missing" (those are all real examples, BTW.)) What tools do you have for debugging?

There are some troubleshooting ideas under some of the discussions about homebrew arduino clones.
Did you see http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload ?

There are a few common causes for an Arduino becoming "dead." There are fixes or ways to use the board anyway, of varying degrees.
  • Bad sketch prevents bootloader from working. (fixable: manual reset during pwr-on)
  • Bootloader or fuse settings of AVR corrupted. (fixable: reburn bootloader/fuses.)
  • physical damage to AVR microcontroller. (replace AVR if socketed)
  • damage or corruption of USB interface. (operate as Standalone board.)
  • damage to power supply circuitry. (use alternate power supply)

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zener
 
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Re: Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by zener »

Someday that will be a viable business: Arduino repair shop!

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zener
 
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Re: Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by zener »

Anyway, yes it can be fixed, but as was just said, it depends on what is wrong. Worst case is you replace a chip or 2.

brucenadams1
 
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Re: Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by brucenadams1 »

What happened: Suddenly stopped uploading programs.
Power form USB port
On power up: Power lite on, TX/RX flash. board mounted LED (orange) blinks.
Upload fails now.
No LCS (Large Clouds of Smoke)

How do you check clock operation?
How do you check comm operation?
Anybody have a voltage/level doc for the uno?

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zener
 
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Re: Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by zener »

I suppose it could be an issue on the PC end, driver etc. Do you have anyone to compare with or another working board?

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westfw
 
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Re: Arduino 328 Board Repair

Post by westfw »

On power up: Power lite on, TX/RX flash. board mounted LED (orange) blinks.
These are signs that a lot of stuff is working. If the AVR was toast, the onboard LEDs wouldn't flash. If the USB chip was toast, then RX/TX wouldn't flash.

Does the board-mounted LED blink slowly or quickly? Only immediately after power-up, or continuously while powered ? (Same question for TX/RX leds.)

What would normally happen after clicking the upload button is that the board would be auto-reset, causing the onboard LED to flash three times (quickly), and then go off. Then rx/tx should flash a bit as the PC and bootloader talk to each other and the sketch is uploaded. Then the sketch should run.

RX and/or TX flashing continuously indicates constant serial data transmission, which is a "known cause" of upload problems under some circumstances.

The rapid flashing on reset, followed by a short pause, repeating, indicates a bootloader loop. There was a bug that caused this (especially on the Uno-SMD) (that has since been fixed.) (although this didn't interfere with upload, IIRC. Just with actually running the sketch.)
How do you check clock operation?
Scope or frequency counter on the clock pins. In your case, the fact that the "L" LED flashes shows that there is SOME clock (one possibility is that it's using the wrong clock, at the wrong speed. that could still be true.) Can you tell whether the initial blinking is slower than on a working arduino ?
How do you check comm operation?
Connect a jumper from RESET to GND. This will leave the main AVR in reset state. Connect another jump from D0 (rx) to D1 (tx.) Then use the serial monitor or other comm program to send some data (any data); if the serial chip is working, it should be echoed back (this is called a "serial loopback test.") Try several different speeds.
Anybody have a voltage/level doc for the uno?
well, 5V (approximately) on the 5V pin... Again, the fact that you get blinky lights is a reasonably sign that this is OK.

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